This is in response to the article about the Commissioners attempting to tell the Library how to do their job that appeared in the June 9 edition of the paper.

We want you to know that we stand with Mr. Mirabito. The Commissioners have no business telling the library what books they should or should not display. The library is a place where all should feel welcome, see themselves reflected in the pages of books, and know that their voice matters. Those books belong in the Childrens Department. They are, after all, childrens books, and they teach lessons in tolerance that it would behoove all of us, including adults, to emulate. If we believed, as our Declaration of Independence states, that all (people) are created equal, marginal groups would not be separated. And we would all be accepted for who we are.

NANCY E McCARTY

ALISSA DuBOIS

Williamsport

Submitted via Virtual Newsroom

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Defending the First Amendment | News, Sports, Jobs - Williamsport Sun-Gazette

How much academic freedom do K-12 teachers actually have to teach what they want? How far does the First Amendment go in shielding them? And where would they stand in the face of new state laws taking aim at the use of critical race theory or the teaching of antiracist lessons?

Measures introduced in at least 20 state legislatures to rein in teaching about race and other controversial and divisive topics have thrust teachers into uncertainty over what they can discuss in the classroom and whether they would face discipline or other legal consequences if they overstep.

This would make me hesitate now on some lessons about race, said August Plock, a social studies teacher at Pflugerville High School, near Austin, Texas. It potentially puts a chill over teachers.

Texas is one of five states where legislators have passed proposals so far this year limiting how teachers may address race issues in the classroom, with laws already signed by governors in Idaho, Iowa, Oklahoma, and Tennessee.

These measures pose a host of legal questions. For example, John Rumel, a law professor at the University of Idaho, said the measure passed in his state raises First Amendment free speech issues.

If Im a K-12 teacher, Im not sure what I can do, said Rumel, a former general counsel to the Idaho Education Association. Can I mention there is a rubric known as critical race theory that exists? Im not espousing it. This measure would give me pause as a teacher and might chill my speech.

While its too early for any of the new laws to have been challenged, the wave of legislation has teachers wondering how much leeway they have to veer from approved curricula or to address issues proscribed by state laws.

The blunt answer: While K-12 teachers retain some protections for their comments on issues of public concern, they dont have much in the way of academic freedom to veer from the curriculum or infuse their own experiences and views into the classroom.

I am reluctant to come to this conclusion, but in the K-12 sector, teachers do not really have any academic freedom, said Richard Fossey, a recently retired professor who taught education law at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and has co-written several journal articles on the topic.

Suzanne Eckes, an education professor at Indiana University-Bloomington who has also written about the issue, said that under a series of decisions from the U.S. Supreme Court and the federal courts of appeals, K-12 teachers do not have the type of academic freedom that courts have recognized for college professors.

You dont have a lot of leeway, Eckes said she tells teachers. If a teacher called me and said, I want to teach the 1619 Project or about the Tulsa race massacre but my supervisor has advised me not to, I would sympathize with them, but would add that they could get in trouble for teaching those concepts.

The laws passed or proposed so far generally prohibit schools from teaching that one race or sex is inherently superior, that any individual is consciously or unconsciously racist or sexist because of their race or sex, and that anyone should feel discomfort or guilt because of their race or sex.

Some adopted or pending measures specifically mention critical race theory, a decades-old academic framework that examines how racism has shaped the U.S. legal system and has become the crux of controversies across the country.

Richard Fossey, retired law professor, University of Louisiana at Lafayette

At least two proposals specifically singled out as a prohibited topic for the schools the 1619 Project, a long-term reporting effort by The New York Times that has been turned into a curriculum centered around the year that enslaved Africans were first brought to colonial America.

But it remains unclear to what degree the various pieces of legislation address specifics of whats actually being taught in the nations schools.

Very few school districts will say out loud, Were adopting critical race theory, said Daniel R. Suhr, a lawyer with the Chicago-based Liberty Justice Center, which has sued a Nevada charter school and a Virginia school district over some of their anti-racism curricula or policies. They might say, Were embracing equity.

Critics often cite critical race theory as the basis for many diversity and inclusion efforts, regardless of how much the framework has actually informed those programs.

Many teachers, of course, freely express their opinions in their classrooms and make instructional decisions that veer from the approved curriculum.

I was a high school teacher, and I was always giving my political opinion and nothing ever happened to me, said Eckes, the Indiana University education professor. But that was due more to the grace of school administrators than any legal protections.

The U.S. Supreme Court has recognized academic freedom for professors and institutions at the higher education level, with a 1967 decision calling the college classroom the marketplace of ideas.

When it comes to K-12 teachers, the high court has made some lofty pronouncements, such as its language in the landmark Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District decision on student speech, which declared that neither students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.

Education law scholars also can point to a handful of cases in which K-12 teachers did win court rulings in support of their classroom expression. In the 1960s and 1970s, teachers won cases after being fired for uses of the F-word, for using a controversial role-playing method to teach about Reconstruction, and for distributing surveys to students about sex, drugs, and euthanasia.

But in 2006, the Supreme Court ruled in Garcetti v. Ceballos that public employees generally do not have First Amendment protection for their on-the-job speech.

In a friend-of-the-court brief submitted in the Garcetti case, the National Education Association had argued that to teach is to communicateoften on matters of the greatest public importance and controversy. A decision that failed to recognize First Amendment protection for job-related speech would have a devastating impact on teachers, the union said in its brief.

Garcetti involved an employee of a prosecutors office. In his majority opinion, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy said the court was not deciding whether its analysis would apply in the same manner to a case involving speech related to scholarship or teaching. The line was perhaps a response to a dissent by Justice David H. Souter, who expressed concerns about the effect of the majoritys principle on academic freedom in public colleges and universities.

Since Garcetti, numerous courts have ruled that the potential exception for scholarship and teaching did not apply to K-12 educators.

In a 2007 case, a federal appeals court upheld the non-renewal of an Indiana middle school teacher who had expressed her opposition to the U.S. war in Iraq to her students, which had led to parent complaints.

Another federal appeals court, in a 2016 decision, upheld the discipline of a Chicago 6th grade teacher whose principal overheard him teaching his students not to use the N-word. The teacher was suspended for five days for using verbally abusive language in front of students, even though the teacher was trying to explain why the word was offensive.

In a 2010 decision, a federal appeals court upheld the non-renewal of an Ohio high school teacher who had centered a lesson around banned books that included some selections parents considered inappropriate. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit, in Cincinnati, analyzed the competing interests at stake in that case, Evans-Marshall v. Tipp City Exempted Village School District.

On the one side, doesnt a teacher have the First Amendment right to choose her own reading assignments, decide how they should be taught and above all be able to teach a unit on censorship without being censored or otherwise retaliated against? the court said. On the other side, doesnt a school board have the final say over what is taught, and how, in the public schools for which it is responsible? Who wins depends on which line of legal authority controls.

The appeals court sided with the school district, holding that Garcetti applied because the teacher was acting pursuant to her job duties and the First Amendment does not extend to the in-class curricular speech of teachers in primary and secondary schools.

Stuart Stuller, Colorado attorney representing school boards

The 6th Circuit court recently appeared to reaffirm the distinction on academic freedom between college professors and K-12 teachers. A 6th Circuit panel ruled in March that an Ohio college professor who refused to use the preferred pronouns of a transgender student because of the professors religious beliefs was protected by academic freedom.

The college had punished a professor for his speech on a hotly contested issue, in violation of the First Amendment, the court held. The court said in a footnote that its 2010 ruling in Evans-Marshall was limited to schoolteachers.

Fossey, the University of Louisiana professor, said the Supreme Courts Garcetti decision has been really hostile to the view that K-12 teachers have any control over the curriculum or even their teaching style.

Stuart Stuller, a veteran Colorado attorney representing school boards, said the rationale for districts supervision of teachers on-the-job speech is that when the teacher is standing in front of the classroom, that teacher is a representative of the state.

The First Amendment doesnt necessarily give subordinate employees the right to do something the supervisor has told him not to do, said Stuller, who is nonetheless sympathetic to academic freedom concerns of teachers and once wrote a law journal article on the subject.

Teachers and other public school personnel still have First Amendment protections for speaking out on matters of public concern outside of their job duties, even when those matters involve the operations of their employer.

That was underscored by another controversy this month in the 82,000-student Loudoun County, Va., district outside Washington, D.C. A state judge ordered the reinstatement of an elementary school teacher who was suspended after speaking up at a school board meeting against a proposed gender-equity policy that would include requiring teachers to address transgender students by names and pronouns used by those students. The district received several complaints about the teachers public comments and placed him on administrative leave because of the disruptive impact his remarks had on his school, court papers say.

The state judge on June 8 issued a temporary injunction in favor of the teacher after analyzing the case under Pickering v. Board of Education of Township High School District 205, a 1968 Supreme Court decision that a teachers speech on a matter of public concern is protected under the First Amendment if it outweighs the employers interests in workplace efficiency and lack of disruption.

Alice OBrien, the general counsel of NEA, said the new state laws limiting what teachers and schools may say about racism and other matters are certain to be challenged in court, though likely not on the grounds of teacher academic freedom.

These are situations where the state legislature is prohibiting the instruction of certain concepts in the schools, she said. These laws are aimed at instruction across a state, and that is a different context than that of an individual teacher right.

Such challenges will likely be based on the 14th Amendments equal-protection clause because the measures were enacted with racial animus, OBrien said. And they could be subject to challenge based on the First Amendment right of students to receive information, she said.

OBrien pointed to rulings that resulted in the invalidation of an Arizona law that barred public schools from instituting an ethnic studies curriculum, such as by holding classes or programs that promoted resentment toward a race or class of people, that were designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group, or that advocated ethnic solidarity instead of treating students as individuals.

The law was pushed for by a Republican state superintendent of public education and was targeted at a Mexican American Studies program in the Tucson school district and challenged in court.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, in San Francisco, in 2015 held that the law was not unconstitutional on its face, but allowed the challenge to proceed based on evidence of discriminatory purpose in the enactment and enforcement of the law. A federal district judge in 2017 struck down the Arizona law on equal protection and First Amendment grounds.

These statutes want schools to impart a particular view of America, said OBrien. They are intended, at the very least, to chill speech. And they seem to be having that impact.

Originally posted here:

If Critical Race Theory Is Banned, Are Teachers Protected by the First Amendment? - Education Week

It may be dubbed the "Promoting Rights and Online Speech Protections to Ensure Every Consumer is Heard" (PRO-SPEECH) Act, but a new bill from Mississippi Republican Sen. Roger Wicker is anything but First Amendment-friendly. Wicker's measure would ban huge swaths of online content moderation, forcing private internet forums to host speech that may currently violate their terms of service and be considered hateful, harassing, vulgar, or otherwise undesired.

The bill would also take aim at freedom of association and free markets, disallowing some tech servicessuch as app stores and cloud computing companiesfrom choosing what products they offer or what businesses they'll contract with.

Introduced Thursday, the so-called PRO-SPEECH Act strikes at the heart of First Amendment protections, compelling companies under threat of sanction from the government to platform messages they otherwise wouldn't.

Essentially, Wicker's bill is "net neutrality" legislationsomething that was vehemently opposed by Republicans of yorebut for online content platforms, search engines, and marketplaces rather than internet service providers. The bill would make it illegal for digital entities to block or impede access to "any lawful content, application, service, or device" that doesn't interfere with platform functionality or "pose a data privacy or data security risk to the user."

The bill would also explicitly ban taking action against a user based on "political affiliation." Tech companies could no longer choose to ban, for instance, Nazi content or decline to host web forums devoted to white supremacist political groups. Web forums couldn't choose to be exclusively for conservative users, or progressive users, or so on.

"Approximately zero people actually want" the Internet this bill would create, Daphne Keller of the Stanford Cyber Policy Center commented on Twitter.

Notably, the bill would exempt from some provisions any company that "publicly proclaims to be a publisher."

It has been a common conservative delusion that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act already turns on some sort of vital legal distinction between "publishers" on one hand and "platforms" on the other, with platforms having a responsibility to remain neutral conduits for content and only publishers allowed to set any rules for what types of content they will carry. This is not actually the way that Section 230 works.

But "Senator Wicker is trying to make the ridiculous and nonsensical 'publisher/platform' distinction an actual thing, despite the fact that this is blatantly unconstitutional," writes Mike Masnick at Techdirt. "The end result is that this bill leans into the moderator's dilemma and creates two types of internet sites: complete garbage dumpswhere no moderation can take place, and Hollywood-backed squeaky clean productions. It wipes out the parts of the internet that most people actually like: the lightly moderated/curated user-generated aspects of social media that enable lots of people to have a voice and to connect with others, without being driven away by spammers, assholes, and abusers."

In addition, the bill also redefines anti-competitive behaviorthe backbone of antitrust law violationsto include any large company blocking, prohibiting, or discriminating against any platform that competes with any part of its own business. No matter how many of a company's rules the quasi-competitor violated, it would have to be allowed.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) would have broad discretion to enforce the law, making it ripe for politics-based abuse. Small internet businesses would be exemptexcept for when the FTC decides they are not.

Violations would be considered unfair and deceptive practices under the Federal Trade Commission Act. Anyone could register a complaint with the FTC alleging a violation, creating a massive new undertaking for the commission as internet moderation police and a massive new layer of bureaucracy for tech companies, which would be required to respond to every complaint.

In essence, the law would quite literally make a federal case out of every aggrieved YouTuber who gets demonetized, business that thinks its search results aren't high enough, troll who feels he deserves a right to say whatever he wants online, etc. If tech companies don't issue a reparation to the complainant, the FTC would be forced to open an investigation within five months.

Link:

The PRO-SPEECH Act Is Anything but First Amendment-Friendly - Reason

First Amendment

By Debra Cassens Weiss

June 9, 2021, 1:20 pm CDT

For the last 18 years, Florida resident Donald Burns has been living in his 10,000-square-foot mansionwhich he describes as a traditional homeon the Atlantic Ocean in Palm Beach, Florida. Photo from the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at Atlantas June 8 decision.

A federal appeals court has rejected constitutional claims by a Florida resident who sued when a town rejected his plans for a new beachfront mansion that would be dissimilar to nearby homes.

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at Atlanta ruled against Donald Burns of Palm Beach, Florida, in a 2-1 decision Tuesday.

The court said the town did not violate Burns free speech rights under the First Amendment and did not violate his rights to due process and equal protection under the 14th Amendment.

Past news coverage from the Palm Beach Post described Burns as a telecommunications mogul. He sold his existing mansion for $28 million last year while the appeal was pending, according to the Real Deal.

Burns had sought to tear down his traditional beachfront mansion and to replace it with a mansion nearly twice the size in midcentury modern style. Burns said the new mansion would reflect his evolved philosophy of simplicity in lifestyle and living with an emphasis on fewer possessions.

The town of Palm Beachs architectural review commission had rejected Burns plans under a mandate to achieve comprehensive cohesiveness in development. Applying its criteria, the commission said the proposed mansion was not in harmony with proposed developments in the general area and was too dissimilar to nearby homes.

Judge Robert Luck, an appointee of former President Donald Trump, wrote the majority opinion, joined by Judge Edward Carnes, an appointee of former President George H.W. Bush. Judge Stanley Marcus, an appointee of former President Bill Clinton, dissented.

In my view, Marcus wrote in dissent, the First Amendmentthe most powerful commitment to think, speak and express in the history of the worlddoes not permit the government to impose its majoritarian aesthetic whims on Burns without a substantial reason.

The majority concluded that there was no First Amendment violation because there was no great likelihood that some sort of message would be understood by those who viewed Burns new beachfront mansion.

The majority also found no violation of Burns 14th Amendment rights because the commissions criteria were not unconstitutionally vague and were not applied differently to Burns.

The majority criticized Marcus dissent for discussing architectural styles and articles that werent part of the case record.

The majority said it was concluding that Burns new mansion was not expressive conduct protected by the First Amendment while saving for another day the harder issue of whether residential architecture can ever be expressive conduct.

We have not decided, as the dissenting opinion says, that Philip Johnsons Glass House isnt expressive conduct, but tattooing is; we have not decided that Jeffersons Monticello isnt protected under the First Amendment, but nude dancing is; and we have not decided that the Empire State Building doesnt meet the Johnson test [for protective expression], but elevator music does.

In U.S. Supreme Court cases protecting expressive conduct, the conduct could be viewed, the appeals majority said.

The conduct was not like the proverbial tree, which was out of view because it was deep in the forest, the majority wrote.

In Burns case, however, the message that Burns sought to convey through his proposed mansions simple lines and minimal decorative elements would be shielded from view by a limestone wall, a louvered gate and heavy landscaping.

A viewer cannot infer a message from something the viewer cannot view, the appeals court said. From Day One, Burns wanted to conceal from his neighbors what he now says is his message.

Even if viewers could see Burns new mansion through the landscaping, there is still no great likelihood that they would understand that the home conveyed some sort of message, the appellate majority said.

A reasonable observer would view Burns new mansion as a really big house but not as an expression of some sort of message, the court said.

The decision, Burns v. Town of Palm Beach, upheld a grant of summary judgment to Palm Beach, Florida.

Florida Politics had coverage of the opinion.

See the article here:

Florida resident loses First Amendment appeal in suit over rejection of his mansion plans - ABA Journal

A lot of people want to make statements with their homes.

But a sharply divided federal appeals court Tuesday rejected arguments that a property owners First Amendment rights were violated when plans for a mansion were rejected in tony Palm Beach.

The 2-1 decision by a panel of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals stemmed from a 2013 decision by longtime Palm Beach resident Donald Burns to tear down a 10,063 square-foot oceanfront home and replace it with a larger mansion with a mid-century modern design, according to the ruling.

According to Burns, the mid-century modern design communicated that the new home was clean, fresh, independent, and modern a reflection of his evolved philosophy of simplicity in lifestyle and living with an emphasis on fewer personal possessions, the rulingsaid. It also communicated Burns message that he was unique and different from his neighbors.

But Palm Beachs architectural review commission rejected the plan in 2016, spurring Burns to take the dispute to federal court. He argued, in part, that the rejection violated his First Amendment rights.

A federal district judge sided with the town, prompting Burns to go to the Atlanta-based appeals court. And in a 70-page majority opinion and a 66-page dissent, appellate judges Tuesday sparred about Burns claims and First Amendment issues ranging from tattoos to Jeffersons Monticello home.

Judge Robert Luck, in a majority opinion shared by Judge Ed Carnes, wrote that the proposed mansion was not expressive conduct protected by the First Amendment and pointed to issues such as a wall and landscaping that would have blocked the home from public view.

One day, we may even find some residential architecture to be expressive conduct, Luck wrote. But Burns proposed new mansion is not Monticello or Versailles, no matter how much the dissenting opinion wants to compare it to those historic homes. Its just a really big beachfront house that cant be seen, located on a quiet residential street in Palm Beach, Florida.

But dissenting Judge Stanley Marcus referred to numerous famous architectural sites and drew contrasts with court precedents about protecting the First Amendment.

As I see it, the majoritys resolution of this case cannot easily be squared with well-settled law recognizing the First Amendments protection of artistic expression in all of its forms, Marcus wrote. An analysis of this kind would yield the odd conclusion that a tourists drunkenly obtained tattoo is art protected by the First Amendment, while Philip Johnsons Glass House is not; coin-operated devices by virtue of which a customer could sit in a booth, insert a coin and . . . watch a live dancer, usually nude, are protected, Monticello is not; anodyne elevator music is protected, the Empire State Building is not. These distinctions seem to me to be indefensible.

That statement drew a retort from Luck.

To dispel any lingering confusion, we emphasize again that we are not deciding whether residential architecture can ever be expressive conduct protected by the First Amendment, Luck wrote. We have not decided, as the dissenting opinion says, that Philip Johnsons Glass House isnt expressive conduct but tattooing is; we have not decided that Jeffersons Monticello isnt protected under the First Amendment but nude dancing is; and we have not decided that the Empire State Building doesnt meet (a test in a U.S. Supreme Court case known as Texas v. Johnson) but elevator music does. Not at all.

Marcus also asserted that the architectural review commission hated the proposed design of the mansion.

The question in this case is whether a government commission created by the Town of Palm Beach with the Orwellian moniker ARCOM may prevent Burns from expressing his philosophy and taste through the architecture of his home and create a work of art on land he owns solely because a majority of the members of the commission do not like the way it looks, Marcus wrote.

That also drew a retort from Luck in a footnote.

The dissenting opinion uses the name ARCOM for the architectural review commission and then calls the name it uses Orwellian, the footnote said. If by Orwellian the dissenting opinion means any government agency that administers regulations impacting our lives, then the architectural review commission is as Orwellian as the state board of therapeutic massage, the local dog catcher and every one of the alphabet soup of departments and agencies and bureaus in Washington, D.C.

The Palm Beach Daily News, citing a deed,reported in Octoberthat Burns, a telecommunications entrepreneur, sold his home for $28 million. That came six months after the appeals court heard arguments in the case, and Tuesdays ruling did not address a sale of the property.

___

Republished with permission from News Service of Florida.

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First Amendment arguments rejected in mansion fight - Florida Politics

An attorney who specializes in First Amendment litigation said mediation by a universitys public relations team can cause staff and student media censorship, but it may be necessary for the department to sit in during interviews depending on the sensitivity of the topic.

Greg Greubel is a staff attorney at the Philadelphia-based Foundation for Individual Rights and Education, a nonpartisan organization working to protect the rights of faculty and students across the U.S.

Greubel said requiring staffers to forward interview request from student media to Marcom can be discouraging to student journalists, and it also hampers the rights of university employees.

It is a violation of the employees First Amendment rights to have this buffer between speaking to journalists and the university, said Greubel, who spoke about student journalists rights at the virtual convention of the Society of Professional Journalists March 26 .

Greubel said employees are not legally obligated to speak to student journalists, but its necessary they do.

Employees have the right to speak out on matters of public concern, Greubel said. They have the right to talk about it, and its actually very important that they do talk about it.

Greubel said he believes employees should not go through Marcom before being interviewed by student media. He said its censorship on the employees end. As a result of that, its secondary censorship on student journalists, he said.

Because they cant speak to you, that means you cant do your work, Greubel said. Its a secondary effect but does it cause censorship? I think so.

Greubel also said having Marcom intervene is a common practice across the country, though it may be an obstacle for student journalists.

If you direct all the communications through some university department, then theyre not going to be able to speak, maybe at all. If they do, its going to be a tarnished version, Greubel said.

Going through department heads strains credibility from employees, he said.

Greubel said having to notify Marcom of an interview request puts the employee on notice that theyre being monitored, in some sense.

If what these communications departments are trying to do is actually facilitate truth-telling through employees views, thats one thing, Greubel said. But if what theyre trying to do is to act as a sort of buffer and require university employees to speak through the same voice, then its a problem.

Veronica Valdes, The Mesquites spring editor-in-chief, said she once experienced Marcom sitting-in during an interview with Mari Fuentes-Martin, vice president of student success and engagement, last fall. Valdes was working on a story about events being rescheduled because of a COVID-19 spike on campus.

Valdes said she was surprised Jeanette De Diemar, vice president for advancement and external relations, attended the interview since she had called De Diemar for guidance on who to contact. De Diemar had said Fuentes-Martin would be the best source.

Valdes was told Fuentes-Martin was a university spokesperson, she said those people shouldnt need to go through Marcom since theyre already a university spokesperson.

De Diemar said choosing if a member of Marcom should sit in depends on the complexity of the story and how helpful marcom can be.

There are occasions where theres an overlap because Im an official university spokesperson, its part of my role, De Diemar said. There are people who by the nature of their role they would have participated in an interview.

De Diemar said this is not a common practice. Determining if a member of the department should sit in depends on the complexity of the story.

Greubel acknowledged it may be appropriate for Marcom to monitor an interview, depending on the topic.

It is naive to say they should never sit in, Greubel said.

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University employees have right to speak to student journalists, First Amendment expert says | Texas A&M University-San Antonio | TAMUSA - The...

When I first read the recently published article by Chaplain (Major) David Evans entitled, Starting again: A call for chaplains to reconcile and properly support LGBTQI+ soldiers, my initial response was one of appreciation. I shared the article on Facebook and stated, The entire First Amendment is brought to bear in this one publication. A sensitive but important discussion. Chaplain Evans appropriately states, A chaplain is at the service of all soldiers. This is absolutely true. The oath I have taken to support and defend the Constitution of the United States means my charge as a chaplain a religious leader is to champion the free exercise of religion that the First Amendment to the Constitution protects. However, each chaplains interpretation of sacred texts and traditions pertaining to the capability of performing religious rites is a matter of the free exercise of religion.

Department of Defense Instruction (DoDI) 1300.17, Religious Liberty in the Military Services states, no Service member may require a chaplain to perform any rite, ritual, or ceremony that is contrary to the conscience, moral principles, or religious beliefs of the chaplain. At the core of the DoDI is the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. The Free Exercise Clause and the associated Establishment Clause together comprise the concept of freedom of religion inherent in the First Amendment. The Establishment Clause is the first segment which states, Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion. The Free Exercise Clause is the second segment which estates, [Congress shall make no law] prohibiting the free exercise thereof. In other words, the Establishment Clause prevents the state and federal governments from mandating religious practices. In contrast, the Free Exercise Clause prevents state and federal governments from inhibiting the religious practices of individuals.

To the heart of Chaplain Evans article, how the Chaplain Corps supports LGBTQI+ soldiers is of utmost importance. Recent command initiatives to enforce the standard that all persons are treated with dignity and respect are imperative. Existing policy, doctrine and regulation guide the Chaplain Corps and mandate every soldier, dependent and civilian is treated with dignity and respect. Nonetheless, as chaplains care for those whom we serve we must hold fast to our religious convictions in order to be the religious leaders the military requires us to be. If religious convictions do not matter for the religious leader, then there is reason to believe those religious convictions should not matter for anyone. Religious leaders and communities should not only be permitted, but should be encouraged, to interpret their sacred texts and traditions and to act in accordance with those interpretations (so long as their actions are not criminal and do not impinge on the Establishment Clause).

One of the issues at stake is whether or not a persons sexual orientation is a matter of religion. Most religious leaders worldwide believe sexual orientation is a matter of religious importance. The Department of Defense understands individual expressions of sincerely held beliefs (conscience, moral principles, or religious beliefs) which do not have an adverse impact on military readiness, unit cohesion, good order and discipline or health and safety as being protected under the banner of religious liberty (DoDI 1300.17). The argument Chaplain Evans presents is essentially that if the Chaplain Corps is not careful, individual expressions of sincerely held beliefs by chaplains regarding normative practices of sexuality could collectively have an adverse impact on the military. This is a fair caution, but could also be misconstrued. If state and federal governments begin requiring chaplains to transgress sincerely held beliefs, then we will restrict the free exercise of religion of the very people whom we have charged with the task of protecting the free exercise of religion.

In summary, the Chaplain Corps should unequivocally set the standard for treating people with dignity and respect; and there is room for improvement here. However, as chaplains, we should champion the free exercise of religion of those who have taken the oath to serve as chaplains just as much as we champion the free exercise of religion of those for whom we have taken the oath to serve. If we do not account for the free exercise of religion for all soldiers regardless of category, we will undermine our ability to advocate for others.

Chaplain (Capt.) Jordan Henricks is an active duty Army Chaplain currently serving with the 75th Ranger Regiment.

Commentary: The opinions expressed in this article are my personal opinions and do not represent the United States Army or the Army Chaplain Corps

Editors note: This is an op-ed and as such, the opinions expressed are those of the author. If you would like to respond, or have an editorial of your own you would like to submit, please contact Military Times managing editor Howard Altman,haltman@militarytimes.com.

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Responding to a call for chaplains to reconcile and properly support LGBTQI+ soldiers - ArmyTimes.com

American democracy is in danger, and American journalism needs to respond with more than slogans.

Editorials are a good start and the Boston Globe has nowset the bar awfully damn high.

But the mightiest weapon in the journalistic arsenal isn't opinion columns.It's relentless news coverage.

Journalists have the unique ability to ask questions on behalf of the public, demand answers, assess truthfulness, decry stonewalling and do it all again the next day.

To rescue and revive democracy, news organizations don't need to "take sides" with one party or another, and they don't need to publish articles full of opinions.

What the top editors in our top newsroom must do, however, is set the agenda. They need to decide what is newsworthy, and then bring their resources to bear accordingly.

That's the true power of the press.

And those editors should start with an easy one by relentlessly covering the Justice Department's recent outrageous seizures of reporters' communication records. That means news storiesevery dayuntil the public is able to fully understand how they were authorized and by whom, how they were allowed to proceedand what will prevent similar occurrences in the future.

Assaults on freedom of the press aren't "inside baseball." These are the front lines. This is a huge story. As David Boardman, dean of the journalism school at Temple University, tweeted:

The formerly secret subpoenas were for records from reporters at the New York Times, the Washington Post and CNN, in order to identify their confidential sources. Two of the subpoenas were accompanied by outrageous gag orders. (Gag orders on news organizations!)

Their overdue public disclosure by the Justice Department in recent weeks made major headlines and spawned a number of angry opinion pieces.

But with the notable exception of the Times, there's been relatively little news coverage since then. (On Thursday night, the Times continued its streak with abarnburnerreport that Trump's DOJ had similarly subpoenaed communications records of Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee.)

What's particularly missing even from the Times coverage is the application of pressure on the current Justice Department leadership to fully explain what happened, when, why and how. That should be the drumbeat, every day.

Although the various leak investigations originated during the Trump administration, they extended well into Biden's. A huge element of this story is why those investigations weren't immediately abandoned and condemned and why the Justice Department under Merrick Garland won't come clean about what happened.

Some of the opinion pieces were powerful, particularly the one from the normally invisible Washington Post publisher,Fred Ryan.He appropriately pointed out that "the Biden Justice Department not only allowed these disturbing intrusions to continue it intensified the government's attack on First Amendment rights before finally backing down in the face of reporting about its conduct."

In fact, it was the Biden administration thatimposedthe gag order on the New York Times's lawyer, preventing him from disclosing the government's efforts to newsroom leaders or the four reporters whose email logs were at issue.[UPDATE June 13, 12:30 p.m.: Technically, the gag order was imposed by a federal magistrate judge, responding to an application from the Justice Department. The March gag order amended aJanuary orderthat had fully gagged Google from talking to anyone about the records request. TheMarch orderallowed Google to tell the Times's lawyer, but imposed a gag on him as well.]

"This escalation, on Biden's watch, represents an unprecedented assault on American news organizations and their efforts to inform the public about government wrongdoing," Ryan wrote.

The Justice Department on June 5 announced that it would no longer use subpoenas or other legal methods to obtain information from journalists about their sources, elicitingsome new headlines.

But that should not have placated anyone in the news business. What it should have prompted is a slew of additional questions about how this new policy would be applied in an accountable fashion.

AsAnna Diakun and Trevor Timmwrote in the Columbia Journalism Review, the new policy is "a significant improvement to the DOJ's previous approach. Still, there are questions to be answered. When will the DOJ officially update its news-media guidelines to reflect this change? And as theTimesnoted, the DOJ's statement appears to leave some 'wiggle room' surrounding the circumstances in which the policy applies, limiting it to when journalists are 'doing their jobs.' What exactly does this mean?"

Their final, critical question: Who will the Justice Department considera member of the news media?

None of the news reports I saw about the policy shift showed anything likethe appropriate skepticism. For that, you had to watchtelevision interviews with some of the reporters who were directly targeted.

On CBS Now, for instance, Times reporterMatt Apuzzomade the crucial point that there's no reason to take the Justice Department at its word until it fully explains itself. "First we have to understand what happened. How did it happen? Why did it happen?"

"This is becoming a bipartisan pattern," Apuzzo said.

Journalism groups are justifiably concerned.Bruce D. Brown, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said in a statement that "serious unanswered questions remain about what happened in each of these cases."

And by coincidence, the esteemed free-press advocate Joel Simonannounced this weekthat he will step down after 15 years as executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists. He told the Times: "Governments are increasingly taking aggressive action toward journalists, and there are very few consequences."

In addition to the three demands for records in leak investigations, we also learned in the last few days about a Biden-era demand from the FBI that deserves more coverage. The FBI issued a subpoena to USA Today, demanding it hand over identifying information about readers who had accessed a particular story online during a 35-minute window.

The request related to a Feb. 2 articleabout the shooting death of two FBI agents while serving a warrant in a child exploitation case in Florida. The 35-minute window in question was more than 12 hours after the shooter had killed himself inside his barricaded apartment.

The request was bizarre and inexplicable, and should have been blocked by superiors. Instead, it was only withdrawn "after investigators found the person through other means, according to a notice the Justice Department sent to USA TODAY's attorneys Saturday."

How could that have happened?

Some of the ideally relentless news coverage would also involve questions for the news executives who received subpoenas.

Why did New York Times lawyer David McCraw honor such an obviously absurd gag order? (The order, imposed in March, related to records that were four years old, evidently as part of a fishing expedition aimed to show that former FBI director James Comey disclosed a "secret" document that wasmost likely a hoax. I am not making that up.)

Why, once McCraw was allowed to discuss the request with Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger and CEO Meredith Kopit Levien, didtheyhonor the gag order? Why didn't they just call a press conference?

There are much tougher questions for CNN, which in its own reporting buried the fact that it caved to the Justice Department'srequestfor reporter Barbara Starr's email logsfor June and July 2017.

CNN lawyerDavid Vigilante, honoring a gag order the whole time, apparently fought the Justice Department's request from May 2020 all the way through Januaryof this year. He even won a court ruling that CNN shouldn't have to turn over the logs of emails that were internal to the company.

But that, apparently, was what CNN cared about most. So six days into the Biden administration, CNN turned over a list of Starr's external email contacts during the specified time period to the Justice Department.

CNN'sofficial lineis that those were "essentially records that the government already had from its side of these communications."

Sorry, that doesn't cut it.

Transparency and accountability for everyone!

Read more:

To save democracy, let's start by saving the First Amendment - Salon

American democracy is in danger, and American journalism needs to respond with more than slogans.

Editorials are a good start and the Boston Globe has now set the bar awfully damn high.

But the mightiest weapon in the journalistic arsenal isnt opinion columns its relentless news coverage.

Journalists have the unique ability to ask questions on behalf of the public, demand answers, assess truthfulness, decry stonewalling and do it all again the next day.

To rescue and revive democracy, news organizations dont need to take sides with one party or another, they dont need to publish articles full of opinions.

What the top editors in our top newsroom must do, however, is set the agenda. They need to decide what is newsworthy, and then bring their resources to bear accordingly.

Thats the true power of the press.

And those editors should start with an easy one by relentlessly covering the Justice Departments recent outrageous seizures of reporters communication records. That means news stories every day until the public is able to fully understand how they were authorized and by whom, how they were allowed to proceed, and what will prevent similar occurrences in the future.

Assaults on freedom of the press arent inside baseball. These are the front lines. This is a huge story. As David Boardman, dean of the journalism school at Temple University, tweeted:

The formerly secret subpoenas were for records from reporters at the New York Times, the Washington Post and CNN, in order to identify their confidential sources. Two of the subpoenas were accompanied by outrageous gag orders. (Gag orders on news organizations!)

Their overdue public disclosure by the Justice Department in recent weeks made fairly major headlines and spawned a number of angry opinion pieces.

But with the notable exception of the Times, theres been relatively little news coverage since. (The Times on Thursday night continued its streak with a barnburner report that Trumps DOJ similarly subpoenaed communications records of Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee.)

Whats particularly missing even from the Times coverage is the application of pressure on the current Justice Department leadership to fully explain what happened, when, why and how. That should be the drumbeat, every day.

Although the various leak investigations originated during the Trump administration, they extended well into Bidens. A huge element of this story is why those investigations werent immediately abandoned and condemned and why the Justice Department under Merrick Garland wont come clean about what happened.

Some of the opinion pieces were powerful, particularly the one from the normally invisible Washington Post publisher, Fred Ryan.Ryan appropriately pointed out that the Biden Justice Department not only allowed these disturbing intrusions to continue it intensified the governments attack on First Amendment rights before finally backing down in the face of reporting about its conduct.

In fact, it was the Biden administration that imposed the gag order on the New York Timess lawyer, preventing him from disclosing the governments efforts to newsroom leaders or the four reporters whose email logs were at issue. [UPDATE June 13, 12:30 PM: Technically, the gag order was imposed by a federal magistrate judge, responding to an application from the Justice Department. The March gag order amended a January order that had fully gagged Google from talking to anyone about the records request. The March order allowed Google to tell the Timess lawyer, but imposed a gag on him as well.]

This escalation, on Bidens watch, represents an unprecedented assault on American news organizations and their efforts to inform the public about government wrongdoing, Ryan wrote.

The Justice Department on June 5 announced that it would no longer use subpoenas or other legal methods to obtain information from journalists about their sources, eliciting some new headlines.

But that should not have placated anyone in the news business. What it should have prompted is a slew of additional questions about how this new policy would be applied in an accountable fashion.

As Anna Diakun and Trevor Timm wrote in the Columbia Journalism Review, the new policy is a significant improvement to the DOJs previous approach. Still, there are questions to be answered. When will the DOJ officially update its news-media guidelines to reflect this change? And as the Timesnoted, the DOJs statement appears to leave some wiggle room surrounding the circumstances in which the policy applies, limiting it to when journalists are doing their jobs. What exactly does this mean?

Their final, critical question: Who will DOJ count as a member of the news media?

None of the news reports I saw about the policy shift showed any of the appropriate skepticism. For that, you had to be watching television interviews with some of the reporters who were directly targeted.

On CBS Now, for instance, Times reporter Matt Apuzzo made the crucial point that theres no reason to take the Justice Department at its word until it fully explains itself. First we have to understand what happened How did it happen? Why did it happen?

This is becoming a bipartisan pattern, Apuzzo said.

Journalism groups are justifiably concerned. Bruce D. Brown, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said in a statement that serious unanswered questions remain about what happened in each of these cases.

And by coincidence, the esteemed free-press advocate Joel Simon announced this week that he will step down after 15 years as the executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists. He told the Times: Governments are increasingly taking aggressive action toward journalists, and there are very few consequences.

In addition to the three demands for records in leak investigations, we also learned in the last few days about a Biden-era demand from the FBI that deserves more coverage. The FBI issued a subpoena to USA Today, demanding it hand over the identifying information about readers who had accessed a particular story online during a 35-minute window.

The request related to a Feb. 2 article about the shooting death of two FBI agents while serving a warrant in a child exploitation case in Florida. The 35-minute window in question was more than 12 hours after the shooter had killed himself inside his barricaded apartment.

The request was bizarre, inexplicable, and should have been blocked by superiors. Instead, it was only withdrawn after investigators found the person through other means, according to a notice the Justice Department sent to USA TODAYs attorneys Saturday.

How could that have happened?

Some of the ideally relentless news coverage would also involve questions for the news executives who were subpoenaed.

Why did New York Times lawyer David McCraw honor such an obviously absurd gag order? (The gag order, imposed in March, related to records that were four years old, evidently as part of a fishing expedition aimed to show that former FBI director James Comey disclosed a secret document that was most likely a hoax. I am not making that up.)

Why, once McCraw was allowed to discuss the request with Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger and CEO Meredith Kopit Levien, did they honor the gag order? Why didnt they just call a press conference?

And there are much tougher questions for CNN, which in its own reporting buried the fact that it caved to the Justice Departments request for email logs for reporter Barbara Starr for June and July 2017.

CNN lawyer David Vigilante, honoring a gag the whole time, apparently fought the Justice Departments request from May 2020 all the way through January 26. He even won a court ruling that CNN shouldnt have to turn over the logs of emails that were internal to the company.

But that, apparently, was what CNN cared about most. So six days into the Biden administration, CNN turned over a list of Starrs external email contacts during the specified time period to the Justice Department.

CNNs official line is that those were essentially records that the government already had from its side of these communications.

Sorry, that doesnt cut it.

Transparency and accountability for everyone!

Read this article:

The journalistic crusade to save democracy starts with the First Amendment - Press Watch

DANBURY The YouTuber who has recorded his interactions with police and security guards at the Danbury Library and City Hall claims they tried to violate his first and fourth amendment rights.

But experts say the situation is more complicated.

Theres a lot more nuance than that, said Laszlo Pinter, the citys attorney.

Danbury police department has launched an internal investigation into its officers response captured in YouTuber SeanPaul Reyes video where he refused to stop recording at the Danbury Library, despite a library policy banning filming without permission.

A second video, where police are called when the YouTuber declines to give his name to a security guard at Danbury City Hall, is not part of the investigation, Chief Patrick Ridenhour said.

The five officers from the library incident, including a city sergeant who the YouTuber says he intends to sue, remain on duty, Ridenhour said.

Screenshots from a video from the YouTube channel Long Island Audit showing interactions with a security guard, police and other officials at Danbury City Hall on Thursday, June 10, 2021. Danbury police were called to City Hall on Thursday, June 10, 2021 after YouTuber SeanPaul Reyes refused to give his name to the security guard in order to enter the building. Reyes left after the town clerk was called down to the lobby so he could file his intent to sue a city sergeant.

Screenshots from a video from the YouTube channel Long Island Audit showing interactions with a security guard, police and other officials at Danbury City Hall on Thursday, June 10, 2021. Danbury police were called to City Hall on Thursday, June 10, 2021 after YouTuber SeanPaul Reyes refused to give his name to the security guard in order to enter the building. Reyes left after the town clerk was called down to the lobby so he could file his intent to sue a city sergeant.

Screenshots from a video from the YouTube channel Long Island Audit showing interactions with a security guard, police and other officials at Danbury City Hall on Thursday, June 10, 2021. Danbury police were called to City Hall on Thursday, June 10, 2021 after YouTuber SeanPaul Reyes refused to give his name to the security guard in order to enter the building. Reyes left after the town clerk was called down to the lobby so he could file his intent to sue a city sergeant.

Screenshots from a video from the YouTube channel Long Island Audit showing interactions with a security guard, police and other officials at Danbury City Hall on Thursday, June 10, 2021. Danbury police were called to City Hall on Thursday, June 10, 2021 after YouTuber SeanPaul Reyes refused to give his name to the security guard in order to enter the building. Reyes left after the town clerk was called down to the lobby so he could file his intent to sue a city sergeant.

Screenshots from a video from the YouTube channel Long Island Audit showing interactions with a security guard, police and other officials at Danbury City Hall on Thursday, June 10, 2021. Danbury police were called to City Hall on Thursday, June 10, 2021 after YouTuber SeanPaul Reyes refused to give his name to the security guard in order to enter the building. Reyes left after the town clerk was called down to the lobby so he could file his intent to sue a city sergeant.

It has not been necessary to put anyone one on leave, he said in an email.

Ridenhour declined to comment further, citing the ongoing investigation. Hearst Connecticut Media requested through the Freedom of Information Act the records of the officers involved in the library incident, as well as the body camera footage.

Both videos are edited.

I only see one side of the story, Mayor Joe Cavo said. Until I get all the facts, Im going to reserve my comment and see what happens with the rest of the information and how things proceed.

Danbury plans to keep its building policies in place, although officials are reviewing the incidents.

First Amendment law is very complicated, Cavo said. Fourth Amendment law is very complicated. Were trying to sort out how that relates to our responsibilities here as a public agency, and were working out those details now within inside counsel and outside counsel.

Reyes is part of a social media movement known as First Amendment Audits, where people film in public buildings, such as libraries or municipal centers, in an attempt to showcase how officials abide by the U.S. Constitution and the First Amendment, which protects freedom of speech and the press.

Allied Universal, the security company that the Danbury guards in the videos work for, trains its staff on how to respond to these auditors, the company spokeswoman said.

Guards take a specific training module on these audits when they join the company. The module includes appropriate practices for how to handle these situations, spokeswoman Vanessa Showalter said.

Guards are informed if auditors are in their area and get additional tips if so, she said.

The company has seen auditors the most in California, where Allied Universal, is based, she said.

Their whole goal is to provoke on-site security professionals in order to illicit a negative response, she said. The reason why they do this is so they can get a lot of likes on their Facebook and their social sites in order to get money. That is their whole goal.

Reyes told Hearst Connecticut Media on Friday that he aims to exercise his rights and educate police through his videos. He said he aims to start an outreach program in Connecticut where activists like himself could shed light on rights violations and is thinking about starting a YouTube channel to teach kids about these issues.

He said he has not taken any criminal justice courses and learned what he knows through YouTube and other online sources.

Im a big believer of knowing your rights, he said.

His channel, Long Island Audit, has about 24,200 subscribers as of Monday evening, up from around 22,800 subscribers on Friday. His video at Danbury Library has 66,000 views, while the City Hall video has 49,000 views.

Heck, if it does nothing other than make government employees aware that we the people have the right to observe that which is observable by the naked eye, it cant be a bad thing from where we sit, said Dan Barrett, legal director with the American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut.

Cavo said hed rather see a collaborative approach.

I see what this guys doing and he has the right to do that, he said. For me, I dont know. I think in this world we need to figure out how to work together instead of instigate.

Some police officers know Constitutional law better than others, Barrett said.

Its never been clear to me that the training, if any, that they get on the free speech and the right to memorialize has any effect, he said.

Individuals have the right to film in and from public places, Barrett said.

Anywhere that you are allowed to be as a member of the public and anything you can see with your own eyes, its fair game, he said.

But the rules get trickier in places that are more sensitive, he said. Libraries can be places where people research or conduct private activities, such as research health related information, he said.

So, its unclear whether the librarys policy banning filming or photography would stand in court.

It depends a little bit on whats restricted where and what the librarys interests are, Barrett said.

The library policy states that filming or photography is not allowed inside the building without permission from the library director. Patrons may not take photos or videos of other library users without their permission.

Motivations dont matter when it comes to the First Amendment, Barrett said.

It doesnt particularly matter from the First Amendment standpoint, Barrett said. Thats all fair game. What matters is whether the library has a good enough reason and an appropriately tailored policy.

In a second video uploaded Sunday, Reyes goes to City Hall to file his intent to sue a Danbury police sergeant but refuses to give his name to the security guard, as required for visitors under COVID-19 precautions.

I shouldnt have to surrender my Fourth Amendment right to enter a public building, Reyes says.

Dont go there, the security guard says.

Dont go there, Reyes says. This is the United States of America.

I am the guard here, the security officer says. I dont make the rules. I enforce the rules. This is what they want me to do. They want me to take your name, give you a card and you go upstairs.

Collecting names to contact trace for COVID-19 in public buildings would likely not violate peoples protection from unreasonable search and seizure under the Fourth Amendment, Barrett said.

In the time of COVID mercifully waning though it is in Connecticut it may be the case that collecting names is O.K., providing there is sufficient restriction on the use of those names, Barrett said.

Its fine if Danbury throws out the names after 14 days, but not if the city uses them to track if those people are paying their taxes, for example, he said.

Pinter argued the YouTubers claim about the Fourth Amendment violation is misplaced. Asking for someones name to enter a public building for COVID or security reasons is reasonable, he said.

Asking for identification is not a seizure if its reasonable, Pinter said. If its reasonable, its not a search and seizure under the Fourth Amendment.

Read the original here:

A YouTuber tried to 'audit' how well Danbury follows Constitutional rights. The answer is complicated. - Danbury News Times

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan is teaming up with a conservative youth organization and a Florida congresswoman to start a new congressional caucus to push back on woke cancel culture on college campuses.

Jordan says he wants to defend freedom for Americans everywhere. Were talking about what that means on This Week in the CLE.

Listen online here.

Editor Chris Quinn hosts our daily half-hour news podcast, with Leila Atassi, Jane Kahoun and me.

Youve been sending Chris lots of thoughts and suggestions on our from-the-newsroom text account, in which he shares what were thinking about at cleveland.com. You can sign up for free by sending a text to 216-868-4802.

Here are the questions were answering today:

Why is Ohio Congressman Jim Jordan teaming up with a youth group in defense of the First Amendment?

Why is Dennis Kucinich, who was tossed out of office as Cleveland mayor after one 2-year-term 40 years ago, running to get the job anew?

What do we know about the collision between the USS Cod submarine and a Coast Guard Cutter along the Cleveland lakeshore. The Cod is not even operable, is it?

Why are Ohio Senate Republicans trying to stop cities from offering free broadband access? Isnt the general consensus today that we need to make sure everyone has low-cost, high-speed broadband as a basic need?

What did Northeast Ohio spend its stimulus checks on over the past year?

Is a Rule 29 decision coming down in a Cleveland murder case involving the brother of a famous gymnast, in which three people were killed at a party?

Want more? You can find all our past episodes here.

We have an Apple podcasts channel exclusively for this podcast. Subscribe here.

Do you get your podcasts on Spotify. Find us here.

If you use Stitcher, we are here.

RadioPublic is another popular podcast vehicle, and we are here.

On Google Podcasts, we are here.

On PodParadise, find us here.

And on PlayerFM, we are here.

Read the original:

How, exactly, does Ohio Congressman Jim Jordan want to protect speech on college campuses? This Week in the C - cleveland.com

When you really stop and think about it, what was done was unconscionable.

The Justice Department of the United States of America went after the phone and email records of journalists from some of the nations most respected news outlets. Not only that, they did so in secret.

The journalists had done nothing wrong. They broke no laws. And yet in an effort to root out leaks within the government, as well as who knows what else, the DOJ targeted the records of journalists from The New York Times, The Washington Post and CNN.

And, I repeat, this happened in the United States of America, where the very First Amendment of the Constitution includes the freedom of the press. It started under the Donald Trump administration but apparently continued under Joe Bidens first couple months as president.

On Monday, CNN Pentagon reporter Barbara Starr wrote that the time was finally right to speak out on the Trump administrations months-long efforts to secretly gain access to tens of thousands of my 2017 work and personal emails and my work and personal phone records.

As Starr pointed out, she was not the subject of an investigation, and there was no suggestion that she had done anything wrong. The same goes for the other reporters targeted. Starr said she had no idea what the Trump administration was looking for.

Biden said reporters records will no longer be seized in his administration, and new policies will be put in place. The New York Times Charlie Savage wrote, In testimony last week, (Attorney General Merrick) Garland said the new policy will be the most protective of journalists ability to do their jobs in history. But many details remain unresolved, including how broadly the new protections will apply and whether he will implement it via a method that is easy or difficult for a future administration to roll back.

Or, as Starr wrote, Unless new protections are codified, this could all happen again to any journalist.

Starr added she is genuinely horrified by what happened. All of this is a sheer abuse of power in my view first against CNN and myself, since our work is and should always be protected by the First Amendment. But more importantly and more significantly, it is an abuse against the free press in this country, whether you are a television network correspondent or a reporter at a small town newspaper uncovering wrongdoing.

John Demers, the head of the Justice Departments National Security Division, announced to staff he will step down at the end of next week. Demers is a holdover from the Trump administration and was expected to step down eventually. But, The New York Times Katie Benner wrote, Mr. Demerss departure also comes as Democrats and First Amendment advocates have attacked the Justice Department following revelations that prosecutors supervised by Mr. Demers seized the records of reporters from The New York Times, The Washington Post and CNN and of top House Democrats while investigating leaks of classified information.

On Monday, Garland met with leaders of the three news organizations whose journalists had their records confiscated.

The meeting included New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger and deputy general counsel David McCraw; Washington Post publisher Fred Ryan along with executive editor Sally Buzbee and general counsel Jay Kennedy; and CNN was represented by Washington bureau chief Sam Feist and general counsel David Vigilante.

Bruce D. Brown, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, spoke on behalf of the news organizations, adding that the meeting was off the record. Brown added, We are very encouraged by what we heard inside the meeting.

Sulzberger put out a statement that said, In todays meeting, we sought a full accounting of what happened and requested that the Department of Justice codify that it will no longer seize journalists records during leak investigations. We were encouraged by Attorney General Garlands statements but we will continue to push until our concerns are addressed.

In his statement, Ryan said, It was encouraging to hear the Attorney Generals commitment to the first amendment rights of all Americans. While we welcome the new policy to refrain from using compulsory legal procedures to seize reporter records in leak investigations, we feel steps must be taken to ensure it is durable and binding on future administrations. It is also essential that there be a full and complete public accounting of all the actions taken against our news organizations, including the secret subpoenas and gag orders, and an explanation as to what has been done with the information that was seized.

Its a little curious that three news organizations fighting for press rights would agree to an off-the-record conversation. According to The Washington Posts Matt Zapotosky, Brown said, We wanted to have a conversation inside the building where all sides could fully and freely share views.

In a statement, the Justice Department said, In the coming weeks the Attorney General will develop and distribute to the field a memo detailing the current policy. The Attorney General committed to working with members of the news media to codify the memo setting out these new rules into regulation.

Russian President Vladimir Putin being interviewed by NBC News. (Courtesy: NBC News)

During an exclusive interview with NBC News Keir Simmons, Russian President Vladimir Putin dismissed accusations that the Russian government or hackers were behind cyberattacks in the U.S.

Putin told Simmons, We have been accused of all kinds of things. Election interference, cyberattacks and so on and so forth. And not once, not once, not one time, did they bother to produce any kind of evidence or proof. Just unfounded accusations.

In addition, Putin denied putting out a hit on political rival Alexei Navalny, but would not guarantee that Navalny would get out of prison alive.

Look, Putin said, such decisions in this country are not made by the president.

When asked whether it was a coincidence that several other political rivals had been assassinated in recent years, Putin said, We dont have this kind of habit of assassinating anybody.

In an article for NBCNews.com, Simmons, Corky Siemaszko and Yuliya Talmazan wrote, Throughout the interview, Putin relied on the Kremlins time-tested strategy of deflecting criticism by pointing out Americas failures, suggesting that criticism from the West was hypocritical because every country, including Russia and the U.S., acts in its own self-interest.

Also notable were Putins kind words for Donald Trump. Putin told Simmons, Mr. Trump is an extraordinary individual, talented individual. Otherwise he would not have become U.S. president. He is a colorful individual.

NBC News interview comes as Biden and Putin prepare to meet this week in Geneva.

I mentioned last week how all the major news anchors ABCs David Muir, CBSs Norah ODonnell and NBCs Lester Holt will be anchoring tonight from Geneva ahead of the summit. In addition, Fox News Channels John Roberts also will be in Geneva, anchoring America Reports (1 to 3 p.m. Eastern) today and Wednesday.

Ahead of Wednesdays meeting, here are some notable works to get you ready:

I actually found this to be a brilliant headline despite the you dont say aspect to it. The headline in The Washington Post: Coronavirus infections dropping where people are vaccinated, rising where they are not, Post analysis finds.

The report from Dan Keating, Naema Ahmed, Fenit Nirappil, Isaac Stanley-Becker and Lenny Bernstein also says, States with lower vaccination also have significantly higher hospitalization rates, The Post found. Poorly vaccinated communities have not been reporting catastrophic conditions. Instead, they are usually seeing new infections holding steady or increasing without overwhelming local hospitals.

While that might be encouraging, the Post wrote, But experts worry that unvaccinated people are falling into a false sense of security as more transmissible variants can rapidly spread in areas with a high concentration of unvaccinated people who have abandoned masking and social distancing.

Its a detailed report that requires your attention.

Christiane Amanpour. (Photo: Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)

Christiane Amanpour, CNNs chief international anchor and host of PBSs Amanpour & Company, said on-air Monday that she has been diagnosed with ovarian cancer. She said she had major surgery and is now undergoing several months of chemotherapy for the very best possible long-term prognosis, and Im confident.

Amanpour told viewers, Im telling you this in the interest of transparency but in truth really mostly as a shoutout to early diagnosis to urge women to educate themselves on this disease, to get all the regular screenings and scans that you can, to always listen to your bodies, and of course to ensure that your legitimate medical concerns are not dismissed or diminished.

Amanpour, 63, has been with CNN since 1983 and is widely recognized as one of the top journalists in the world. Her career also includes moderating ABC News This Week and being a reporter for CBS News 60 Minutes. Bianna Golodryga, CNNs senior global affairs analyst, had been filling in for Amanpour on CNN for the past month.

In true professional and Amanpour fashion, she concluded her on-air statement by saying, So, thats my news. Now lets get to the news.

This week is the 50th anniversary of The New York Times publishing the Pentagon Papers the U.S. Department of Defenses history of the countrys involvement in Vietnam from 1945 to 1967 that revealed how the Johnson Administration had lied to Congress and the American people about its involvement in the Vietnam War.

The New York Times is commemorating one of the most important newspaper stories and, maybe, the biggest journalistic scoop of all time with an amazing package: The Pentagon Papers at 50: A Special Report.

It includes an absolutely gripping and stunningly-well designed feature: Were Going to Publish The Oral History of the Pentagon Papers.

The package is elite and fascinating to all audiences, not just journalists and those who follow the journalism business closely.

Have feedback or a tip? Email Poynter senior media writer Tom Jones at tjones@poynter.org.

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Opinion: The US government crossed a line by seizing reporters' records. What happens now? - Poynter