Category: First Amendment rights

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crime and punishment First Amendment rights judiciary

States Without Standing

Friends of freedom of speech had been looking forward to a certain U.S. Supreme Court decision, Murthy v. Missouri.

The Biden administration has for years worked to suppress social-​media speech that disputes official government doctrines about biology, pandemic policy, elections, and other controversial matters. In short, the kind of speech the First Amendment was designed to protect.

Several suits have been launched against the federal government’s censorship. This one had been brought by Louisiana, Missouri, and other states, abundantly proving that administration officials actively pressed social-​media companies to suppress speech.

By a 6 – 3 vote, the court tossed lower-​court rulings that favor the states’ position. According to the decision’s coiled reasoning, the states lack legal right to sue. They lack standing.

Dissenting: Justices Alito, Gorsuch, Thomas.

The majority made a big point of ruling only on this question of “standing” — which none of us speakers of speech have, apparently — and not on the main question. We can hope, I guess, that some other case will someday be brought by plaintiffs whose rights the majority will concede have been infringed by the government’s infringing actions, which by their nature assault the right of freedom of speech of all Americans.

Meanwhile, in the words of Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill, the court’s decision “gives a free pass” to the government’s efforts to “threaten tech platforms into censorship and suppression of speech that is indisputably protected by the First Amendment.”

This isn’t a minor procedural setback.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment First Amendment rights

Assange: Freedom & Statuary

Julian Assange, freedom of the press, free speech, Wikileaks

Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, has been set free, time served. 

On Monday, presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., called him a “generational hero,” celebrating his release from a decade and a half in confinement, under threat of U.S. prosecution for publishing “hacked documents.” 

Loathed by the American establishment, left and right, Mr. Assange had ruffled feathers of the war machine and then the Democratic Party — the latter for publishing the contents of Hillary Clinton’s infamous email stash. The attempt to get him to America from overseas was a complex (and failed) ordeal that pushed him first into confinement in an Ecuadorian embassy and then placed in a maximum-​security London prison.

Assange, who admitted guilt in a plea deal deal, did not agree to set foot on the American continent, so the court hearing took place in a U.S. District Court in Saipan on Tuesday.

“The bad news,” RFK, Jr., went on, “is that he had to plea guilty to conspiracy to obtain and disclose national defense info. Which means the US security state succeeded in criminalizing journalism and extending their jurisdiction globally to non-citizens.”

Empire’s gonna imperialize.

While Mike Pence, the 48th Vice President, fully objected to the plea deal, Representative Thomas Massie (R.-Ky) echoed Kennedy’s sentiments: “My plane landed in DC & I just heard Julian Assange will soon be free due to a deal. His liberation is great news, but it’s a travesty that he’s already spent so much time in jail. Obama, Trump, & Biden should have never pursued this prosecution. Pardon Snowden & Free Ross now.” 

Massie mentions two more persecuted individuals, leaker of unconstitutional NSA secrets, Edward Snowden (hiding from the American empire in Russia) and darknet (“Silk Road”) publisher Ross Ulbricht (a prisoner now in Tucson’s federal penitentiary, sentenced to two life terms).

In a follow-​up tweet, Kennedy offered “Next steps,” including erecting “a monument to Assange in Washington as a civics lesson for the American public about the importance of free speech,” pardoning Ed Snowden, and releasing Ross Ulbricht … “to show our commitment to transactional freedom.”

That latter commutation has been promised by former president and current Republican candidate Donald Trump. But “transactional freedom” is not exactly the byword of our age.

And statuary is hardly in vogue.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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First Amendment rights ideological culture individual achievement

Can’t Cancel J. K. Rowling

J.K. Rowling, trans, transphobia, controversy

The UK Telegraph says that “Scores of actresses turn down roles in play critical of J. K. Rowling’s gender views.”

Since we’re a family-​oriented publication, I can’t divulge the name of the play, which “has already caused outrage over its explicit working title.” The title calls Rowling a word that rhymes with “bunt.”

Rowling “has become a figure of hate online among some activists, and received death threats after publicly sharing concerns about the encroachment of transgender campaigning on women’s rights.”

The play’s purpose is apparently to smear Ms. Rowling, whose beloved Harry Potter novels have so far sold zillions. One hopes that an aversion to cooperating with the smear is the main reason why scores of actresses, many of whom probably have trouble getting steady work in a very competitive industry, won’t go anywhere near the play.

Unfortunately, by June 13, the date of the Telegraph story, actors had been found for the male leads.

One of the producers, Barry Church-​Woods, admits that the play has “met some kind of resistance every step of the way.” He’s been “surprised by how difficult it has been for us to recruit the female cast in particular,” even though this is a “well-​paid gig … and the script is terrific.”

What if the producers do find enough conscienceless thespians to play all the parts, the play gets produced, and it enjoys a duly brief run and sparse attendance?

J. K. Rowling will still survive. Somehow.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Doxxing Dissent

free speech, First Amendment, anonymous, anonymity, freedom

California lawmaker Steve Padilla is apparently indifferent to the speech-​enabling virtues of anonymity. The state senator (18th District) has no problem violating the First Amendment rights of persons who conceal their identity the better to speak out.

Padilla is proposing legislation, SB1228, to compel social media companies to compel social media “influencers” who’d rather remain anonymous to identify themselves. A company that fails to comply would risk being penalized.

And I hear it often: why anonymity? Folks should own up to their speech!

But many people have good reasons for remaining anonymous when they publish their views. One is to protect themselves from harassment by private parties. Another is to protect themselves from harassment, or worse, by governments.

Tiffany Donnelly of the Institute for Free Speech observes that the United States has a long history of anonymous political speech.

Investigative journalism “often relies on anonymous sources. Americans use social media to express political opinions that might cause them to lose their jobs. Political dissidents who fled to the U.S. to escape tyrannical governments use social media to speak out against those repressive regimes.”

Once social media companies collect the ID data, then what?

Perhaps the information is supposed to just sit in the companies’ computers. But once it becomes known that certain anonymous but controversial writers are being forced to supply personal information, this information becomes a target — for hackers, state governments hiring hackers, disgruntled moderators who may decide to “out” the commentators they dislike.

The bill won’t stop “misinformation,” but it will discourage discourse. 

Specifically, dissent.

It’s this bill that should be stopped.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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education and schooling First Amendment rights general freedom

Letting DEI Die

MIT, DEI, college, racism, collectivism, sexism

The good news? 

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology will no longer require applicants to make DEI statements.

MIT President Sally Kornbluth says the school can “build an inclusive environment in many ways, but compelled statements impinge on freedom of expression, and they don’t work.”

Correct on both counts, but a bit blah as indictments go. And inadequate. Forget “inclusive.” This is merely a pledge to refrain from being arbitrarily exclusionary.

But the new policy is better than the status quo.

DEI (“diversity, equity, and inclusion”) may sound innocuous, at worst pointless. But DEI guidelines have functioned as a particularly odious form of ideological litmus test. The goal has been to force instructors to toe certain leftist (or collectivist) ideological lines as if the ideas imposed were as self-​evidently true as declarations that the cloudless sky is cerrulian blue.

For example, if you dare disagree that race-​conscious “antiracist” policies making skin color — and maybe also “gender” — more important than quality of work or some reliable leading indicators of productivity, your views may put you on the wrong side of the DEI divide.

So MIT’s dropping of mandatory DEI-​fealty statements is a big step in the right direction. By as prestigious an institution of higher learning as any in the world.

The bad news? 

MIT has apparently not fired the “diversity deans” that it hired in 2021 — and hired not on the basis of excellence of qualifications: serious plagiarism complaints have been filed against two of these personnel!

If MIT retains six “diversity deans” in place, able to run around causing trouble for those faculty who reject DEI edicts, it hasn’t purged itself of the poison quite yet.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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crime and punishment First Amendment rights national politics & policies

Bills of Suppression

censorship, misinformation, disinformation, surveillance

In 2021, Democrats took aim at persons who donate to Democrats’ opponents with legislation called the For the People Act, which Republicans successfully blocked.

Back then, Bradley Smith, chairman of Institute for Free Speech, observed that the legislation aimed to violate the rights of groups “who do nothing more than speak about policy issues before Congress.” It would also have limited political speech on the web.

Now the bill is being resurrected as two separate pieces of legislation, each with language purporting to counter the purported threat of artificial intelligence. They are the Protect Elections from Deceptive AI Act and the AI Transparency in Elections Act.

Some Republicans seem to be buying into the resuscitated anti-​speech agenda, even though the legislation incorporates many proposals — even much of the same language — from the earlier bill. Again, says Smith, the goal is to expose conservative donors to “to harassment and boycotts.” Also to outlaw content called “materially deceptive content” as judged by a “reasonable person.” 

Of course, “reasonable persons” can and do disagree about the meaning of various speech and whether it’s “deceptive.” It’s reasonable to assume that the legislation, if enacted, will be used against speech that enforcers happen to disagree with.

As for actually deceptive speech: all manner of jabberwocky is protected by the First Amendment unless uttered to rob or defraud someone. If I tell you the moon is green cheese and you believe it, that may be sad. But I haven’t picked your pocket … or made you eat lunar cheese.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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