Monthly Archives: February 2012

by Rich Bird Post-Tribune correspondent February 23, 2012 3:34PM

Edgar Corns and his wife, Darlene at their home in Lowell. Edgar, a retired farmer, has been designated as Fraternal MVP by the National Fraternal Congress of America for his volunteer work and charities. Photo by Scott R. Brandush for the Post-Tribune

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Updated: February 23, 2012 6:36PM

CROWN POINT — Citing the Constitutional First Amendment right to free speech, Lake County election officials tossed out a complaint stemming from a campaign flier that called Lowell Councilman Edgar Corns a “part-time” resident.

Corns — a Republican — filed the complaint against former Ward 5 Councilman David Gard, current Ward 1 Councilman Craig Earley and the South Lake County Democratic Precinct Organization.

Addressing the Lake County Board of Elections and Registration on Thursday, Corns pointed to the flier, which he called a “hate letter” paid for by the organization and approved by Gard and Earley. He said he was humiliated at the polls when confronted by people about the part-time residency charge.

“They have no proof of any of this,” Corns said. “It’s all lies. … This was sent through the U.S. Postal Service, and I don’t think that’s right.”

Speaking in his defense, Earley said that Corns occasionally spends time away from his residence, and that Corns spent between four and five weeks in Florida last year. He said the campaign strategy was an attempt to show voters that Corns may miss meetings or be away during an emergency.

GOP Elections Board member Patrick Gabrione questioned Earley on the strategy.

“So you think anyone who goes on vacation is a part-time resident? I recently went out of town for a couple days. Am I a part-time resident?” he said.

Earley responded no, and said he believes a “normal” family will vacation for one to two weeks.

County Clerk Mike Brown, made the motion to dismiss the complaint.

“In free speech, people are allowed to say what they feel. That’s what makes the country great.”

Ronna Lukasik-Rosenbaum, chairwoman of the South County Democratic Precinct Organization, said she was happy for the board’s unanimous vote.

“This was a waste of everyone’s time,” she said.

Original post:
Election flier passes free speech muster, Lake County board says

February 23, 2012, 9:57 AM EST

By Laurie Asseo and Greg Stohr

(Updates with lawyers’ arguments starting in eighth paragraph.)

Feb. 22 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. Supreme Court justices grappled with whether Congress can make it a crime to falsely claim having been awarded a military medal, in a case testing the reach of the Constitution’s free-speech protection.

Hearing arguments today on the Stolen Valor Act, the justices discussed wartime bravery, high school diplomas and lies people tell on dates. The law punishes people with as much as a year in prison for lying about receiving a medal. A federal appeals court said the law violated the Constitution’s free- speech protection, and President Barack Obama’s administration is appealing.

A false claim of receiving military honors “does diminish the medal in many respects,” Justice Anthony Kennedy said during the hour-long argument in Washington. Still, he and other justices suggested that upholding the law might broaden the kinds of lies the government could sanction, beyond matters like perjury and false statements to a federal agent.

“Where do you stop?” asked Chief Justice John Roberts. He asked how the stolen-valor law would differ from making it a crime to claim falsely to have earned a high school diploma, a matter that can be verified just as easily.

“What is the First Amendment value in a lie?” Roberts said later in the argument session.

‘Big Deal’

The case involves Xavier Alvarez, one of the first people charged under the 2005 law. That year, he was serving as an elected member of the local water board in Pomona, California, when he said at a board meeting that he served 25 years in the Marines and was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. In truth, he had never served in the military.

Prosecutors have filed charges under the Stolen Valor Act in 45 cases since the law was enacted, Alvarez said in court papers.

“The point of these medals is that it’s a big deal,” U.S. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli argued in support of the law. For the government to “stand idly by when one charlatan after another makes a false claim to have won the medal does debase the value of the medal in the eyes of the soldiers.”

Even though people are “entitled to be upset by these false claims,” Alvarez didn’t harm anyone and was quickly exposed as a liar, countered his lawyer, Jonathan Libby, deputy federal public defender in Los Angeles. Alvarez’s statements were not the same as an intentional infliction of emotional distress, which could be sanctioned, his lawyer said.

Legitimate Speech

Justice Sonia Sotomayor questioned Verrilli on what sort of harm the law is trying to stop.

“I too take offense when people make these kinds of claims, but I take offense when someone I’m dating makes a claim that’s not true,” Sotomayor said.

Conversely, Justice Elena Kagan asked Libby what kind of legitimate speech would be discouraged by the stolen-valor law.

“It’s not that it may necessarily chill any truthful speech,” Libby said, adding that people know whether they’ve won a military honor.

Since 1923, federal law has prohibited wearing a military medal without authorization. Kennedy and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg asked how that differed from the speech prohibited by the Stolen Valor Act, and they expressed skepticism when Libby said the 1923 law involved conduct rather than speech.

False Information

“There is real harm” in falsely claiming military honors “and yet I can think of instances where we do want to protect false information,” said Justice Stephen Breyer.

Justice Antonin Scalia suggested giving a “medal of shame” to people who falsely claim to have been honored for valor. Roberts said that too would be barred under Libby’s argument because it would be a government sanction for speech.

Alvarez was indicted for violating the Stolen Valor Act and pleaded guilty, while reserving his right to appeal on First Amendment grounds. Alvarez was sentenced to three years of probation, a $5,000 fine and 416 hours of community service. A divided federal appeals court in San Francisco threw out the guilty plea.

The case is United States v. Alvarez, 11-210.

--Editors: Justin Blum, Joe Sobczyk

To contact the reporters on this story: Laurie Asseo in Washington at lasseo1@bloomberg.net; Greg Stohr in Washington at gstohr@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Mark Silva at msilva34@bloomberg.net

More here:
Military Medals Lies Spur High Court Debate Over Free Speech

Members of the US Supreme Court grappled on Wednesday with the difficult task of deciding whether the First Amendment protects a free speech right to claim to be a decorated war hero – even if you aren’t one.

The high court is being asked to determine the constitutionality of the Stolen Valor Act of 2005, which makes it a federal crime to falsely claim to have received a military medal.

During an hour-long argument, the justices weighed competing claims upholding the necessity of the statute against the dangers to free speech of a government willing to punish its citizens for something that is merely said.

How much do you know about the US Constitution? A quiz.

Several justices seemed troubled by the prospect of opening a door to future laws that might ban false speech concerning one’s receipt of a high school diploma or off-the-cuff comments made by a candidate in an election campaign.

Others appeared ready to uphold the statute as a reasonable regulation of a particularly egregious kind of lie undeserving of constitutional protection.

“I believe there is no First Amendment value in falsehood,” Justice Antonin Scalia declared, flatly.

Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito expressed similar sentiments.

When Jonathan Libby, a deputy public defender from Los Angeles, struggled to answer repeated questions about the constitutional value of a lie, Justice Stephen Breyer broke into the discussion with an example of a situation justifying a deliberate falsehood that would be both honorable and constitutionally-protected: “Are you hiding Jews in the cellar?”

Chief Justice Roberts brushed the comment aside. The statute regulates a “purely false statement about one’s self.” he said. “What is the first Amendment value in [allowing such lies]?”

“Our Founders believed that Congress as a general principle doesn’t get to tell us what we as individuals can and cannot say,” Mr. Libby replied. In other areas where the high court has long allowed regulation of speech, it involved speech that caused specific harm to others such as libel, obscenity, or incitement, Libby said.

The case, US v. Alvarez (11-210), stems from comments made by Xavier Alvarez, the elected member of a local water district board in southern California. In July 2007, Mr. Alvarez introduced himself during a meeting as a retired US Marine who had served for 25 years and won the Medal of Honor in 1987.

None of it was true.

Alvarez was charged with violating the Stolen Valor Act. He faced up to six months in prison.

After an FBI investigation, Alvarez entered a conditional guilty plea. His lawyer, Mr. Libby, continued to fight the charge, arguing that the underlying statute, the Stolen Valor Act, violated Alvarez’s free speech rights.

Prosecutors defended the law as a narrowly focused regulation of a discrete category of speech that served the important government interest of preventing the dilution of the value of military medals.

A federal judge upheld the conviction, but a panel of the Ninth US Circuit Court of Appeals reversed. The appeals court said the Stolen Valor Act could not withstand the scrutiny required of a federal law that sought to censor speech based upon its content.

US Solicitor General Donald Verrilli urged the justices to overturn the Ninth Circuit. “This statute is as narrow as you can get it,” he said.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor questioned whether it was, in fact, as narrowly focused as possible. “I thought the core of the First Amendment was to protect even against offensive speech,” she told the solicitor general.

She said the statute appeared to be aimed at addressing the offense felt when someone falsely claims to be a medal recipient. But Sotomayor said more than just an emotional reaction – more than mere offense – was necessary to justify a restriction on free speech.

“So outside the emotional reaction, where’s the harm,” Sotomayor asked.

It is about honor, Verrilli answered. It is about “the essence of what we want in our service men and women – courage, sacrifice, love of country, willingness to put your life on the line for your comrades,” he said.

“What the medals do is say to our military, this is what we care about,” Verrilli said.

“For the government to say this is a really big deal and then to stand idly by when one charlatan after another makes a false claim to have won a medal does debase the value of the medal in the eyes of the soldiers,” the solicitor general said. “We think the government has the authority and the constitutional space to try to deter this kind of speech.”

Justice Elena Kagan asked how the Stolen Valor Act differed from many state statutes that outlaw demonstrably false statements by a political candidate during an election campaign.

Verrilli said such attempts to regulate speech during a political campaign carry a more significant risk of deterring or chilling other speech.

“Suppose it says demonstrable falsehoods about yourself,” she asked.

“Those statutes are going to pose a particular risk of chill, that this statute does not pose,” Verrilli said.

Kagan was not convinced. “They are the same kind of statement,” she said. “One knows the same sorts of things about oneself.”

The solicitor general said the Valor Act did not present a similarly broad risk of a chilling effect on other speech. “What we’re talking about is a very specific pinpoint thing: Have you been awarded a military honor or not?”

He said the court could apply a special level of “breathing space” in its First Amendment analysis to avoid any spill over chilling effect.

Justice Anthony Kennedy, one of the high court’s strongest free speech defenders, seemed perplexed by the case.

“The whole breathing space thing almost has it backwards,” he told Verrilli. “It presumes that the government is going to have a ministry of truth and then allow breathing space around it, and I just don’t think that’s our tradition.”

He added: “On the other hand, I have to acknowledge that this does diminish the medal in many respects.”

A decision is expected by late June.

How much do you know about the US Constitution? A quiz.

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Originally posted here:
Supreme Court debate: Is lying about being a war hero protected speech?

21-02-2012 15:54 Violent muslim refugees/jihadists to Sweden attack the cartoonist Lars Vilks during free speech meeting at Karlstad University on February 21 2012. First you can see Lars Vilks being pulled out by bodyguards, next you can hear the jihadist making deaththreats. The background noise is the slideshow continuing showing funny muhammed dog cartoons etc. The speech could continue after the violent refugees were expelled from the building. These refugees should be grabbed and expelled, but muslims are the new priority for the politicians and not even violent criminals are expelled. Vilka has been attacked before during public meetings, muslims have on several occations tried to kill him. Al Qaida and their gay sister organization Al Shabaab has promised to murder Vilks due to the funny dog cartoons he created. The Swedish legal system appears to be incompetent in handling attempt of murder, physical attacks and threats. Nobody get arrested, convicted or even expelled from the country. The Swedish government promotes massimmigration of muslims, arikcans and arabs. The swedish goverment will pay employers 80 % of the salary with the taxpayers money if they fire a swede and replace him with a refugee. Immigrant ghettos in sweden has around 90 % unemployment, the government plan to impose tax free zones in those areas discriminating swedes who still will be required to pay full taxes, the worlds highest taxes. Immigrants already have first option to goverment jobs, study and welfare ...

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Violent muslim refugees/jihadists attack Lars Vilks during free speech meeting Karlstad University - Video

22-02-2012 20:58 Does law making it illegal to impersonate a war hero violate free speech rights? For more on this story, click here: abcnews.go.com

Here is the original post:
Supreme Court Looks at Stolen Valor Act to Decide if it Violates Free Speech Rights - Video

Washington • Is there value in a lie?

That’s a question the Supreme Court weighed on Wednesday as it took up the case of a California man who was charged with a crime for lying about receiving the Medal of Honor.

Xavier Alvarez falsely claimed that he was a Marine who earned the nation’s top award, but the question of whether such a deceit warrants prosecution and jail time — or has value and deserves protection under the First Amendment — is now up to the nation’s high court.

The case could have direct repercussions for a Utah County veteran, Myron Brown, who is also accused of lying about earning the Distinguished Service Cross, the Silver Star and the Purple Heart during his service in the Korean War.

In Brown’s case, Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, presented the Provo resident with medals during a ceremony last year that was covered by the Deseret News, the Daily Herald of Provo and KSL-TV. Saying he was duped, Chaffetz last month turned over his own investigation into the matter to federal prosecutors and said he’ll convene a congressional hearing on the matter.

The actions came more than a month after The Salt Lake Tribune first reported Brown, 86, presented fraudulent documents awarding him the medals. Brown denies any wrongdoing.

Justices in the Alvarez case on Wednesday were skeptical of the Stolen Valor Act passed by Congress in 2006 that criminalizes false claims of military medals, and feared that making it unlawful to lie could stifle free speech permanently.

Justice Stephen Breyer noted that if it’s illegal to lie about a military medal, then political rhetoric could soon be criminalized.

Story continues below

"And then if this [law] is lawful and constitutional, then you have people in political campaigns suddenly worrying that the U.S. attorney is going to come in and start indicting him," Breyer told Solicitor General Donald Verrilli.

"That’s part of the chilling effect," Breyer said. "And you’ve assumed you can get around this chilling effect, but I’m less certain."

Justice Anthony Kennedy disagreed with Verrilli’s argument that there is no intrinsic value in a lie and therefore it has no need for First Amendment free-speech protection.

"I think it’s a sweeping proposition to say that there’s no value to falsity," Kennedy said. "Falsity is a way in which we contrast what is false and what is true."

Verrilli countered that the high court has often ruled that lies — such as perjury or fraud — have no protection as free speech and that in this case, the government can easily prove when someone is falsely claiming to have been awarded a medal.

"The Stolen Valor Act regulates a very narrowly drawn and specific category of calculated factual falsehood, a verifiably false claim that an individual has won a military honor," Verrilli said.

Justice Antonin Scalia agreed.

"I believe that there is no First Amendment value in — in falsehood," he said, noting that lying about military service does harm to those who actually did serve and were awarded medals for their heroism.

Next Page »

The rest is here:
Supreme Court: Is a lie protected by free speech?

A small group of Bunbury musicians will travel to Fremantle this weekend to perform in a Punk Solidarity gig, organised to musically condemn the Indonesian Government’s disregard for the rights of freedom speech and personal expression.

Enraged by the treatment of a group of punks in Bandah Aceh, who were detained and punished simply for being punks, gigs will be played by Australian bands across the country in a show of support for their Indonesian counterparts.

In Western Australia, that gig will take place at the Swan Basement in Fremantle where bands from Perth, Mandurah, Margaret River and Bunbury will donate their time.

Bunbury band Nighthawker said the decision to be involved was easy.

‘‘Punk rock is generally a style of music which is disliked and misunderstood by people all over the world, so it’s really refreshing to know that there are like-minded people coming together in multiple locations to stick it to the oppressors and raise awareness of the plight of our Indonesian counterparts,’’ vocalist Anthony Steele said.

Bunbury musicians and punk music lovers Elle Driver and Daniel Taylor said it was important for them to help raise awareness of the mistreatment of the youths in Bandah Aceh.

‘‘It’s a form of personal repression and I don’t agree with it,’’ Miss Driver said.

‘‘People in Australia don’t realise how lucky they are when it comes to personal expression and freedom of speech.’’

‘‘When we heard about the gigs we knew we wanted to get involved,’’ Mr Taylor said.

Continue reading here:
Musicians perform for free speech

Court weighing free speech vs. lie about military honors

WASHINGTON -- Over the course of an hourlong argument Wednesday, the Supreme Court seemed gradually to accept that it might be able to uphold a federal law that makes it a crime to lie about military honors, notwithstanding the First Amendment's free speech guarantees.

The justices were aided by suggestions from the government about how to limit the scope of a possible ruling in its favor and by significant concessions from a lawyer for the defendant.

The case arose from a lie told in 2007 at a public meeting by Xavier Alvarez, an elected member of a Southern California water district board of directors. "I'm a retired Marine of 25 years," he said. "I retired in the year 2001. Back in 1987, I was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. I got wounded many times by the same guy."

That was all false, and Mr. Alvarez was prosecuted under a 2005 law, the Stolen Valor Act, which makes it a crime to say falsely that one has "been awarded any decoration or medal authorized by Congress for the armed forces of the United States." Mr. Alvarez argued that his remarks were protected by the First Amendment.

His case ran into trouble at the Supreme Court, as it emerged that many justices accepted two fundamental propositions. First, most of the justices seemed to accept that the First Amendment does not protect calculated falsehoods that cause at least some kinds of harm. Second, there seemed to be something like a consensus that the government has a substantial interest in protecting the integrity of its system for honoring military distinction.

To arrive at those two propositions, the justices worked through any number of hypothetical questions and worried about the collateral damage to free speech values that a ruling upholding the law might generate.

Justice Stephen Breyer said it was all right to lie, for instance, when asked, "Are there Jews hiding in the cellar?"

Justice Samuel Alito Jr. suggested that it was acceptable to punish a false statement that "your child has just been run over by a bus."

Justice Sonia Sotomayor asked about false statements made while dating. Justice Elena Kagan asked about lies concerning extramarital affairs.

Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. asked whether Congress could make it a crime to lie about having a high school diploma. Solicitor General Donald Verrilli Jr. responded that some states had indeed enacted laws concerning diplomas from public universities, and he indicated that they would be constitutional if they concerned calculated lies about verifiable facts that led to real harm.

Mr. Verrilli listed several laws that punish those kinds of falsehoods, including ones prohibiting false statements to federal officials and banning impersonation of federal officers, as well as perjury.

Similarly, he said, the Stolen Valor Act punishes only knowing falsehoods that result in "the misappropriation of the government-conferred honor and esteem," which he called "a real harm and a significant harm."

The hardest hypothetical question for the justices seemed to concern state laws that make it a crime for politicians to lie in some settings. Mr. Verrilli said such laws might run afoul of the First Amendment because of their potential to chill truthful speech for fear of prosecution.

Justice Kagan asked a lawyer for Mr. Alvarez, Jonathan Libby, whether the Stolen Valor Act posed the same problem. "What truthful speech will this statute chill?" she asked.

Mr. Libby's response seemed to surprise Justice Kagan. "It's not that it may necessarily chill any truthful speech," he said. "We certainly concede that one typically knows whether or not one has won a medal or not."

Justice Kagan considered what she had just heard. "So, boy, I mean, that's a big concession, Mr. Libby," she said.

Mr. Libby also acknowledged that the government may punish false speech intended to obtain something of value. Chief Justice Roberts asked whether Mr. Alvarez, who was politically active, benefited from his lie. Mr. Libby said that was possible. The chief justice said this, too, was "an awfully big concession."

The New York Times Co. and other news organizations filed a brief supporting Mr. Alvarez in the case. The brief argued that most false statements are better addressed by exposing them in the marketplace of ideas than by punishing them as crimes.

There was universal agreement on one point at Wednesday's argument. No one spoke up for Mr. Alvarez, including his lawyer.

First published on February 23, 2012 at 12:00 am

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Court weighing free speech vs. lie about military honors