Tag: censorship

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First Amendment rights international affairs

Pigs Not Flying Over England

UK, censorship, free speech, 4CHAN

It can’t govern itself. But the UK, eager to govern the United States, is trying to impose fines on the loose-​talk website 4Chan for ignoring British censorship demands.

Preston Byrne, a lawyer representing 4Chan, has responded to UK regulator Ofcom’s attempt to impose the fines — more than $26,000 to start — with instructions to get lost.

Ofcom Enforcement Czar Suzanne Cater says that this fine “sends a clear message that any service which flagrantly fails to engage with Ofcom and their duties under the Online Safety Act can expect to face robust enforcement action.”

How robust, though? 

Byrne: “4chan’s constitutional rights remain completely unaffected by this foreign e‑mail. 4chan will obey UK censorship laws when pigs fly. In the meantime, there’s litigation pending in DC. Ofcom hasn’t yet answered.…

“That fine will never be enforced in the USA. The UK is welcome to try to enforce it in an American court if they disagree.”

The Trump administration has stressed its opposition to the UK’s global-​censorship agenda. So what is going on here? 

It appears that when some people over-​zealously seek to dominate others, the weaker they are the more desperate — and in their desperation they become more belligerent. Since the United Kingdom is in no position to launch an invasion of the United States in order to force us … well, they might just shut up already. 

Britain’s leadership is in disarray. The country is very weak — a least, unless it teams up with a more powerful country, like China. Which is what the UK indeed seems to be doing. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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First Amendment rights international affairs privacy

Private Chat, Back Now in Europe?

European Union, EU, Germany, surveillance, censorship, civil liberties

We seem to have Germany — not a typo: Germany — to thank for the fact that one of the most intrusive EU gambits attacking freedom of speech is about to fail.

The proposal would let governments monitor all private chat messages, via mandatory back doors, without bothering with such trivialities as warrants, probable cause, evidence.

The European Union centralizes many assaults on liberty that member countries are supposed to supinely accept once enacted. But it can’t ignore individual members as proposals are still en route to becoming law. And the German government, often not exactly a beacon when it comes to free speech, has now made its opposition to this particular mode of surveillance and censorship loud and clear.

As Germany blocked the plan, first announced in 2022, German Justice Minister Stefanie Hubig said that “unprovoked chat control must be taboo in a constitutional state.… Germany will not agree to such proposals at EU level.”

Parliamentary leader Jens Spahn of the Christian Democratic Union also uttered some common sense, explaining that warrantless monitoring of chats “would be like opening all letters as a precautionary measure to see if there is anything illegal in them. That is not acceptable, and we will not allow it.”

Although the proposal is not yet quite dead, the German opposition makes it extremely unlikely that EU bosses can go further with it.

Great spirit, German officials. Cheers to now applying this principle consistently — as is required of principles.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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First Amendment rights government transparency ideological culture social media

Google Confesses All

Google, Youtube, censorship, free speech, Covid, 2020 election, fraud

Google is no longer silent about whether the Biden administration pushed Google to censor customers for their viewpoints. 

Under Biden, Google censored YouTube content creators under federal pressure, specifically about COVID-​19. But Google did muzzle discourse on other matters, such as disputes about the legitimacy of the 2020 election, as a result of its own policies that it now says are “sunsetted” along with policies resulting from its submission to a rogue administration.

Its own role is important because we know that a tech giant can effectively resist federal pressure to censor on the basis of the principles of the company’s leaders.

The proof is how Twitter changed course while Biden or his autopen was still the president. Twitter revamped its policies after Elon Musk ascended to the helm, starting to welcome back those who had been censored under the previous owners.

Yes, Elon Musk found himself under assault from every direction from a variety of federal agencies; which, it seemed, were acting as if in concert with and at the behest of a foiled Biden administration. Musk’s opposition to censorship and documentation of administration pressure to censor was not risk-free.

Now Google is following suit. When restoring freedom of speech is lots less risky.

Let’s hope Google’s words now decrying censorship, and its still-​in-​progress efforts to make things right — inviting the return of former YouTubers whose channels it had censored, for example — will render the company less eager to cooperate when the next pro-​censorship administration takes power.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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First Amendment rights national politics & policies too much government

Free Jimmy

Donald Trump, Jimmy Kimmel, free speech, censorship, comedy and tragedy

Last Friday (and Saturday), we supported the right of ABC’s corporate leaders to ignore bullying comments by Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr and produce the late-​night show, “Jimmy Kimmel Love!” to their heart’s content. 

I’m happy to hear that ABC will bring Kimmel back tonight.

Not glad because I like him or will watch his show. I don’t. I won’t. I’d cancel him were it up to me. But freedom’s tops, so I get especially jazzed when people stand up to demand it. 

And concerned when those in power attempt to take it away.

The very potent public backlash against the idea that ABC was muscled by the Trump administration into suspending Kimmel’s show is why it has returned. That’s a healthy sign of our political culture. Plus, take note that this pushback against the FCC chairman and President Trump hasn’t come just from the Left but also, as The Wrap reports, from many prominent conservatives including “Tucker Carlson, Ben Shapiro and Ted Cruz.”

What Kimmel alleged — that the murderer of Charlie Kirk was somehow MAGA — was not only “without evidence” but clearly contradicted by the evidence. As well as being asinine on its face. And more than a bit callous.

Still, freedom of speech means the freedom to say what you think, no matter how boneheaded, whether those in power like it or not. 

Sinclair Broadcast Group, owner of the largest chain of ABC affiliates, has already announced that its stations will not be airing Kimmel’s program. As is their right.

Stick with freedom of speech, Mr. President. For all.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob. 

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First Amendment rights social media

Apology Request Denied

U.K. UK, free speech, censorship, surveillance

The UK police picked the wrong elderly cancer patient to badger for exercising her right to freedom of speech.

Whatever Deborah Anderson said on social media, it wasn’t harsh enough to justify clapping on the irons and hauling her away. Just a knock on the door and a polite request to Do the Right Thing. But polite in the way a mailed fist in a marshmallow glove is polite.

Anderson: “I’m a member of the Free Speech Union and I’m an American citizen.… I’ll have Elon Musk on you so quick your feet won’t touch.… You’re here because somebody got upset? Is it against the law? Am I being arrested?”

Officer: “You’re not being arrested.”

Anderson: “Then what are you doing here?”

“My plan was, if you were admitting that it was you who wrote the comment, you could just make an apology to the person.”

“I’m not apologizing to anybody. I can tell you that.”

“The alternative would be that I have to call you in for an interview.…”

Somebody complained to the police, and somehow that’s enough all by itself, regardless of the nature of the complaint, for the police of the United Kingdom to leap into nonsensical action.

Anderson then asked whether there are “no houses that have been burgled recently? No rapes, no murders?” Good question, but ineffectual. Not his task at the moment, the officer said.

At least we can be proud of one of these two interlocutors.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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First Amendment rights

A Finn Reviled, and Worse

Päivi Räsänen cited the Bible’s characterization of homosexuality, about men inflamed by “shameful lusts” (Romans 1:24 – 27). That’s why Finland is prosecuting her.

The effort continues even though the former minister of interior has been acquitted, twice, by lower courts.

Originally, Räsänen’s prosecutors cited three proofs of heresy. A post that she published in 2019, comments made during a radio interview, and her 2004 pamphlet “Male and Female He Created Them: Homosexual relationships challenge the Christian concept of humanity.” The radio “evidence” has been dropped from the case.

You may wonder why Finland’s prosecutors are dredging up religious expression from 2004 in order to pursue its bogus prosecution for a 2019 speech-“crime.” The pamphlet’s publisher, also being prosecuted, probably also wonders. I’m not sure, but my theory is that the prosecutors are jackasses. (The preceding sentence isn’t hate speech, just reasonable-​postulate speech.)

The U.S. Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, part of the State Department, has taken up her cause, saying that “no one should face trial for peacefully sharing their beliefs” and that the case against Räsänen “for simply posting a Bible verse is baseless.” Then the Bureau also quotes the Bible, Matthew 5:11: “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.”

Räsänen has expressed her gratitude and the hope that “justice will prevail not only for me, but for the wider principle of free speech in Finland.”

Americans should be looking in alarm at governmental attacks on freedom across the globe. As well as here at home.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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election law

Over-​Regulated or Regulations Over?

Critiques of campaign finance regulations (CFR) often focus on particularly egregious applications or expansions of the regulations.

That’s fine. When somebody who is hammering us on the head starts hammering even harder, it’s okay to object. 

We should make clear, though, that we object to being head-​bashed at all, not just the latest intensification.

In an amicus brief submitted to the Supreme Court National Republican Senatorial Committee v. FEC, the Institute for Free Speech and the Manhattan Institute are tackling CFR-​rationalized repression of speech (CFRRS) as such.

“By conflating election campaign speech with the mechanics of running elections,” IFS says, “the Supreme Court has allowed the government to trample the First Amendment through campaign finance laws.”

This has been going on at least since the Supreme Court’s 1976 ruling in Buckley v. Valeo.

The current case, NRSC v. FEC, pertains to federal limits on coordinated spending by political parties, which is allowed in many states. IFS punches holes in the excuses for this instance of CFRRS but also stresses the bottom line.

“The brief argues that the federal government lacks the power to regulate this type of speech in the first place.… The Constitution grants Congress the power to regulate the times, places, and manner of electing federal officials. But … speech about candidates is not the same thing as the election itself, and the Elections Clause does not give Congress authority to regulate core political speech.”

Obviously. May at least five out of nine justices grasp this also.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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First Amendment rights international affairs social media

Germany Versus X

The question is freedom of speech. Many German officials are opposed. Twitter‑X, or X, is in favor.

As Reclaim the Net summarizes the case, “German prosecutors are testing whether the reach of their censorship laws can outstrip the guardrails of international treaties.”

These prosecutors have been going after three X managers for alleged “obstruction of justice.” This obstruction consisted of refusing to immediately give prosecutors data on users who utter government-​disapproved speech.

The X managers have been adhering to the provisions of a bilateral treaty, the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty, under which the German requests are to be reviewed in U.S. legal channels before X can be forced to comply. Which increases the chances that X will not be forced to comply.

The prosecutors regard the managers’ refusals as a form of criminal interference. The legal and constitutional issues are now being battled over in German courts.

This is the German government which has been in the news for raiding the homes of people who post sentiments online of which the government disapproves.

That X is not meekly obeying orders to violate the trust of account holders and turn over their private information has upset German advocates of censorship. One MP, Anna Lührmann of the Green Party, says that X’s resistance to censorship is a “scandal” that “goes against fair competition and puts our democracy at risk.”

I don’t think, though, that democracies fail to be robust as they become more like dictatorships. Germany has it all inverted.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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First Amendment rights international affairs Internet controversy privacy

Apple to Keep Encryption

UK, British, surveillance, censorship, iphone, Apple

Thanks, United Kingdom.

Following pressure on UK officials by the Trump administration and some congressmen, British censors have caved — the U.S. Director of National Intelligence confirmed that the UK was abandoning its demand that Apple burn a hole in its iPhone encryption.

So Apple may continue providing its flagship smartphone with robust encryption. Cyberhackers and autocratic regimes (including snoopy British officials) — who’d love a crashable gate into everyone’s private iPhone information — must now endure their extreme disappointment.

Director Tulsi Gabbard reported on X that the UK will “drop its mandate for Apple to provide a ‘back door’ that would have enabled access to the protected encrypted data of American citizens and encroached on our civil liberties.”

Such a back door would have rendered the encryption close to pointless, presenting a vulnerable target to all bad guys in addition to all “good” guys in the UK holding backdoor keys.

Under an agreement in effect since 2019, U.S. companies are obliged to comply with requests from UK officials for data relevant to criminal investigations.

The agreement prohibits surveillance of Americans. But this year British officials secretly demanded that Apple install a back door to enable the UK government to extract data from any iPhone. Yes, that’s any iPhone anywhere in the world. 

The British Government also planned to initiate these back-​door intrusions without even needing to show relevance to a UK criminal investigation, let alone provide a warrant.

How long will the reprieve last? Maybe only until we get another U.S. administration as eager to censor everything as the last one was.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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First Amendment rights free trade & free markets national politics & policies regulation

Banks Not the Only Debankers

debanking, debank, banks, censorship, surveillance

A recent executive order that President Trump issued to stop regulators from abetting and even compelling the “debanking” of bank customers for their political views is clear and on-target. 

On-​target as far as debanking by banks goes.

But Reclaim the Net notes a glaring omission. The order’s identifies financial institutions willing to blacklist customers for possessing the “wrong” political opinions or missions. (“Wrong” here means not too pro-​criminal or pro-​terrorist but too constitutionalist, too much in favor of individual rights of the First or Second Amendment variety.)

The problem is that the order says nothing about major payment processors like Visa and PayPal.

Now, perhaps a penumbra of the new regulatory marching orders would influence the policies of the credit-​card companies, whose cards are after all typically issued in cooperation with banks. But this is highly uncertain.

And Reclaim the Net thinks that Visa and Mastercard, “the twin tollbooth operators of the global payments highway,” are, like PayPal and Stripe, untouched by Trump’s order. Yet all of these payment processors have in recent years been blacklisting individuals and organizations that the processors happen to disagree with.

The practice goes back at least to the Obama administration, which instructed regulators that it could regard something called “negative public opinion” as a legitimate risk factor. 

This doctrine “quickly turned into a permission slip for politically driven account closures.” 

The government shouldn’t be issuing such “permission slips” — or implicit instructions — to banks, payment processors, or anybody.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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