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Kitchen Table Theology – Episode XIII – Workplace Persecution – Video

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Kitchen Table Theology - Episode XIII - Workplace Persecution
Got Rights? A "Bill" of Rights, maybe? Just what does the First Amendment provide for us, anyway? Is it freedom of speech, or freedom from speech? Freedom of religion, or freedom from...?

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Kitchen Table Theology - Episode XIII - Workplace Persecution - Video

Justices weigh limits of free speech over Internet

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WASHINGTON (AP) Anthony Elonis claimed he was just kidding when he posted a series of graphically violent rap lyrics on Facebook about killing his estranged wife, shooting up a kindergarten class and attacking an FBI agent.

But his wife didn't see it that way. Neither did a federal jury.

Elonis, who's from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, was convicted of violating a federal law that makes it a crime to threaten another person.

In a far-reaching case that probes the limits of free speech over the Internet, the Supreme Court on Monday was to consider whether Elonis' Facebook posts, and others like it, deserve protection under the First Amendment.

Elonis argues that his lyrics were simply a crude and spontaneous form of expression that should not be considered threatening if he did not really mean it. The government says it does not matter what Elonis intended, and that the true test of a threat is whether his words make a reasonable person feel threatened.

One post about his wife said, "There's one way to love you but a thousand ways to kill you. I'm not going to rest until your body is a mess, soaked in blood and dying from all the little cuts."

The case has drawn widespread attention from free-speech advocates who say comments on Facebook, Twitter and other social media can be hasty, impulsive and easily misinterpreted. They point out that a message on Facebook intended for a small group could be taken out of context when viewed by a wider audience.

"A statute that proscribes speech without regard to the speaker's intended meaning runs the risk of punishing protected First Amendment expression simply because it is crudely or zealously expressed," said a brief from the American Liberties Union and other groups.

But so far, most lower courts have rejected that view, ruling that a "true threat" depends on how an objective person perceives the message.

For more than four decades, the Supreme Court has said that "true threats" to harm another person are not protected speech under the First Amendment. But the court has been careful to distinguish threats from protected speech such as "political hyperbole" or "unpleasantly sharp attacks."

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Justices weigh limits of free speech over Internet

When Does the First Amendment Protect Threats?

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Many people don't know where courts draw the line on what constitutes free speechor what they mean by a "true threat."

In a 2003 case, the Supreme Court ruled that Ku Klux Klan burnings are sometimes but not always protected speech. (Rainier Ehrhardt/Reuters)

Not long ago, a dissatisfied reader emailed that he had enough guns to stop people like me. I emailed back to ask whether he was threatening me.

The reply: I'm not stupid enough to telegraph genuine ill intent.

On Monday, the Supreme Court will hear a case involving the question of when a seemingly threatening communication (this one on Facebook, not email) can be a crime. Lets clear up some confusion, shared by my correspondent above, about what threats are and why they can be punished.

The case is Elonis v. United States. Anthony Elonis lived in Lower Saucony Township, Pennsylvania. Until 2010, he was married with two children and worked at a nearby theme park. In May 2010, his wife left him, taking their two children. Not long after that, he was fired because of multiple complaints of on-the-job sexual harassment (for example, a female coworker alleged that he found her alone in the office at night and began to undress).

He turned to Facebook. About his former coworkers, he posted: I have sinister plans for all my friends and must have taken home a couple [of keys]. About his ex-wife, he posted: Im not going to rest until your body is a mess, soaked in blood and dying from all the little cuts. When she got a restraining order, he posted, Ive got enough explosives to take care of the state police and the sheriff's department and Im checking out and making a name for myself Enough elementary schools in a ten mile radius to initiate the most heinous school shooting ever imagined ... The only question is ... which one? FBI agents came to his door; he posted his fantasy of killing one female agent: Pull my knife, flick my wrist, and slit her throat Leave her bleedin from her jugular in the arms of her partner. He was convicted in federal district court of five counts of transmitting in interstate commerce (here, the Internet) any threat to injure the person of another.

Free Speech Isn't Free

Elonis argued that, under the First Amendment, the government had to prove that he had a subjective intent to threaten. He said he lacked that, in part because some of his posts echoed words by rapper Eminem. The court of appeals held instead that the statute only requires that a reasonable person would foresee that the statement would be interpreted by those to whom the maker communicates the statement as a serious expression of an intention to inflict bodily harm.

Lets break that down carefully. Elonis argues that the government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he was actually thinking, This message will terrify the person it refers too, and I want that. The government says that it must only prove that a reasonable person would have thought it would terrify.

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When Does the First Amendment Protect Threats?

Professor Craig Smith Wins National Awards

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Craig Smith, a California State University, Long Beach, communication studies professor and former presidential speechwriter, received two national awards Nov. 21.

The director of CSULBs Center for First Amendment Studies was honored at the National Communication Associations (NCA) 100th annual convention in Chicago.

Smith said he is now a third time recipient of the Robert ONeil Award for outstanding scholarship on First Amendment issues.

I wrote the award-winning paper with my centers research director professor Kevin Johnson, who was once a student of mine here, Smith said. So I am doubly proud of that award.

Smith also accepted the Gronbeck Award for his work in interpreting and addressing political communication issues. The award, Smith said, is the result of his latest book, Confessions of a Presidential Speechwriter, published last year in February by Michigan State University Press.

In his book, he describes the time spent as a speechwriter for President Gerald R. Ford and later for George H.W. Bush, Smith said. He said he recounted his history involving Freedom of Expression. According to his books overview, Smith wrote about meeting Robert Kennedy and Richard Nixon and advising Gov. Ronald Reagan. His book explores his time in Washington D.C., when he founded the Freedom of Expression Foundation and became its president.

The Gronbeck Award was named after Bruce Gronbeck, who died in September at 73 years old.

Gronbeck was a communications professor at the University of Iowa and was recognized as a scholar of rhetoric and media, according to the UI website. He received several awards including the Outstanding Mentor Award from the university as well as the NCA Mentor Award. He is responsible for mentoring 65 doctorate candidates at UI.

I knew Bruce for a long time since both of us were in political communication, Smith said. Bruce published a lot of articles and books on political communication, and I think thats why the National Communication Association decided to honor him by naming this particular award after him.

Smith said he recalled a Facebook post from Gronbeck on Sept. 9.

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Professor Craig Smith Wins National Awards

Court throws out ruling that barred public from watching 1st witness called by Jodi Arias

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Published November 26, 2014

PHOENIX An appeals court has thrown out a ruling that barred the public from watching the first witness called by Jodi Arias at the convicted murderer's sentencing retrial.

The decision Wednesday by the Arizona Court of Appeals overturns the Oct. 30 ruling by Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Sherry Stephens and suggests that the previously unidentified witness may have been Arias herself.

Stephens had said the ruling was necessary because Arias' first witness, whom the judge refused to publicly identify, wouldn't testify unless the hearing was closed to the public. Some of the testimony by Arias' first witness was conducted in private. The Arizona Republic and three Phoenix TV stations KPNX, KPHO and KTVK protested the closure of the courtroom, arguing the First Amendment allows reporters to attend the trial.

Arias was convicted of murder last year in the 2008 death of former boyfriend Travis Alexander, but jurors deadlocked on whether she should be sentenced to life in prison or death. A new jury has been picked to decide her sentence.

The appeals court didn't offer an explanation in its ruling Wednesday at how it arrived at that decision. A more detailed ruling is expected in the future.

But the court suggested an answer to a question that stumped trial watchers: Who was the skittish witness who was allowed to testify in private?

The appeals court said Stephens order closed the courtroom to the public during "any testimony by Jodi Arias," though it's unclear whether the testimony was made by Arias herself or someone else on Arias' behalf.

"It underscores the importance of the public's right to attend criminal trials, particularly the testimony of a defendant in the sentencing phase of a capital trial," David Bodney, an attorney representing the news organizations, said of the ruling.

A call to Arias attorney Jennifer Willmott wasn't immediately returned Wednesday afternoon.

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Court throws out ruling that barred public from watching 1st witness called by Jodi Arias

Judge Orders Law Tribune Not To Publish Story

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In a ruling that is drawing sharp criticism from free-speech advocates, a Superior Court judge has ordered the Connecticut Law Tribune not to publish a story about a child custody case.

Judge Stephen Frazzini on Monday granted a motion filed in New Britain Superior Court by the mother of the three children involved in the case that sought to stop the Law Tribune from running the story.

Daniel J. Klau, the lawyer representing the Law Tribune, objected to the mother's motion, saying a prior restraint on the publication was a violation of the First Amendment. The information for the story, he said, was lawfully obtained by the Tribune. He declined to elaborate about the information.

"Prohibiting the publication of a news story is the very essence of censorship," Klau said. On Tuesday, he filed a motion asking the state's appellate court to stay the lower court's injunction.

"We certainly hope that the judges review the motion immediately and overturn the order or, at a bare minimum, grant us an immediate hearing in the appellate court next week, if not earlier," Klau said.

Klau said the judge's ruling, which Frazzini made orally from the bench Monday, and a transcript of the proceedings were sealed from public view as of Tuesday. He said he was barred from speaking about specifics of the judge's ruling, even with his own client. The Connecticut Law Tribune is owned by American Lawyer Media.

In an email statement Tuesday, Sandra Staub, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut, called the ruling "alarming" and an infringement on free speech.

"The courts are supposed to protect speech, not prohibit it," Staub said. "Prior restraint is forbidden under the U.S. Constitution, with extremely narrow exceptions that do not apply in this case, and in our view is absolutely prohibited by the Connecticut Constitution."

A widely recognized exception is in cases that involve national security.

In a story on the Law Tribune's website posted Tuesday, Thomas B. Scheffey wrote that Monday's proceedings were held in juvenile court where the hearings are not usually open to the public.

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Judge Orders Law Tribune Not To Publish Story

First Amendment protects student's choice to display Confederate flag

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It has been almost 150 years since the tragedies of the Civil War, since the enraged Confederacy was quelled by prolonged Union force and since over 200,000 individuals lost their lives over political and social disagreement.

Recently, however, a Purdue student has reawakened the entrenched social memory of Americas bleak history of racism and inequality by the displaying of a Confederate flag in the upper window of his residence.

For some, the Confederate flag is a sign of southern pride and for others its a retired relic merely a piece of irrelevant history. However, most see it as a sign of oppression, servitude, segregation and savage brutality.

Yet, according to Rick Walker, code enforcement supervisor of West Lafayette Police Departments neighborhood resource team, There was no violation of ordinance or law, and while a sensitive issue, the resident was within his right to display it.

I was able to speak with one of the residents at the house, and he understood the concerns of some in the neighborhood and was sensitive to that. As a result, the flag is no longer visible, said Walker.

Regardless of constitutional right, many still find it offensive as a sign of white supremacy and racial oppression.

For many, Confederate symbolism represents a way to venerate ancestors who fought in the Civil War or admiration for the skills and bravery of the Confederate officers and soldiers, said Robert E. May, professor of American history at Purdue. But I would claim knowledge of what the Confederate flag represented in its day; it was the rallying symbol of a nation dedicated to the preservation of slavery in North America.

The south was fighting for a nation designed to perpetuate slavery forever in the United States and possibly extend it southward into Latin America, said May. Displaying their flag is an insult not only to African Americans but also to all Americans who believe in human equality.

Lets not start unraveling our Union memorabilia just yet. Although Union President Abraham Lincoln is often lionized as the champion of modern day racial equality, that is unfortunately not the case.

For instance, the Emancipation Proclamation wasnt a gesture of Lincolns compassion for those enslaved. As much as Lincoln hated the institution of slavery, he didnt see the Civil War as a struggle to free the nations four million slaves from bondage. Emancipation, when it came, would have to be gradual, and the important thing to do was to prevent the Southern rebellion from severing the Union permanently in two.

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First Amendment protects student's choice to display Confederate flag

The Supreme Court Is About to Make a Big Decision About Facebook Free Speech

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TIME Tech legal The Supreme Court Is About to Make a Big Decision About Facebook Free Speech Till JacketGetty Images/Photononstop RM The case could have big implications for how we use social media

The Supreme Court on Monday will consider whether violent language posted on social media is covered by the First Amendments protection of free speech.

The case, Elonis v. United States, hinges around the question of whether a Facebook message can be considered a true threat, or a threat a reasonable person would determine to be real. That would be an important distinction, because true threats dont get First Amendment coverage. But it wont be an easy problem to solve: While it can be easy to call a threat true if its given verbally, making that call gets harder when threats are posted online, where they lack the context, tone and other indicators of intent present in verbal communication. Its also arguably easier to make threats online, especially if its done anonymously.

What happened?

A lower court had sentenced Pennsylvania man Anthony Elonis to about four years in federal prison over several Facebook posts threatening his estranged wife. The posts included, among other things, raps about slitting his wifes throat and about how her protection order against him wouldnt be enough to stop a bullet.

A sample:

Theres one way to love you but a thousand ways to kill you. Im not going to rest until your body is a mess, soaked in blood and dying from all the little cuts.

But how is that not a true threat?

Elonis contends his posts werent a threat to his wife but rather a therapeutic form of expression. Its commonly accepted that violent images are often part of rap music and other media, and artistic expression is protected under the First Amendment, explaining Elonis legal strategy. Still, the issue of whether Elonis had the intent to threaten is not necessary for a threat to be deemed a true threat. That requires only for a reasonable person to believe a threat is authentic.

The dividing line here is whether were judging the threat based on the intent of the speaker, or on the reaction of the people who read it and wouldve felt threatened. Thats really the key question, said William McGeveran, a law professor at the University of Minnesota.

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The Supreme Court Is About to Make a Big Decision About Facebook Free Speech

Press subpoenas are a bigger problem than youd think

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The Obama administration continues to strong-arm journalists into revealing sources

Bruce Brown is is executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, and has argued numerous First Amendment cases before US courts.

By now, everyone knows the feds have been handing out record numbers of subpoenas to journalists hoping to scare them into giving up their sources. The troubles of New York Times reporter James Risen, the most well-known of these besieged journalists, remain unresolved almost seven years after the Bush administration first knocked on his door with a subpoena to appear before a grand jury.

There is another recent subpoena fight that has flown under the radar but ought to be brought into fuller view. It should be a wake-up call for anyone who cares about press freedom to heed a complaint that judges have been making since the Supreme Court looked at this issue 40 years agothat journalists cant prove that their sources dry up when the reporters they leak to are stalked by process servers.

The latest subpoena fight began in the summer of 2009 when Mike Levine, then a reporter for Fox News, wrote a story about the federal government probing links between Somali Muslims in Minneapolis and Al Qaeda. Citing law enforcement sources, Levine reported about grand jury indictments in the investigation while they were still sealed. The government successfully obtained pleas from several defendants and then went on to publicly tout the victory, but the leak set off alarms.

By early in 2011, the Justice Department had subpoenaed Levine, saying that it needed to know the identity of the law enforcement sources cited in his article. Levine moved to quash the subpoena, saying he promised his sources confidentiality. And the government sought to enforce it, saying that federal laws may have been broken.

All sound familiar? Levines case is but a piece in the onslaught of press subpoenas that have defined the Obama administration. But nothing was known publicly about this specific case until last May, when Levine, now at ABC News, wrote about it on the networks website. Then last month, US District Court Judge Royce Lamberth, who sits in DC, unsealed the docket.

Both from Levines account and court records, we learned that in July 2011, Lamberth denied the motion to quash. We also learned that the Justice Department in the end never forced Levine to testify. In April 2012, almost three years after Levines Somali story ran, prosecutors said they were withdrawing the subpoena. They offered no explanation as to why.

Levines case is more than just another example of the administration trying to force journalists to identify their sources. It stands out in part because of a statement by Lamberth in rejecting Levines arguments. The judge looked to a passage from the 1972 Supreme Court ruling in Branzburg v. Hayes, the one and so far only time that the press and the government have clashed over the issue at the nations highest court. In the passage, Justice Byron White wrote for a narrow majority in allowing prosecutors in a drug probe to obtain evidence from reporters trying to claim they were protected from testifying by the First Amendment. White said there simply wasnt enough empirical evidence to show that subpoenaing journalists would have a chilling effect on their sources.

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Press subpoenas are a bigger problem than youd think

Drawing a line between therapy and threats: In Plain English

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Posted Mon, November 24th, 2014 3:31 pm by Amy Howe

Protesting at the funeral of a fallen soldier. Lying about your military record. Violent video games for children. Making videos about dogfighting. In the past few years, the Supreme Court has held that the First Amendment protects all of these forms of expression, even when very unpopular or offensive. Next week the Justices will hear oral arguments to determine whether Anthony Eloniss Facebook posts, which left his ex-wife extremely scared and an FBI agent worried about her familys safety, are entitled to the same kind of protection. Lets talk about Elonis v. United States in Plain English.

Eloniss legal troubles date back to 2010, when his wife left him, taking their two young children with her. He began to post lyrics from popular songs on Facebook, and he soon moved on to post his own, sometimes violent, rap lyrics. As part of his posts, Elonis included disclaimers about how his lyrics were merely fictitious, and that he was just exercising his constitutional right to freedom of speech. He also sometimes included links to the Wikipedia entry on the First Amendment and even the text of the First Amendment itself.

In the fall of 2010, Eloniss Facebook posts included several that discussed harming his ex-wife. One post was a take-off on a comedy routine available on YouTube: Elonis asked his Facebook friends whether they knew that it was illegal for him to say that he wanted to kill his ex-wife, and he added that it would be incredibly illegal to suggest that someone could kill his ex-wife by firing a mortar launcher from the cornfield behind her house. A day later, Elonis put up a post about shooting a kindergarten class.

These posts earned Elonis a visit from an FBI agent. After the visit, he posted about that encounter too, suggesting in rap lyrics that he had strapped a bomb to his body and would have detonated it if he had been arrested. This post was apparently the last straw for the FBI: a few weeks later, Elonis was arrested and charged with violating 18 U.S.C. 875(c), which makes it a crime to communicate threats in interstate commerce for example, over the Internet.

Elonis claimed that the charges against him should be dismissed because you can only violate the law if you intend to harm someone. And he didnt have any plans to hurt his ex-wife, the FBI agent, or anyone else: his rap lyrics and venting about his problems on Facebook just made him feel better. But if he can be convicted without any intent to hurt anyone, he added, that would violate the First Amendment. A federal trial court rejected both of his arguments. Instead, it instructed the jury, it could find Elonis guilty if the average person, looking at a statement objectively, would believe that it was intended to be a threat. The jury convicted Elonis, and he was sentenced to nearly four years in prison.

As Elonis emphasized in his Facebook posts, the First Amendment protects a right to free speech. But that right is not unlimited; the classic example is that you cant shout Fire! in a crowded movie theater when there is actually no fire, because the resulting chaos could lead to injuries or even death. The Supreme Court has held that the First Amendment also does not protect true threats, but it has not specifically said how courts should decide what is (or is not) a true threat. This case could give it that opportunity.

In his briefs at the Supreme Court, Elonis argues that a threat by its very nature requires an intent to cause fear. Because the whole point of a crime, he says, is that the defendant meant to do something wrong, the Court has interpreted criminal laws as requiring a wrongful intent even when they did not explicitly do so. Making it a crime to threaten someone even if you didnt intend to hurt them, he contends, would cause people not to speak at all, because they would be worried about whether they could go to jail based on a jurys possible misinterpretation of their comments. This is particularly true, he concludes, when you are talking about alleged threats on social media and email, where nuance and tone matter so much and its so easy to misconstrue what someone says.

The federal government counters that, as the trial court in this case instructed the jury, courts should determine whether something is a true threat by looking at whether an average person would interpret the statement as reflecting a serious intent to harm someone. The government emphasizes that courts and juries can and should look at the context in which the alleged threat was made, and at the reactions of the people who heard the alleged threat, but they should not consider whether the defendant himself actually intended to carry out the threat. This, the government explains, is because even if Elonis didnt intend to harm his ex-wife or the FBI agent, they were still afraid and their lives were still disrupted: the First Amendment doesnt protect him even if he knew that he didnt mean to carry out the threats.

We dont generally think of the Justices of the Supreme Court as especially savvy about technology. They did acquit themselves well last Term, in a case involving whether police need a warrant to search someones cellphone after they arrest him. But that may have been easier because they all have cellphones. It is far less likely that any of these nine intensely private public figures are on Facebook or any other form of social media, so it will be interesting to watch them grapple with these issues.

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Drawing a line between therapy and threats: In Plain English

Attorney – What Does the First Amendment Protect in White Plains, NY? – Video

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Attorney - What Does the First Amendment Protect in White Plains, NY?
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