I’m a First Amendment scholar and I think Big Tech should be left alone – The Conversation US

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Twitters banning of Trump an action also taken by other social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Snapchat has opened a fierce debate about freedom of expression and who, if anyone, should control it in the United States.

Ive written and taught about this fundamental issue for decades. Im a staunch proponent of the First Amendment.

Yet Im perfectly OK with Trumps ban, for reasons legal, philosophical and moral.

To begin, its important to point out what kind of freedom of expression the First Amendment and its extension to local government via the Fourteenth Amendment protect. The Supreme Court, through various decisions, has ruled that the government cannot restrict speech, the press and other forms of communications media, whether its on the internet or in newspapers.

Twitter and other social media platforms are not the government. Therefore, their actions are not violations of the First Amendment.

But if were champions of freedom of expression, shouldnt we nonetheless be distressed by any restriction on communication, be it via a government agency or a corporation?

I certainly am. Ive called nongovernmental suppressions of speech to be violations of the spirit of the First Amendment.

Every time CBS bleeps a performance of a hip-hop artist on the Grammys, the network is, in my view, engaging in censorship that violates the spirit of the First Amendment. The same is true whenever a private university forbids a peaceful student demonstration.

These forms of censorship may be legal, but the government often lurks behind the actions of these private entities. For example, when the Grammys are involved, the censorship is taking place out of fear of governmental reprisal via the Federal Communications Commission.

So, why, then, am I OK with the fact that Twitter and other social media platforms took down Trumps account? And, while were at it, why am I fine with Amazon Web Services removing the Trump-friendly social media outlet Parler?

First, a violation of the spirit of the First Amendment is never as serious as a violation of the First Amendment itself.

When the government gets in the way of our right to freely communicate, Americans only recourse is the U.S. Supreme Court, which all too often has supported the government wrongly, in my view.

The courts 1919 clear and present danger and 1978 seven dirty words decisions are among the most egregious examples of such flouting of the First Amendment. The 1919 decision qualified the crystal-clear language of the First Amendment Congress shall make no law with the vague exception that government could, in fact, ban speech in the face of a clear and present danger. The 1978 decision defined broadcast language meriting censorship with the even vaguer indecency.

And a government ban on any kind of communication, ratified by the Supreme Court, applies to any and all activity in the United States period until the court overturns the original decision.

In contrast, social media users can take their patronage elsewhere if they dont approve of a decision made by a social media company. Amazon Web Services, though massive, is not the only app host available. Parler may have already found a new home on the far-right hosting service Epik, though Epik disputes this.

The point is that a corporate violation of the spirit of the First Amendment is, in principle, remediable, whereas a government violation of the First Amendment is not at least not immediately.

Second, the First Amendment, let alone the spirit of the First Amendment, doesnt protect communication that amounts to a conspiracy to commit a crime, and certainly not murder.

I would argue that its plainly apparent that Trumps communication whether it was suggesting the injection of disinfectant to counteract COVID-19 or urging his supporters to fight to overturn the election repeatedly endangered human life.

Given that Trump was still president albeit with just a few weeks left in office when Twitter banned him, that ban was, indeed, a big deal.

Jack Dorsey, co-founder and CEO of Twitter, appreciated both the need and perils of such a ban, tweeting, This moment in time might call for this dynamic, but over the long term it will be destructive to the noble purpose and ideals of the open internet. A company making a business decision to moderate itself is different from a government removing access, yet can feel much the same.

In other words, a company that violates the spirit of the First Amendment can feel much the same to the public as government actually violating the First Amendment.

To be sure, I think its concerning that a powerful cohort of social media executives can deplatform anyone they want. But the alternative could be far worse.

Back in 1998, many were worried about the seeming monopolistic power of Microsoft. Although the U.S. government won a limited antitrust suit, it declined to pursue further efforts to break up Microsoft. At the time, I argued that problems of corporate predominance tend to take care of themselves and are less powerful than the forces of a free marketplace.

Sure enough, the preeminent position of Microsoft was soon contested and replaced by the resurgence of Apple and the rise of Amazon.

Summoning the U.S. government to counter these social media behemoths is the proverbial slippery slope. Keep in mind that the U.S. government already controls a sprawling security apparatus. Its easy to envision an administration with the ability to regulate social media not wielding that power to protect the freedoms of users but instead using it to insulate themselves from criticism and protect their own power.

We may grouse about the immense power of social media companies. But keeping them free from the far more immense power of the government may be crucial to maintaining our freedom.

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I'm a First Amendment scholar and I think Big Tech should be left alone - The Conversation US

Other View: First Amendment doesn’t apply to Twitter, Facebook – Duluth News Tribune

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While fervent followers of President Donald Trump screamed foul and free speech when Twitter, Facebook, and other social media banned the president, they need to realize the First Amendment doesn't apply to private businesses.

Only the government grants free-speech rights through the Constitution. The First Amendment has no more power to grant anyone a Twitter handle than the Second Amendment requires a gun company to sell you a gun.

The First and Second amendments specify instead that, with a few exceptions, anyone can speak their mind and any law-abiding citizen can buy a gun. It guarantees those freedoms so government cannot take away your right to speak. That doesn't include compelling a private company to provide you with speaking "tools" like a Twitter or Facebook account.

The First Amendment does guarantee many variations of free speech. Under the First Amendment, the government, for example, could not prevent you from setting up a soapbox on a street corner and speaking your mind. It could not prevent you from distributing flyers or speaking at a public forum in a public place. The government cannot stop you from marching in a parade and carrying a sign.

The First Amendment even protects symbolic speech like burning a flag or kneeling while the national anthem is played. And the First Amendment has been invoked in recent years to protect "political speech" in the form of campaign contributions. Limits on contributions were ruled unconstitutional under the Citizens United case because the campaign donations constituted "political speech."

But when it comes to private companies like a newspaper or television station or social-media platform, the sovereignty of the stockholders rules. Investors in Twitter cannot be compelled to provide their service to everyone. It simply doesn't work that way.

If you think this is unfair, we can point to people to blame. Some 35 years ago, private broadcasters were required under the federal "fairness doctrine" to provide "equal time" for opposing political viewpoints. But you know what happened? Free-market Republicans like President Ronald Reagan and his cohorts did away with the fairness doctrine, figuring the market would determine who gets political speech and airtime.

So we got what we asked for: smaller government and less fairness.

If President Trump wants to use Twitter for his commentary and communication to his fans, he would be well advised to do something he says he's good at: Make a deal with Twitter. But the First Amendment cannot be invoked here. It doesn't apply.

The Free Press, Mankato, Minnesota

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Other View: First Amendment doesn't apply to Twitter, Facebook - Duluth News Tribune

Might Federal Preemption of Speech-Protective State Laws Violate the First Amendment? – Reason

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Say that a state creates a law that protects speech more than the First Amendment does; for instance, say that the state law protects speakers against retaliation or exclusion by

And say that Congress preempts that state law, for instance allowing the private entities to restrict speech on their property (or by their employees or students).

Could that federal law potentially violate the First Amendment, even though it doesn't actually forbid speech, but simply empowers private entities to do so?

Vivek Ramaswamy's and Jed Rubenfeld's Jan. 11 Wall Street Journal op-ed suggests the answer is yes; and on reflection, I think there is a good argument for a version of that position, though I'm not sure whether I'm persuaded by it myself. I'd therefore like to lay out in this post what I think is the best argument inspired by their claims, though not one that necessarily agrees with them in all details.

[1.] Let us begin with a precedent. (Remember, "law is the only discipline in which 'that's an original idea' is a pejorative.") In 1943, Nebraska enacted a state constitutional provision that provided that employers and unions can't require employees to join unions. In the Railway Labor Act of 1951, Congress preempted such state statutes, allowing (but not requiring) railroad employers and railroad unions to demand union membership as a condition of employment. Employees sued a railroad and a union under the Nebraska state provision for imposing such a "closed shop" contract. The defendants raised the federal Act as a defense, arguing that it preempted the state provision.

The U.S. Supreme Court (Railway Employes v. Hanson (1956)) concluded that the Railway Labor Act's preemption of state law needed to be evaluated under the First Amendment:

The union shop provision of the Railway Labor Act is only permissive. Congress has not compelled nor required carriers and employees to enter into union shop agreements. [But we agree with] the view that justiciable questions under the First and Fifth Amendments were presented since Congress, by the union shop provision of the Railway Labor Act, sought to strike down inconsistent laws in 17 States. [We agree that] "Such action on the part of Congress is a necessary part of every union shop contract entered into on the railroads as far as these 17 States are concerned for without it such contracts could not be enforced therein."

If private rights [presumably rights secured by the Nebraska no-closed-shop provision] are being invaded, it is by force of an agreement made pursuant to federal law which expressly declares that state law is superseded. In other words, the federal statute is the source of the power and authority by which any private rights are lost or sacrificed. The enactment of the federal statute authorizing union shop agreements is the governmental action on which the Constitution operates, though it takes a private agreement to invoke the federal sanction.

The Court concluded that the Act was substantively consistent with the First Amendment, because mere "compulsory membership" in a union does not necessarily "impair freedom of expression," in part because "Congress endeavored to safeguard against that possibility by making explicit that no conditions to membership may be imposed except as respects [the payment of union dues] . If other conditions are in fact imposed, or if the exaction of dues is used as a cover for forcing ideological conformity or other action in contravention of the First Amendment, this judgment will not prejudice the decision in that case." And in Machinists v. Street (1961), the Court did suggest that the First Amendment would bar spending compulsory union dues collected under the Act "for political causes which [the coerced employee] opposes," though the Court avoided that constitutional problem by reading the statute to prohibit such exactions of dues for political purposes.

Now Will Baude and I (and others) have argued that in fact the First Amendment inquiry here was substantively misplaced, and coercive contributions that are used for political causes are generally not unconstitutional. But this specific detail (on which the Court has disagreed with us) isn't important here. Rather, I think this case sets forth a more general principle:

Questions under the First Amendment are presented when Congress preempts state law that protects speech against private action, because the federal statute is the source of the power and authority by which any private rights are lost or sacrificed.

This does not necessarily mean that the private actor (employer and the union) somehow becomes a "state actor" (or, more precisely, a "government actor") fully bound by the First Amendment. The government action is Congress's preemption of the state law protection. That government action must be judged under the First Amendment. And if the First Amendment blocks that preemption, that simply means that state law springs back into force and continues to restrain the private actors.

The splintered decision in Denver Area Ed. Telecomm. Consortum, Inc. v. FCC (1996) seems to reinforce this principle: A majority of the Justices concluded there that a federal statute that allowed (but didn't require) cable operators to block indecent material, and preempted contrary common-carrier-like rules or local control rules, was subject to First Amendment scrutiny and was indeed partly invalid. (See Part IV of the opinion and Part II of Justice Stevens's concurrence for more details.)

[2.] OK, now let's see how this principle might play out in three hypothetical contexts, before we turn to 230. My own state of California has three state law rules that protect speech against private entities (one of them is based on the state constitution and the other two on state statutes, but that distinction doesn't matter for First Amendment purposes):

Let's say that Congress enacted a Private Shopping Mall Discretion Act, a Private Employer Discretion Act, and a Private Educational Institution Discretion Act, which allowed (but didn't require) all privately owned shopping centers, employers, and educational institutions to exclude whatever speech they liked.

I think that, under Hanson and Denver Area, those statutes could be challenged under the First Amendment. Again, the statutes wouldn't make the mall owners, employers, and educational institutions into state actors bound by the First Amendment. But the Hanson/Denver Area principle would allow visitors, employees, and students to sue under the state laws, and then try to use the First Amendment to invalidate any federal statutory defense that the defendants interpose.

This seems especially apt if the hypothetical Private Discretion Acts were viewpoint-based, e.g., "a private college shall have the power to discipline a student for the student's speech, notwithstanding any contrary state law, if the speech constitutes 'hate speech'"or, if you prefer, "a private college shall have the power to discipline a student for the student's speech, notwithstanding any contrary state law, unless the speech expresses support for federal government policies." Such selective continued protection for some speech, or selective enabling of private suppression of other speech, should at least be subject to substantive First Amendment scrutiny (whether or not you think it might sometimes pass such scrutiny).

But under Hanson and under the logic of Denver Area, I think even a content-neutral statute preempting such speech protections would be subject to First Amendment scrutinyto be sure, the more forgiving intermediate scrutiny applicable to content-neutral speech restrictions.

[3.] Now, if you're with me so far, let's see how this would play out as to 230, and in particular 230(c)(2)(A),

No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be held liable on account of any action voluntarily taken in good faith to restrict access to or availability of material that the provider or user considers to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable, whether or not such material is constitutionally protected.

Imagine that a state enacts a Social Media Common Carrier Act, which provides something like this:

Just as phone companies are common carriers, which may not deny service based on their users' viewpoints or other attributes, so social media networks may not terminate a user account or delete content supplied by a user based on the ideological viewpoint or factual assertions expressed by that user.

(Assume that the law is somehow largely limited to speech posted and viewed by users within the state, and therefore avoids Commerce Clause problems. Assume also that such an Act wouldn't itself violate the social media network's First Amendment rights, perhaps because a court would conclude that such a mandate is consistent with Pruneyard Shopping Center v. Robins, Turner Broadcasting System v. FCC, and Rumsfeld v. FAIR, all of which upheld some requirements that private entities open up their property to outside speakers. Both are complex questions, but questions for another day. Finally, note that the hypothetical rule isn't quite a traditional common-carrier rule, but there are many different ways to craft such nondiscrimination mandates.)

Users sue Twitter under this state law for banning them based on viewpoints that they have expressed. Twitter says the federal 230(c)(2)(A) preempts the state law. But the users respond that 230(c)(2)(A) is itself a speech restriction that must be evaluated under the First Amendment; adapting Hanson, they argue:

Section 230(c)(2)(A) is only permissive. Congress has not compelled nor required social media networks to restrict user speech.

Nevertheless, justiciable questions under the First Amendment are presented since Congress, by 230(c)(2)(A), sought to strike down inconsistent laws protecting user speech against the social media companies. Such action on the part of Congress is a necessary part of Twitter's editing decisions as far as this state is concerned for without it such banning could not be done within this state.

If private rights secured by the state law are being invaded, it is by force of a Twitter policy made pursuant to federal law which expressly declares that state law is superseded. In other words, the federal statute is the source of the power and authority by which any private rights are lost or sacrificed.

The enactment of the federal statute authorizing social media networks to impose such speech restrictions is the governmental action on which the Constitution operates, though it takes a private decision to invoke the federal sanction.

I think this is at least a credible argument, which a court could use to evaluate 230(c)(2)(A) as a speech restriction that triggers the First Amendment. Perhaps 230(c)(2)(A) passes First Amendment scrutiny, but given Hanson and Denver Area, there's a serious basis for a court to apply such scrutiny.

[4.] Finally, let's turn to perhaps the most ambitious theory, focused on 230(c)(1). Recall that 230(c)(2)(A), which I quoted above, actually has little practical effect right now: It preempts state laws that would limit service provider editing discretion, but so far there are in practice virtually no such laws, and no general common carrier statutes / viewpoint discrimination bans of the sort I hypothesized (though some such bans are being contemplated by some state legislatures).

The important provision of 230 is 230(c)(1), which protects social media networks from libel liability (and other state-law liability) for those user posts that they don't edit out. Section 230(c)(1) is used all the time to block such lawsuits.

But wait: Sections 230(c)(1) and (c)(2) were deliberately designed to preempt a specific rule that emerged out of two trial court cases applying New York state law, Cubby v. Compuserve, Inc. (S.D.N.Y. 1991) and Stratton Oakmont, Inc. v. Prodigy Services Co. (N.Y. trial ct. 1995). That rule, to oversimplify, was:

This rule (to be sure, one that was in its infancy at the time 230(c)(1) preempted it) isn't a categorical protection like the hypothetical Social Media Common Carrier Act. But it is still a form of speech protection against private restriction: It encourages private platforms not to restrict speech, by offering them immunity if they provide unrestricted posting rights, but threatening them with some degree of liability if they restrict user speech. And it's clear that 230 (including (c)(1)) was indeed intended to encourage service providers to feel free to restrict speech; the title of 230, after all, is "Protection for private blocking and screening of offensive material."

If this analysis is right, then the constantly invoked 230(c)(1), and not just the rarely applicable 230(c)(2)(A), itself constitutes Congressional preemption of state law that protects speech against private action. And as a result, the 230(c)(1)/(2)(A) combo, and not just 230(c)(2)(A), would need to be evaluated under the First Amendment. (Recall the principle we gleaned from Hanson and Denver Area: "Questions under the First Amendment are presented when Congress preempts state law that protects speech against private action.")

Again, 230 might be seen as constitutionally permissible, perhaps on the theory that its preemption of this state law protection for private speakers passes muster under the intermediate scrutiny applicable to content-neutral laws. But at least courts would consider the question whether 230, by enabling and indeed promoting private restriction of speech, notwithstanding contrary state law rules aimed at protecting speech, themselves violate the First Amendment.

[5.] As I mentioned at the outset, I'm not sure that this analysis is right. Perhaps Hanson and Denver Area (discussed in item 1) are themselves mistaken in applying First Amendment scrutiny here. Or perhaps other precedents that I've missed pull sufficiently in the opposite direction. Or perhaps somewhere in the path from item 1 to 2 to 3 to 4 the analogies go off the rails. And I stress again that this analysis is not identical to the Ramaswamy & Rubenfeld position, though it is inspired by that position.

But I thought I'd set forth what I thought was the strongest argument in support of that view, and see what others have to say about it. I'd love to hear people's reactions, and to adapt my own thinking in light of them.

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Might Federal Preemption of Speech-Protective State Laws Violate the First Amendment? - Reason

Letter to the editor: Put the First Amendment first – Daily Mississippian

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The start to 2021 has not been any good indicator that this year will be anything more than an even more terrible sequel to 2020. Both sides of the aisle are fighting back, and actions are ever more favored than words. Large media corporations silence anyone who disagrees with them, and many politicians say one thing to earn votes and then do the opposite once they are in office. It does in fact feel as though we have lost our outlet to express ourselves in a meaningful and constructive way. We see provocative news stories of impending doom and violent outbursts. We are inundated with despair and shock at what is happening to our country, regardless of what our political beliefs happen to be.

The Founding Fathers issued the First Amendment not only as a law to be upheld by our government but also as a standard to guide every American throughout their lives. Speak out, and allow others to speak. Hold true to your beliefs, and permit others to hold theirs. This right is our first, and in my honest opinion, our strongest defense against tyranny and injustice.

Thankfully, it has not been and truly never can be stolen away from the masses. Though you may not be a Shakespeare or Seuss, you still possess the ability to write out your thoughts effectively and persuasively. Speak out online, in newspapers and in public. Engage with your state and local politicians: your senators, representatives, governor, mayor whoever is willing to listen. Let them know what you want from them and the actions you believe they should take. It is politicians duty to listen to their constituents, and it is our civic duty to speak when we perceive any form of injustice.

Tanner Engles is a junior majoring in computer science.

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Letter to the editor: Put the First Amendment first - Daily Mississippian

Napolitano: Does the First Amendment restrain Big Tech? – Daily Herald

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When Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, he included in it a list of the colonists grievances with the British government. Notably absent were any complaints that the British government infringed upon the freedom of speech.

In those days, public speech was as acerbic as it is today. If words were aimed at Parliament, all words were lawful. If they were aimed directly and personally at the king as Jeffersons were in the Declaration they constituted treason.

Needless to say, Jefferson and the 55 others who signed the Declaration would all have been hanged for treasonous speech had the British prevailed.

Of course, the colonists won the war, and, six years afterward, the 13 states ratified the Constitution. Two years after ratification, the Constitution was amended by adding the Bill of Rights. The first ratified amendment prohibited Congress from doing what the colonists never seriously complained about the British government doing infringing upon the freedom of speech.

James Madison, who drafted the Bill of Rights, insisted upon referring to speech as the freedom of speech to emphasize that it preexisted the government. If you could have asked Madison where he believed the freedom of speech came from, hed have said it was one of the inalienable rights Jefferson wrote about in the Declaration.

Stated differently, each of the signatories of the Declaration and ratifiers of the Bill of Rights manifested in writing their unambiguous belief that the freedom of speech is a natural right personal to every human. It does not come from the government. It comes from within and cannot be taken away by legislation or executive command.

Yet, a mere seven years later, during the presidency of John Adams, Congress enacted the Alien and Sedition Acts, which punished speech critical of the government.

So, how could the same generation in some cases the same human beings that prohibited congressional infringement upon speech have enacted a statute that punished speech?

To some of the framers the Federalists who wanted a big government as we have today infringing upon the freedom of speech meant silencing it before it was uttered. Today, this is called prior restraint, and the Supreme Court has essentially outlawed it.

To the antifederalists or Democratic-Republicans, as they called themselves the First Amendment prohibited Congress from interfering with or punishing any speech.

Adams Department of Justice indicted, prosecuted and convicted antifederalists for their public speech critical of the government.

When Jefferson won the presidency and the antifederalists won control of Congress, the Federalists repealed the speech suppression parts of the Alien and Sedition Acts on the eve of their departure from congressional control, lest it be used against them.

During the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln locked up hundreds of journalists in the North who were critical of his war efforts. During World War I, President Woodrow Wilson whom my alma mater, Princeton University, is trying to erase from its memory arrested folks for reading the Declaration of Independence aloud and singing German beer hall songs.

Lincoln argued that preserving the Union was more important than preserving the First Amendment, and Wilson argued that the First Amendment only restrained Congress, not the president. Both arguments have since been rejected by the courts.

In the 1950s, the feds successfully prosecuted Cold War dissenters on the theory that their speech was dangerous and might have a tendency to violence. Some of the victims of this torturous rationale died in prison.

The governments respect for speech has waxed and waned. It is at its lowest ebb during wartime. Of course, dissent during wartime which challenges the governments use of force to kill is often the most important speech.

The speech we love needs no protection. The speech we hate does. The government has no authority to evaluate speech. As the framers understood, all people have a natural right to think as we wish and to say and publish whatever we think. Even hateful, hurtful and harmful speech is protected speech.

Yet, in perilous times, such as the present, we have seen efforts to use the courts to block the publication of unflattering books. We have seen state governors use the police to protect gatherings of protesters with whose message they agreed and to disburse critical protesters. We have seen mobs silence speakers while the police did nothing.

And in perilous times, such as the present, we have seen Big Tech companies silencing their opponents. I hate when they do that, but they have every right to do so. They own the bulletin board. Twitter and Facebook can ban any speech they want because they are not the government. And the First Amendment only restrains the government. In the constitutional sense, free speech means only one thing free from government interference.

Punishing speech is the most dangerous business because there will be no end. The remedy for hateful or threatening speech is not silence or punishments; it is more speech speech that challenges the speaker.

Why do government officials want to silence their opponents? They fear an undermining of their power. The dissenters might make more appealing arguments than they do. St. Augustine taught that nearly all in government want to tell others how to live.

How about we all say whatever we want and the government leaves us alone?

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Napolitano: Does the First Amendment restrain Big Tech? - Daily Herald

Ask the expert: The First Amendment and free speech – MSUToday

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Nancy Costello, director of the First Amendment Law Clinic and supervisor of the McLellan Free Speech Online Library in the Michigan State University College of Law, discusses the First Amendment and freedom of speech. The First Amendment Law Clinic is the only program in the country solely dedicated to the protection of student speech and press rights.

In simple terms, what is the First Amendment and what does it do?

The First Amendment to the United States Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights and protects freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, freedom of the press and the right to petition. The First Amendment is one of the most important amendments for the protection of democracy.

Nancy Costello, director of the First Amendment Law Clinic and supervisor of the McLellan Free Speech Online Library in the Michigan State University College of Law.

When was it created?

The First Amendment is part of the Bill of Rights. To protect individual rights, the framers of the U.S. Constitution added 10 amendments to the document in 1791, four years after the Constitution was ratified.

What does the First Amendment say about freedom of speech?

Generally speaking, it means that the government may not jail, fine or impose civil liability on people or organizations based on what they say or write, except in limited circumstances.

President Donald Trump recently was suspended from a number of social media platforms. Is this a violation of his First Amendment rights?

Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or any similar social media platform can censor any persons speech because they are private companies. Censorship is when an entity punishes individuals for their speech or prevents the speech from being expressed. Free speech is the ability to express ones thoughts and opinions without fear of being punished by the government.

The First Amendment protects against the government from censoring speech. None of these social media platforms are part of the government, so President Trump cannot claim his First Amendment rights have been violated.

President Trump was impeached a second time for incitement of insurrection. What is incitement speech?

Incitement speech is not protected by the First Amendment. Incitement speech is when someone encourages lawless action, and that lawless action is imminent and likely. It could be argued that Trump incited the mob violence on Jan. 6 in his summoning and assembling of supporters at the White House rally, his repeated claims that he won the election and his exhorting the crowd to go to the Capitol. Among other things, the president told the crowd, If you dont fight like hell, youre not going to have a country anymore. Not long after Trumps speech, members of the crowd converged on the U.S. Capitol, broke through doors and windows, invaded the Senate and House chambers and private offices, and had violent clashes with police resulting in deaths.

What types of speech are not protected under the First Amendment?Types of speech that arent protected include:

Does the First Amendment only protect U.S. citizens?

Theres no citizenship requirement for First Amendment protection. If you are a resident of the United States, you have freedom of speech, religion, press, assembly and petition.

Link:

Ask the expert: The First Amendment and free speech - MSUToday

Do Critics of Police Have the First Amendment Procedural Protections That Nazis Get? – Reason

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The Ohio Supreme Court just granted review inM.R. v. Niesen, on the question whether "when a lower court imposes a prior restraint on expression, immediate appellate review is required." (The underlying case involves a Cincinnati policeman who sued for libel over a post that accused him "of possibly being associated with white supremacy or of being racist after spotting a video and picture of him allegedly flashing the 'ok' sign at a City Council meeting held to address concerns by those in the Black Lives Matter Movement." The judge responded by issuing apreliminary injunction ordering the defendants not to "publiciz[e], through social media or other channels, Plaintiff's personal identifying information," which apparently includes the policeman's name.)

I think the answer is yes, given the National Socialist Party of Am. v. Village of Skokiecase. With the indispensable help of our excellent pro bono counsel Jeffrey M. Nye (Stagnaro, Saba & Patterson), the UCLA First Amendment Clinic had filed an amicus brief supporting that position and arguing that the court should hear the case, on behalf of Profs. Jonathan Entin, David F. Forte, Andrew Geronimo, Raymond Ku, Stephen Lazarus, Kevin Francis O'Neill, Margaret Christine Tarkington, Aaron H. Caplan; the National Writers Union, the Society of Professional Journalists, the NewsGuild-CWA, Euclid Media Group; and me. Here's the heart of our argument (which I expect we'll also resubmit as a merits-stage brief to the court, now that it has agreed to consider the merits):

{The plaintiff, a police officer, sued the defendants, Ohio citizens who criticized his on-duty conduct providing security at a City Council meeting at Cincinnati City Hall. The complaint raised a defamation claim and other similar tort claims. Less than two days after filing the complaint, after a hearing at which the defendant-appellants were present and at which the plaintiff presented no testimony, the court issued an order that "enjoined" the appellants "from publicizing, through social media or other channels, Plaintiff's personal identifying information." The order did not define "personal identifying information," but the only statute that defines the phrase, R.C. 2913.49(A), defines it to include a person's "name."}

Within 48 hours of filing his complaint, [plaintiff] sought and received a sweeping prior restraint: an order forbidding two Ohio citizens from publishing information about a public official arising out the performance of his official duties. That order, like all prior restraints, is presumptively unconstitutional. But when those citizens, Julie Niesen and Terhas White, appealed that order to the First District, the appellate court dismissed the appeal, concluding that there was no final order.

That dismissal was wrong, and there are at least four reasons why this case presents substantial constitutional questions and issues of public or great general interest.

[A.] The order is a prior restraint of the appellants' free-speech rights.

"The term 'prior restraint' is used to describe administrative and judicial orders forbidding certain communications when issued in advance of the time that such communications are to occur." Bey v. Rasawehr, Slip Opinion No. 2020-Ohio-3301, 25(some quotation marks omitted). "Temporary restraining orders and permanent injunctionsi.e., court orders that actually forbid speech activitiesare classic examples of prior restraints." Id.(quotation marks omitted). "It is inescapable that a regulation of speech 'about' a specific person . . . is a regulation of the content of that speech and must therefore be analyzed as a content-based regulation." Bey at 33.

"[B]efore a court may enjoin the future publication of allegedly defamatory statements based on their content, there must first be a judicial determination that the subject statements were in fact defamatory." Bey at 44(citing O'Brien v. Univ. Community Tenants Union, Inc., 42 Ohio St.2d 242, 246, 327 N.E.2d 753 (1975)). Likewise, a court may enjoin speech that falls within some other exception only after "there has been" a "judicial determination that future postings" by the plaintiffs will fit within that exception (in Bey, this was the "speech integral to criminal conduct" exception). Id. at 45, 47.

The court below forbade Ms. Niesen and Ms. White from mentioning the name of a public official (police officer "M.R.") in any forum or medium, and it thus is a content-based order. This was a decision made by one judge, without the opportunity for a full trial or even comprehensive briefing, less than 48 hours after the complaint was filed, and it thus was not made after judicial determination that the statements were in fact defamatory. Nor is the order limited to forbidding libelous speech, speech that constitutes true threats, or speech that falls into any other First Amendment exception, such as the exception for intentional incitement of imminent and likely criminal conduct, see Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444, 447 (1969). It thus does not satisfy the requirement of falling outside the protection of the First Amendment.

The order prohibits speech that is fully protected by the First Amendment and by Art. I, 11 of the Ohio Constitution. It has no expiration date. The order is a prior restraint of the appellants' speech. And "Prior restraints on First Amendment expression are presumptively unconstitutional." Bey at 60. Cases seeking review of presumptively unconstitutional orders restraining speech are the epitome of cases raising substantial constitutional questions.

[B.] The prior restraint impinges upon the public's rights.

The First Amendment protects not only the rights of speakers, but also the rights of listeners. See Nebraska Press Ass'n v. Stuart, 427 U.S. 539, 609 (1976)(Brennan, J., concurring) ("[I]t is the hypothesis of the First Amendment that injury is inflicted on our society when we stifle the immediacy of speech.") (emphasis added); McCarthy v. Fuller, 810 F.3d 456, 461 (7th Cir. 2015) (anti-libel injunction has "the potential to harm nonparties to the litigation because enjoining speech harms listeners as well as speakers.").

Prior restraints always interfere with the public's constitutional right to listen, but this particular prior restraint also interferes with the public's constitutional right to accessincluding to listen to accounts ofcourt proceedings. That right is well-established. See In re T.R. (1990), 52 Ohio St.3d 6, 16 n.9 (adult civil and criminal proceedings are "presumptively open to the public"); State ex rel. The Repository v. Unger (1986), 28 Ohio St. 3d 418, 421 (both pre-trial and trial proceedings are open to the public); Sup.R. 45(A) (case documents are open to the public). This order interferes with that constitutional right because it prohibits the defendants from discussing the plaintiff by name when talking about this litigation.

The public also has a right (and indeed, a duty) to supervise and scrutinize public officials regarding the performance of their official duties. That is true generally, but this Court has said that it is particularly true when the public official is a police officer and when the conduct being discussed is his participation in court proceedings. See Soke v. Plain Dealer (1994), 69 Ohio St.3d 395, 397.

The order in this case thus represents a constitutional quadruple-whammy: by allowing the public official here to surreptitiously use the Ohio courts to immunize himself from such public scrutiny, the order has interfered with the appellants' speech rights generally; interfered with the public's right to listen to speech on matters of public interest; interfered with the public's right and duty to supervise the proceedings of the state court system that dispenses justice in their name; and interfered with the public's right and obligation to supervise public officials' performance of their official duties. The First Amendment does not permit this type of speech restriction.

[C.] The dismissal order elevates state civil procedure rules over the First Amendment and form over substance.

Because of all the foregoing constitutional problems, the U.S. Supreme Court has held that prior restraints must be subject to immediate appellate review. National Socialist Party of America v. Skokie, 432 U.S. 43 (1977). But the Court of Appeals refused to follow this precedent, explaining its decision to disregard the U.S. Supreme Court's command by saying that it viewed the order as just a "temporary restraining order," and not a preliminary injunction.

That refusal raises yet another substantial constitutional issue. Constitutional rights, including the First Amendment precedents requiring immediate appellate review of prior restraints, apply regardless of state-law distinctions between TROs and preliminary injunctions. Holding otherwise would permit state law (or, more precisely, state court rules) to dictate the applicability of federal constitutional law. That would wrongly elevate state-law form over federal substance, turning the Supremacy Clause on its head. See U.S. Const., art. IV, cl. 2 (federal Constitution and laws "shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding"). Federal law controls over state procedure; not the other way around.

Moreover, the First District's reliance on the supposed status of the prior restraint as a TRO was an inaccurate elevation of form over substance. This Court recently (and unanimously) recognized that TROs can be "classic examples of prior restraints." Bey v. Rasawehr, Slip Opinion No. 2020-Ohio-3301, 25. The immediate appealability of the order therefore does not depend at all on whether the order was a TRO, a preliminary injunction, or anything else.

{And, though it does not matter to the constitutional issue, the appellate court's conclusion that the order was a TRO and not a preliminary injunction is likely incorrect. The order is properly seen as a preliminary injunction because it was not granted ex parte, cf. Civ.R. 65(A) ("A temporary restraining order may be granted without written or oral notice... ."), and, as the Court of Appeals observed at 10, the duration of the order "extended . . . past the expiration of the period set forth in Civ.R. 65 for a temporary restraining order." See id. (limiting TRO to 14 days plus one like extension for good cause; the order here was journalized in July and apparently was intended by the common pleas court to remain in effect at least until September 1).}

[D.] The dismissal order created a split between appellate districts.

Even if the First District's dismissal order had no constitutional implications, it would warrant review and correction by this Court because it created a district split. The First District below held that the First Amendment offers no right to immediate appellate review of an ostensible temporary restraining order. M.R. v. Niesen, 1st Dist. No. C-200302 at 1 (Sept. 9, 2020).

But the Second District has held that "Because the right of free speech must be protected against the chilling effect resulting from even its temporary infringement, the United States Supreme Court held in [Nat'l Socialist Party] that: 'If a State seeks to impose a restraint of this kind, it must provide strict procedural safeguards, including immediate appellate review. . . .'" Int'l Diamond Exch. Jewelers, Inc. v. U.S. Diamond & Gold Jewelers, Inc., 70 Ohio App. 3d 667, 671, 591 N.E.2d 881, 884 (2d Dist. 1991) (citations and some internal markup omitted; emphasis in original). And "Given that an immediate appellate forum for review of an order that imposes a prior restraint upon the exercise of free speech is necessitated by the federal Constitution," an appellant need not "wait until the case has been concluded in the trial court before he may challenge the order." Id. See also Connor Group v. Raney, 2d Dist. Montgomery No. 26653, 2016-Ohio-2959, at 1 ("Although the issuance of a preliminary injunction by a trial court generally is not viewed as a final appealable order, . . . a preliminary injunction that constitutes a prior restraint on speech requires immediate appellate review.").

The Eleventh District agrees: "[W]here an injunction seeks to 'impose a restraint [on First Amendment rights],' there must be strict procedural safeguards, including immediate appellate review." Puruczky v. Corsi, 11th Dist. Geauga No. 2017-G-0110, 2018-Ohio-1335, 15 (paraphrasing Nat'l Socialist Party; some internal markup omitted). "Since Corsi alleges that the injunction substantially impacts his rights and constitutes a prior restraint on his speech, we will proceed to a review of the merits of his appeal." Id.

Unlike the First District's decision below, the holdings of those districts offer no loophole for temporary restraining orders, and those courts exercised their jurisdiction and reviewed (and reversed) the prior restraints. And both Puruczky and Connor Group were libel cases, like this one.

And the Second and Eleventh Districts' approach is correct: As the U.S. Supreme Court has recognized, even temporary restraints on speech can create a chilling effect on the exercise of free speech. See Int'l Diamond, 70 Ohio App. 3d at 671. This Court should also exercise its discretion to review this case and resolve this split of authority on this important constitutional issue that affects fundamental rights. Unless and until it does, the rights of defendants to speak and of the public to listen and supervise their courts and their public officials, will depend on which of the State's appellate districts they reside in.

Proposition of Law no. 1: An order that imposes a prior restraint on speech must be subject to immediate appellate review.

"[I]mmediate appellate review" of prior restraints is constitutionally required. National Socialist Party, 432 U.S. at 44. See also Puruczky; Connor Group; Int'l Diamond, supra.

This principle is fully applicable here. Puruczky and Connor Group involved injunctions entered in response to libel lawsuits, just as this case does. National Socialist Party famously involved Nazis marching in Skokie, Illinois. Nat'l Socialist Party, 432 U.S. at 4344; see also Collin v. Smith, 578 F.2d 1197, 1199 (7th Cir. 1978). If Nazis who want to march in a neighborhood populated with thousands of Holocaust survivors are entitled to immediate appellate review of an injunction against their speech, then citizens criticizing a police officer must be entitled to the same.

This constitutional requirement flows naturally from courts' recognition of the dangers of prior restraints. "A prior restraint...has an immediate and irreversible sanction" that is unlike any other remedy a court may impose, including "a judgment in a defamation case" or even "[a] criminal penalty," because all other sanctions are "subject to the whole panoply of protections afforded by deferring the impact of the judgment until all avenues of appellate review have been exhausted. Only after judgment has become final, correct or otherwise, does the law's sanction become fully operative" for other remedies. Nebraska Press Ass'n v. Stuart, 427 U.S. 539, 559 (1976).

That "panoply of protections" does not exist for a prior restraint, which is why "prior restraints on speech and publication are the most serious and the least tolerable infringement on First Amendment rights." Id.Prior restraints "fall on speech with a brutality and finality all their own." Id. at 609(Brennan, J., concurring in reversal of prior restraint).

More broadly, every day that a prior restraint remains in place is a First Amendment violation, and "[t]he loss of First Amendment freedoms, for even minimal periods of time, unquestionably constitutes irreparable injury." Elrod v. Burns, 427 U.S. 347, 373 (1976). "'Where . . . a direct prior restraint is imposed upon the reporting of news by the media, each passing day may constitute a separate and cognizable infringement of the First Amendment.'" CBS, Inc. v. Davis, 510 U.S. 1315, 1317 (1994)(Blackmun, J., in chambers) (citation omitted); Lugosch v. Pyramid Co. of Onondaga, 435 F.3d 110, 126 (2d Cir. 2006)(endorsing this principle as requiring "expeditious[]" decisionmaking as to restraints on First Amendment rights, there the right of access to court records); Doe v. Pub. Citizen, 749 F.3d 246, 27273 (4th Cir. 2014)(same); Grove Fresh Distributors, Inc. v. Everfresh Juice Co., 24 F.3d 893, 897 (7th Cir. 1994)(same), superseded on other grounds, as stated in Bond v. Utreras, 585 F.3d 1061, 1068 n.4 (7th Cir. 2009). And of course this principle applies beyond the mainstream media, and covers social media users as well.

{Art. I, 11 of the Ohio Constitution "guarantees to '[e]very citizen' the right to publish freely his or her sentiments on all subjects, regardless of that citizen's association or nonassociation with the press." Wampler v. Higgins, 93 Ohio St. 3d 111, 121 (2001). "We have consistently rejected the proposition that the institutional press has any constitutional privilege beyond that of other speakers." Citizens United v. United States, 558 U.S. 310, 352 (2010)(internal quotation marks omitted). "The liberty of the press is not confined to newspapers and periodicals. It necessarily embraces pamphlets and leaflets. . . . The press in its historic connotation comprehends every sort of publication which affords a vehicle of information and opinion." Lovell v. City of Griffin, 303 U.S. 444, 452 (1938); see also Chevaldina v. R.K./FL Mgmt., Inc., 133 So. 3d 1086, 1092 (Fla. Dist. Ct. App. 2014)("Angry social media postings are now common....But analytically, and legally, these rants are essentially the electronic successors of the pre-blog, solo complainant holding a poster on a public sidewalk," and are just as fully protected by the First Amendment).}

The injury inflicted by prior restraints is thus not remediable by vacatur or reversal of a prior restraint at a distant future date after final judgment, especially where (as here) the prior restraint relates to a public official and his conduct in official and court proceedings. The parties and the public have a right to speak contemporaneously, not merely retrospectively, both about public officials and about court proceedings. See Bridges v. California, 314 U.S. 252, 268 (1941)("[P]ublic interest is much more likely to be kindled by a controversial event of the day than by a generalization, however penetrating, of the historian or scientist."); Doe v. Pub. Citizen, 749 F.3d 246, 272 (4th Cir. 2014)(acknowledging the harms of "delayed disclosure" with respect to court proceedings). Immediate appellate review is thus critical to make sure that the injunction does not cause such a loss of First Amendment freedoms.

The logic of these cases turns on the commands imposed by the First Amendmentcommands that override any contrary state procedural distinctions that would limit immediate appellate review. And of course both this Court and the U.S. Supreme Court have recognized that "Temporary restraining orders," no less than "permanent injunctions," "are classic examples of prior restraints" that are fully subject to First Amendment constraints. Bey v. Rasawehr, Slip Opinion No. 2020-Ohio-3301, 25; Alexander v. United States, 509 U.S. 544, 550 (1993).

Yet the First District took a sharply different approach; it concluded that neither the U.S. Supreme Court's Skokie decision nor the Second and Eleventh Districts' decisions applied here, simply because this case involved a temporary restraining order. M.R., 1st Dist. No. C-200302 at 9. The First District did not acknowledge this Court's or the U.S. Supreme Court's treatment of temporary restraining orders as prior restraints, nor did it explain why the First Amendment rule of immediate appellate review of prior restraints would be limited by the TRO/preliminary injunction distinction.

This Court's review is necessary to set forth a uniform rule on when immediate appellate review of prior restraints is necessary.

Conclusion

Prior restraints on speech are rarely constitutional; and to make sure that unconstitutional prior restraints suppress speech for as short a time as possible, both the U.S. Supreme Court and Ohio courts have required that such restraints be subject to immediate appellate review. The injunction in this case is a prior restraint, and thus subject to immediate appellate review; indeed, it is a content-based prior restraint, and one that is not limited to libelous speech or to speech that falls within a First Amendment exception. This Court should step in to correct the serious First Amendment violation in this case, and resolve the disagreement among the Courts of Appeals on whether the normal First Amendment rules apply to temporary restraining orders.

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Do Critics of Police Have the First Amendment Procedural Protections That Nazis Get? - Reason

First Amendment Coalition Files Pleading Asking Appeal Court to Reject Cop Union Attempt to Stop Easy Access to Police Public Records – The Peoples…

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By Anika Khubchandani and Lisbeth Martinez

VENTURA The First Amendment Coalition (FAC)a non-profit public organization committed to freedom of speech, transparency and accountability in government, and community involvement in civic lifehas found itself battling police unions attempting to stop the disclosure of officer files.

The San Raphael-based FAC, founded in 1988, focuses on providing legal consultations on First Amendment issues in addition to overseeing legislation on free speech.

Since the passing of Senate Bill 1421 in 2019, all police records, including officer use-of-force incidents, sexual assault, and acts of dishonesty, must be made accessible to the public. But it hasnt been easy with pushback from unions representing law enforcement.

And, FAC has now become involved in many cases throughout California in which unions representing law enforcement have sought to enjoin the disclosure of records required to be made public.

Before the law went into effect, many law enforcement unions challenged Section 832.7 of SB 1421 in the courts, arguing that the Public Records Act only applied to records regarding incidents after January 1, 2019, making pre-2019 incidents retroactively impermissible. Courts throughout California have ruled that SB 1421 requires the disclosure of pre-2019 records.

Except Californias Second District Court of Appeal in Ventura County.

In this case, the Ventura County Deputy Sheriffs Association (VCDSA) made the same argument as many law enforcement unions, claiming that the privacy rights of police officers would be violated with the disclosure of pre-2019 records.

And now FAC has submitted an amicus brief in support of Appellant Todd E. Howeth, acting in his capacity as Public Defender of Ventura County.

Since this case is the only exception in which a court has failed to fully apply SB 1421 to all reports of police misconduct, this outlier decision creates a prohibition on access to public records and makes it difficult for the public to hold police officers accountable for gross injustices due to a lack of transparency, said FAC.

FAC explains that SB 1421 has clear language requiring all records maintained by public agencies of officer-involved shootings, serious uses of force, and incidents of sexual assault and dishonesty resulting in sustained findings, regardless of whether or not they concern pre-2019 incidents.

Mandating the disclosure of these records is not impermissibly retroactive because retroactivity turns on the triggering activity, which in this case is the request for the records, not the incident described in the records, the brief added.

Moreover, there is no legislative intent suggesting that the law was expected to exclude pre-2019 records, according to the FAC, noting the main function of the legislation was to increase transparency regarding all records of serious misconduct and use of force by peace officers to which it applies.

The VCDSAs entire basis of argument is wrong because California case law is clear that peace officers have never had unfettered privacy rights in the types of records at issue here, argued FAC.

The Superior Courts judgment in support of VCDSAs stance on prohibiting Ventura County from disclosing pre-2019 records is wrong because it fails to follow binding authority from the Court of Appeal, First Appellate District, insisted FAC.

And the pleading charges the Superior Court is also wrong on the merits because SB 1421 mandates the transparency of pre-2019 records to the public, and VCDSAs arguments fail to follow these merits.

The FAC filing continues: Considering the application of SB 1421 to pre-2019 incidents does not attach any new legal consequences to past events, the disclosure of the records will not make any conduct that was previously legal illegal or punishable by law. Therefore, since no liability is imposed on police officers for their past conduct, SB 1421 only expands the number of people that can access and obtain certain categories of police personnel records.

These records have always been available in many circumstancesnow they just include members of the public who make requests for information under the California Public Rights Act.

Since transparency and accountability are the foundations of a free and democratic society, FAC urges the Court to reverse the judgment of the Superior Court and compel Ventura County to join other counties in disclosing all applicable public records under SB 1421.

Anika Khubchandani is a 4th year student at UC Davis majoring in both Political Science and Economics. She is from San Jose, CA.

Lisbeth Martinez is a third year at UC Davis, double majoring in Communication and Political Science. She currently lives in Shafter, California.

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First Amendment Coalition Files Pleading Asking Appeal Court to Reject Cop Union Attempt to Stop Easy Access to Police Public Records - The Peoples...

Letter: To everyone, including friends and family members, who feel First Amendment rights are being denied – Sumter Item

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I write not wanting to ruffle feathers or strain friendships. Yet, I am reminded that we remain silent because silence is easier. There may come a time I need friends to speak out on my behalf and they might not because I've set a poor example.

I am troubled by the messages that I've received over the last few days by people who are enraged because their freedom of speech rights are being denied. I interpret this to mean their Twitter accounts have been closed.

First, I'd like to point out your freedom of speech has not been denied, or I wouldn't be hearing from you. You are coming through on another forum maybe not the one you typically use, but I'm guessing you'll have a new platform shortly. Remember that Facebook and Twitter are private companies, and they do have the right to require that their users follow certain rules. Remember all of those pages you didn't read when you signed on to be a user? You simply checked, "I agree." Well, that's what you agreed to.

Second, the Supreme Court has ruled that there are a few exceptions to the First Amendment. They include obscenity, defamation, fraud, incitement, true threats and speech integral to already criminal conduct. There's a reason you can't stand up in a crowded theater and yell "Fire!" It's incitement and causes danger to others as they attempt to flee.

One example: In November, Sidney Powell, then-lawyer for President Trump, accused Dominion Voting Systems of promoting widespread voter fraud through voting machines she claimed were manufactured in Venezuela for the explicit purpose of throwing elections. All of those claims were proven false, but, nonetheless, they were picked up by social media and spread across the internet like mice in a grain bin. The president repeated Powell's claims, and his ardent followers took his words to heart, becoming more and more convinced that their candidate had been robbed of his election. He, as well as other congressmen and women, jumped on the groundswell of this example of misinformation despite state and federal judges (many Republican) throwing the claims out of court.

Employees of Dominion Voting Systems began receiving death threats. Imagine that. You do your job, someone falsely claims you cheated, and without any facts to these claims, your business plummets, and your 300 workers and their families fear for their lives. To top it off, the president of the United States continues to feed this misinformation to his loyal supporters to the point they become outraged.

So, back to the original question: Has this speech included "obscenity, defamation, fraud, incitement, true threats and speech integral to already criminal conduct?" If you, by chance, "shared" information on a "private" company's platform, whether you knew or didn't know that it was false, and it led to defamation and inciting others to violence, then yes - your account was blocked. That is a lesson to us all to be careful about casually hitting the "share" button.

Dominion Voting Systems is suing Sidney Powell for $1.3 billion (with a B), and the CEO claims that's just for starters. More suits are being filed. Are Facebook and Twitter concerned because they allowed their platform to be used to spread the lies that resulted in defamation, fraud, incitement, threats and criminal conduct? You bet.

Like millions of others, I am distressed and sickened that our country is being divided over the issue of honesty a quality I'm sure both sides agree with in principle. I understand completely why others can listen to the same speaker as I do and walk away with a different opinion as to the best approach for making our country a strong, productive and moral society for our children to inherit. In doing so, however, we have to start by agreeing with what is true and what is being propagated for personal and political gain. If someone is milking millions off a falsehood, then they're going to buy the cow? We've got too many cash cows in our midst, and they're doing severe damage to the land we love. It's time to trim the herd.

BRENDA BEVAN REMMES

Mayesville

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Letter: To everyone, including friends and family members, who feel First Amendment rights are being denied - Sumter Item

What the First Amendment Really Says About Whether Trump Incited the Capitol Riot – Slate

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This article is part of the Free Speech Project, a collaboration between Future Tense and the Tech, Law, & Security Program at American University Washington College of Law that examines the ways technology is influencing how we think about speech.

TRUMP INCITES MOB read the banner headline on the Jan. 7 New York Times the morning after a seditious crowd stormed the Capitol to try to block certification of the 2020 election results. Aside from certain loyalists, it seems that most agree that under the colloquial understanding of incite, Trump incited the insurrection. Even some insurrectionists pointed the finger at him, like the one who said, We were invited by the president of the United States, as they lay siege to the Capitol.

When the Senate tries Trump on the single charge in his second impeachmentINCITEMENT OF INSURRECTIONit will doubtless consider whether his incendiary Jan. 6 diatribe is protected expression under the First Amendment, as his defenders claim. The question will also be central in a criminal prosecution if the D.C. attorney generals current investigation leads to an indictment. So, did Trumps words satisfy a legal definition of incitement, whether in a criminal court or his Senate trial?

To answer that question, we have to start with Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969). In an opinion joined by all of the justices, the Supreme Court overturned the conviction of a Ku Klux Klan leader under a state statute that criminalized advocacy of crime violence, or other unlawful methods of terrorism as a means of effecting political change and barred assembly with any group that promoted such doctrines. The court held that the law criminalized too much speech because it failed to distinguish between mere advocacy at the heart of political speech and incitement to imminent lawless action, which the First Amendment does not protect.

The Brandenburg ruling proclaimed that freedom of speech protects advocacy of the use of force or of illegal acts except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to produce such action. That test continues to govern incitement law.

Brandenburg involved an appeal from a criminal conviction by a Ku Klux Klan leader, Clarence Brandenburg, who had advised the hooded crowd at a Klan gathering that if the federal government continue[d] to suppress the Caucasian race, its possible that there might have to be some revengeance taken. A wooden cross was burned during the rally, and a video revealed weapons. No acts followed. Brandenburgs exhortation lacked imminence. The possibility of illegal forms of revenge was remote; the threat of vengeance was conditional, only to occur if something out of the crowds control happened. Brandenburg did not call for any immediate action.

Trumps speech on Jan. 6 was very different from Brandenburgs. At noonwith Congress scheduled to meet in joint session at 1 p.m.Trump exhorted the crowd: And after this, were going to walk down and Ill be there with you. Were going to walk down to the Capitol. The crowd applauded. Later, wrapping up, he reiterated, So we are going to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue and we are going to the Capitol. Trumps words more than satisfy the imminence requirement.

Whether he directed illegal acts presents a trickier question. Trump did not specifically instruct people to storm the Capitol, disrupt the certification of Bidens election, destroy or steal government property, kill law enforcement officers, or terrorize the officials in the building, including his own vice president. Its important to note, however, that incitement can be implicit as well as explicit.

Trump did nothing to stem the violence while he watched it unfold live on television. He never seriously exhorted the crowd to cease anddesist.

Fact-finders sitting in judgment will decide whether Trumps language was implicitly directed at inciting or producing imminent lawlessness. But public actions from that day suggest it was. He stirred people up with baseless claims, rejected by dozens of courts since Election Day, that he had won the election in a landslide. He insisted, We wont have a country if we dont fight like hell, adding that we will not let them silence your voices. Were not going to let that happen. He questioned the steadfastness of Vice President Mike Pence (Im not hearing good stories), whom the insurgents later threatened to hang. Meanwhile, the audience chanted, Fight for Trump, suggesting they got the message.

That context matters. After Trump spoke, many of those who listened to him in person attacked the Capitol. Trumps own behavior that afternoon also proves significant. He did nothing to stem the violence while he watched it unfold live on television. He never seriously exhorted the crowd to cease and desist. When he finally spoke, he undercut his scripted law-and-order message by reiterating that a sacred landslide victory had been viciously stripped away from great patriots. He urged them to Go home with love. Trump reportedly called freshman Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, seeking his help in delaying certification of the Electoral College count. All of this demonstrates that Trump intended the result he got: insurrection. It also points to dereliction of duty to protect the government and the Constitution.

Senators or jurors might also justifiably look backward to Trumps Dec. 19 tweet inviting supporters to gather in Washington on Jan. 6Big protest Be there, will be wildand possibly further back to all of Trumps efforts to delegitimize the 2020 election. None of those earlier tweets and statements count as incitement because any threat they contained was remote, but they provide context for how Trumps listeners understood his Jan. 6 speech. Trump, in turn, presumably knew that people from all over the country planned to bring weapons and disrupt the Capitol because they shared their plans on public social media sites. Those preparations increased the likelihood that Trumps speech would spark lawlessness, though Trump may argue that the insurrection had independent momentum.

Legal observers debate whether courts should look to the average listener or to specific listeners, like the self-selected group that attended Trumps rally, to determine the likelihood that the crowd will take action. But Trumps words amount to incitement under either standard. Lets start with the subjective. We know how a significant portion of those at Trumps rally understood his language, not only from their actions but from their subsequent words. For example, after she was arrested, Jenna Ryan, who flew from Texas to Washington for the Jan. 6 events, justified her conduct by saying: I was following my president. I thought I was following what we were called to do.

The widespread impression that Trumps speech incited the ensuing riot appears to satisfy an objective standard as well. Many who watched Trumps speech from afar feared it would trigger violence, though we lacked the imagination to envision the horror that followed. An audience did not have to be specially primed to hear Trumps speech as a call to action and as permission to, in the words of one reporter, take more extreme measures.

Trumps defenders point to a single sentence of his speech to counter the incitement charge. A master at crafting deniability, Trump put on the record: I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard (emphasis added). He then pivoted to his pervasive imagery of warfare: Our country has been under siege for a long time.

This same maneuver had enabled Trump to escape liability in a civil suit brought by peaceful protesters who had been roughed up at one of his campaign rallies in 2016. Trump convinced an appellate court that his single admonition, Dont hurt em, insulated his five exhortations to get em out of here from any plausible reading as advocating violence.

But if a single sentence in an inflammatory speech could inoculate incitement from liability, every sentient speaker would add the requisite phrase while inciting to their hearts content. Here, the extent of inflammatory rhetoric compared with a passing nod at peaceful behavior indicates Trumps language was directed to incite and was likely to incite. Still, that will be question for senators or jurors to decide.

In the end, the intricacies of incitement doctrine in criminal law may not matter in the Senate. Different rules apply.

Senate rules are conspicuously silent regarding the standard of proof in impeachment trials. When Chief Justice John Roberts presided over Trumps first impeachment trial, he submitted the case to the senators for a vote without specifying any standard, or indeed giving any guidance at all.

Absent guidance, a senator might justifiably conclude a preponderance of the evidence established that Trump incited insurrection, while in criminal proceedings the prosecution would have to show that it had proved each part of the Brandenburg test beyond a reasonable doubt. A conviction in the Senate would not broaden the constitutional definition of incitement. Under the criminal standard, Trumps implicit direction to the crowd on Jan. 6 might fall short of the stringent Brandenburg requirement that the speech be directed to producing imminent lawless action.

That distinction alone could lead to a conviction in the Senate, followed by a decision not to pursue charges or an acquittal in federal court. Neither of those outcomes should be seen as undermining the legitimacy of a Senate conviction.

In a moment of crisis, it may prove tempting to disregard the fundamental premise that free speech is essential to democratic self-governance. The First Amendment recognizes that speakers hope their words will lead to action and not prove impotentbut it never protects violence. Brandenburg allows dissidents of every stripe to organize, motivate, and act. It must continue to protect movements from Black Lives Matter and environmental causes to the Proud Boys, until they cross the line from zealous advocacy to unprotected incitement.

Future Tense is a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University that examines emerging technologies, public policy, and society.

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What the First Amendment Really Says About Whether Trump Incited the Capitol Riot - Slate

Knight Institute Urges Supreme Court To Preserve Ruling That Trump Violated First Amendment 01/25/2021 – MediaPost Communications

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The Supreme Court should leave in place a lower court's ruling that former President Trump violated the First Amendment by blocking critics on Twitter, a free speech advocacy group argues.

The public interest in preventing impermissible viewpoint discrimination in government-operated social media accounts weighs heavily in favor of keeping the Second Circuits judgmentin place, the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University argues in papers filed Thursday.

The papers come in response to arguments filed by the Department of Justice on thelast full day of Trump's presidency.

The government lawyers urged theSupreme Court to find both that the battle over the Twitter blocks is moot -- given that Trump is once again a private citizen -- and that a lower court ruling against him should be vacated.

The legal battle dates to 2017, when the Knight Institute sued Trump on behalf of seven critics who were blocked by him on Twitter.

Knight said the blocks violated users' free-speechrights, arguing that Trump's Twitter account was a public forum -- comparable to city streets, parks and other places where the government can't censor people based on their opinions.

U.S.District Court Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald in New York sided with the Knight Institute and ruled that Trump acted unconstitutionally by blocking social media users based on their viewpoints.

The Justice Department appealed to the 2nd Circuit, arguing that Trump acts in a personal capacity, not an official one, when he blocks people on Twitter. The First Amendmentprohibits the government -- but not private individuals -- from censoring criticism.

In 2019, the appellate court rejected the White House's position, ruling that evidence of the account'sofficial nature was overwhelming.

The Justice Department then sought review by the Supreme Court. In its most recent papers, the Justice Department argued that the 2nd Circuitruling was deeply problematic.

Allowing the decision below to stand would be harmful, no longer to President Trump, but to the Presidency itself and to other governmentalofficials, the Justice Department wrote.

The Knight Institute counters that the appellate court's ruling should be preserved because it provides a sensible framework that is ofvalue to the legal community and the public.

The organization added that the 2nd Circuit's decision rests on a unique set of facts and doesn't pre-ordain the result of any futurelawsuit involving other public officials and other accounts that may be used in different ways.

The Supreme Court has had the case on its conference calendar since November, but hasn'tyet said whether it will review the ruling.

A decision could come as early as Monday.

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Knight Institute Urges Supreme Court To Preserve Ruling That Trump Violated First Amendment 01/25/2021 - MediaPost Communications

Do Social Media Companies Have Too Much Power Over The First Amendment? – WFAE

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Thursday, Jan. 21, 2021

While much of former President Trumps language was not traditionally presidential, it has been largely protected thanks to the First Amendment.

But since the U.S. Capitol riot, Trump has been banned from many major social media sites and some right-wing apps were muzzled.

While critics suggest this is a slippery slope toward total censorship of conservative thought, supporters of the restrictions argue Trumps incitement of the riot was deadly and allowing him to stoke further violence is dangerous.

As social media, press freedoms and a deeply divided America collide, we revisit the question: what does the First Amendment actually protect?

We sit down with national experts to analyze what freedom of speech means as Big Tech remains more powerful than ever and a new administration takes office.

GUESTS

RonNell Andersen-Jones, professor of law at the University of Utah and affiliated fellow at Yale Law Schools Information Society Project

Jillian York, director for International Freedom of Expression at Electronic Frontier Foundation

Katie Fallow, senior staff attorney at Knight First Amendment Institute

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Do Social Media Companies Have Too Much Power Over The First Amendment? - WFAE

Permit Requirements for Filming in National Parks Violate First Amendment – Reason

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In this morning'sPrice v. Barrdecision, Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly (D.D.C.) held:

[1.] Filming, including for purposes of making a film that would be commercially distributed, is protected by the First Amendment.

[2.] The permit requirements are content-based, because

[The requirements] do not apply generically to all commercial activity in national parks. To the contrary, the permitting regime applies to filming, a form of expressive speech, and specifically to a type of filming, "commercial filming." 54 U.S.C. 100905(a). Section 100905's implementing regulations make this content-based distinction even more apparent, defining "commercial filming" as the "recording of a moving image by a person, business, or other entity for a market audience with the intent of generating income." The application of 100905's permitting regime, therefore, necessarily turns on an assessment of whether the content of a film was meant to appeal to a market audience and generate income.

Consider, for example, the enforcement of 100905 against Mr. Price and his film Crawford Road. To determine whether Crawford Road ran afoul of 100905's permitting regime, NPS officials needed to review the film and determine ex post whether the content Mr. Price included therein was geared towards a "market audience" or evinced some "intent of generating income." 43 C.F.R. 5.12. If, however, Mr. Price's film was "non-commercial" or happened to feature only news worthy "information about current events or of current interest to the public," the permitting requirement would not apply, see id. at 5.4(a).

[3.] The requirements must therefore satisfy strict scrutiny, which they can't do. The "governmental interest in revenue collection" isn't compelling enough; and the regulations aren't narrowly tailored to the interest in "[p]rotecting national park land and the resources it contains":

First, 100905 and its implementing regulations are overinclusive. On their face, 100905 and its implementing regulations flatly require a paid permit for all "commercial filming." This regime, therefore, requires "individuals and small groups to obtain permits before engaging in expressive activities," just the same as it does for large groups with heavy and potentially disruptive filming equipment. Defendants offer no explanation for how the broad sweep of this permitting regime is sufficiently tailored to the government's goal of protecting federal land.

Relatedly, 100905's permitting regime also excludes non-commercial filming without any consideration for the damage that activity might also cause to national parks. For example, a "non-commercial" filming production carried out by a non-profit organization or a news crew would escape the reach of 100905's permitting regime, even if those groups used heavy filming equipment that damaged federal land.

I'm not sure that a distinction between commercial filming and noncommercial filming, turning just on whether the result is to be commercially distributed, iscontent-based. But I agree that the news-gathering exemption, for "information that is about current events or that would be of current interest to the public," makes the rules content-based, see Regan v. Time, Inc. (1984). And I agree that the rules can't pass the strict scrutiny required for such content-based restrictions.

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Permit Requirements for Filming in National Parks Violate First Amendment - Reason

Does the First Amendment protect you on social media? – RADIO.COM

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PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) Several social media platforms have kicked President Trump off their feeds over allegations he incited the violence at the Capitol, while last week, the Philadelphia District Attorney's office began investigating whether one of their own detectives committed a crime when he allegedly posted he was ready for war over the election results.

All of this begs the question: what are your First Amendment rights on social media?

Basically, you are free to yell and scream in protest in the town's square, as it's a public space, operated by the government. But when it comes to social media, First Amendment attorney Kaitlan Gurney with Ballard Spahr said you don't actually have a "right" to be there.

"You have no first amendment right to post anything on Twitter, because it's a private company," she explained. That also goes for Facebook, Snapchat or any other platform, as social media isn't a protected platform for free speech.

"It's their own private constitution, if you will, but the U.S. Constitution is simply not involved," she added. "When one of my kids invites a friend over to my house, they need to abide by my rules. And that's exactly what's happening on social media. These companies are saying if you post on my platform, you need to abide by my rules."

When it comes to your job, Gurney said you have to abide by their social media policies.

"It can be a little different if you are a government employee or if you have a specific contract that lays out the rules for which you need to abide by, but if you are just a typical employee working for an everyday company and you are considered a work for hire, you can absolutely lose your job for what you say on social media," she said.

As for the detective, he has been suspended and relieved of his weapon, according to a DAO spokeswoman, while they investigate whether he advocated for a violent crime.

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Does the First Amendment protect you on social media? - RADIO.COM

Vaccinated tourists can now visit the Seychelles without quarantining – Euronews

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The Seychelles has become the first country in the world to allow vaccinated tourists to enter the country without the need to quarantine.

Travellers who have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 will still need to follow social distancing measures, but they will now be allowed to visit the Indian Ocean archipelago without self-isolating upon arrival.

The country began vaccinating its population earlier this month, rolling out the Sinopharm vaccine on 10 January.

Tourism is arguably the most important industry to the Seychelles economy, with 15 per cent of the working population directly employed by the sector. The relaxed restrictions for vaccinated tourists are being introduced in the hope that this can give a much-needed economic boost to the country.

The Seychelles has had 746 cases of COVID-19 in total and there is an upward trend of infections there at the moment.

As a result, the government has tightened entry restrictions, depending on the risk in the country youre coming from.

If you are travelling there, you will need to send an application form to the Public Health Authority before you travel. This applies to all travellers, even those who have received the vaccine.

Until 28 January, the government has said that international tourists must have a negative PCR test result before departure and be prepared to self-isolate at their accommodation for 10 days upon arrival.

To be exempt from self-isolating on arrival, youll need to have received both doses of the Covid-19 vaccine two weeks before you depart for the Seychelles.

As well as easing restrictions for vaccinated tourists, the Seychelles are also launching a major push for conservation-focused travel.

While most tourists flock to the inner islands of the Seychelles, the more remote places such as Alphonse Island remain largely undisturbed, which means theyre teeming with wildlife.

Alphonse is the only outer island to currently have accommodation for tourists - in the form of luxury beach bungalows and villas. Its a one hour flight from Mah, the largest island in the Seychelles.

A lot of the tourism activities on Alphonse revolve around the sea: from popular water sports such as paddle boarding to conservation and marine safaris. And from May this year, a new experience could give you a real taste of being a marine conservationist.

Visitors to Alphonse Island will have the opportunity to see the islands beautiful marine life up close - and even have the chance to help with conservation projects.

The Explorer Season Conservation Experience is due to run between May and November this year. Activities include: underwater wildlife photography, planting trees, feeding giant tortoise and beach clean-ups.

With travel accounting for 30 per cent of the GDP, the Seychelles has been hit hard by the current pandemic, so, like other tourism-dependent nation, the country is hopeful that a vaccine will help restart the industry soon. .

But the World Health Organisation (WHO) have warned governments not to rush to relax restrictions on immunised travellers while the full effectiveness of the vaccine is still unknown.

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Vaccinated tourists can now visit the Seychelles without quarantining - Euronews

Everything You Need To Know Before Visiting The Amazing Seychelles – TravelAwaits

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Best Places To Stay

The accommodation available in the Seychelles ranges from super luxury to luxury to normal and budget. It really all depends on your budget and the occasion. But sometimes the occasion is simply being in the Seychelles, so why not?

A private island reached by helicopter or small plane from Mahe, Fregate Island Private is a nature reserve where humans take second place to nature. Sixteen villas nestle in the greenery, each offering a large living room villa, a bedroom villa, indoor and outdoor bathrooms, a small pool, all connected by private boardwalks, and any meals you wish delivered right to your front door. Each villa comes with a golf buggy to get around, and each beach has an occupied sign and a phone to call up for cocktails or snacks brought down to you. Not cheap, but also not the priciest, and so worth it.

Au Font De Mer is one of several self-catering options available on the main island and has good ratings. Also, look at the Airbnb options; you can get apartments and beach villas at reasonable prices.

For a mid-range hotel chain, you could do a lot worse than the Hilton on Mahe island. With its private beach, private pools in their villas, restaurants overlooking the ocean and clean, and modern styling, this is a good choice.

You will not need a visa to enter the Seychelles, and you will get your lovely stamp upon arrival. It is recommended that all your routine vaccinations are up to date, but you do not need any specific vaccinations, nor any malaria prophylaxis.

The language is Seychellois Creole, which is rooted in French, but English and French are also widely spoken and understood, and all the hotel staff speaks English. The currency is the Seychelles rupee, but prices are often listed in euros and dollars, both of which are accepted in larger stores and hotels, but not necessarily in street stalls or by market vendors.

It might be worth mentioning that there really is plenty of wildlife in the Seychelles, even in the luxury resorts. When I stayed on Fregate Island, a couple had to be helicoptered out after one night because the bride could not cope with the lizards that shared their villa. That said, Fregate is a nature reserve where all creatures are encouraged to enjoy themselves, but if you are squeamish, it may be better to stay on the main island in a hotel where lizards and geckos are kept firmly outside.

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Everything You Need To Know Before Visiting The Amazing Seychelles - TravelAwaits

Got the vaccine? Then you can now hit the beach in Seychelles – Time Out

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There arent many reasonsnotto go to Seychelles. This archipelago off the eastern coast of Africa is famous for some of theworldsmost spectacularbeaches, wildlife reserves full of giant tortoises, aone-offCreole culture and some genuinely incredible seafood. And dont let the jet-set reputation fool you like the Maldives, Seychelleseven flashier Indian Ocean neighbour, its possible to visit on a budget.

However, until today there was one big problem:you could only visit Seychelles from a short list of approved low-risk countries, with a mandatory test and a five-day quarantine on arrival. (The country locked down in March last year and has been reopening tourismcautiously.) So if you were from anywhere else in the world, travel was off the cards.

Now thats due to change and the new rules could point the way forward for post-vaccine travel in 2021. From today, Seychelles will admit anyone, from any country, who can prove they have had a vaccine against Covid-19.

Specifically, youll need to have hadyour final dose ofan approved vaccine at least two weeks before you jet off. That means the very first waveof key workers and older, more vulnerable citizens whove had vaccines in countries such as the UK and US could already be eligible. And most of them could probably usea beach break.

The rest of usmight have to hang about a bit. But ifgetting the jab means the difference between staying at home and heading off on a much-delayed dream trip, you can bet were not going to miss that appointment.

Planning your next getaway? Here are 21 things for travellers to look forward to in 2021, and our travel editors tips on the best places to visit this year.

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Got the vaccine? Then you can now hit the beach in Seychelles - Time Out

Why Romania is a better post-lockdown holiday option than the Seychelles – Telegraph.co.uk

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But I stray from my point. The main thing is, avoid the settlement of Glod which means mud. Spend the first few days of this, your holiday of a lifetime, in Bucharest. Contemplate the shockingly huge white palace and thoughts of what might have been yet more international debt and oppression and indeed what was. All aristocrats were rudely awoken en masse, loaded onto trucks and shipped over the border.

Then set off with a glad heart and perhaps a stiff drink into the countryside, there to explore the wonders of Romania today fields worked as our ancestors did, 200 years ago. Over yonder, stoic horses pull their plough. Near at hand,scarfed ladies scuttle homeward crossing themselves fearfully, as the skies strangely darken and mists roll in.

Now, far be it for me to indulge in crude rustic stereotypes of backward Middle Europe the very idea! But I feel no homage to Romania would be complete without reference to Count Dracula. Really, theres no escaping him ever since Vlad the Impaler (c. 142877) began impaling local denizens, and Bram Stoker for good measure threw in howling wolves and vampirism.

The poor Romanians. Just because a certain Late Victorian author successfully found a means of channelling our repressed Gothic fantasies some of these blatantly sexual, I tell you the Transylvanians have been lumbered with a whole lot of other peoples wants.As if Romania hasnt suffered enough. Have I mentioned the plague of 181314?

Look, theres much more to say less silly stuff, about castles decaying in splendour,exquisite forests, crumbling spa towns and a thriving shoe manufacturing sector.The serious point is this: Romania has a profound depth which the Seychelles do not.The latter have got fine nature reserves but for the most theyre just islands of superficiality, beaches of childish delight.They too feed on fantasies, but of calmlylapping waters and a land where you might forget. And thats the trouble. The place is forgettable. Romania, though, offers consequence. Yes there are still a few horses and carts, yes there are wolves if youre lucky. Also, theres history, and a population emerging from a great darkness.

And that I find immeasurably reassuring in these unsettling times. Romania has no turquoise sea but its got the blue Danube, and its also got meaning and resilience. I love the place.

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Why Romania is a better post-lockdown holiday option than the Seychelles - Telegraph.co.uk

Ambassador for United States to the Republic of Seychelles bids Farewell – Office of the President of the Republic of Seychelles

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19 January 2021 | Foreign Affairs

The President of the Republic, H.E Wavel Ramkalawan bade farewell to the outgoing Ambassador for United States to the Republic of Seychelles, H.E. David Reimer via a video conference call from Mauritius this morning, at State House.

Due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and associated travel restrictions, the farewell call was done virtually in the presence of the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Tourism, Mr Sylvestre Radegonde.

On behalf of the government and the people of Seychelles, President Ramkalawan expressed his appreciation to the Ambassador for the exceptional contributions made in deepening ties between Seychelles and United States during his tenure. In echoing my sincere appreciation for the friendship and commendable work done in strengthening the friendship between our two nations, I wish you great success and prosperity in your new endeavours, said President Ramkalawan.

On his part Ambassador Reimer, reassured the President of the continuous support of his government through his successor and expressed hope that relations between Seychelles and the United States would be further consolidated in the various areas of cooperation.

Amd. Reimer was accredited as the Ambassador for United States to the Republic of Seychelles on 6th February 2018 and was based in Mauritius.

The United States of America and the Republic of Seychelles established Diplomatic relations on 29thJune 1976.

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Ambassador for United States to the Republic of Seychelles bids Farewell - Office of the President of the Republic of Seychelles

More contributions to the Covid-19 Relief Fund – News – Office of the President of the Republic of Seychelles

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21 January 2021 | State House

It was a busy morning for State House as more donors came to present their contribution to the Covid-19 Relief Fund in order to show their support for the vaccination programme that the country is engaged in. The President of the Republic, H.E Wavel Ramkalawan met with each donor not only to receive their contribution, but also to engage with them on their plight at this time.

The donations came from the following:

The President commended the donors for the extraordinary response so far.

There is a new sense of solidarity in the country and this should help us surmount the economic difficulties we are facing at the moment. Now, more than ever, we should unite as a country in order to get through the present difficulties. The National COVID-19 Immunisation Campaign is an important milestone in achieving that, said the President.

On their part, the donors congratulated the government for forging ahead with the vaccination programme to ensure the population is protected and expressed the hope that economic activities would resume at the soonest for the best interest of Seychelles.

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More contributions to the Covid-19 Relief Fund - News - Office of the President of the Republic of Seychelles