Monthly Archives: May 2012

Recently the Deseret News printed what to me may be the most terrifying words published in this country since the Intolerable Acts of 1774 ("Government taking a scythe to the Bill of Rights," George Will, May 6). Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass; Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.; and others have introduced a proposed amendment to the Constitution to restrict the rights of political speech to apply only to individuals and to allow Congress to curtail the collective speech rights of any group with which the Congress does not agree.

By itself, this is monstrous, but the implied extended and unintended consequences of this act would mean the extinction of the Bill of Rights as we know it. Yet besides Will's column, I haven't heard one word of criticism of this proposal.

This proposal is outrageous. Yet everyone I talk to says, " It will never happen". But the same was probably said just before President Andrew Jackson ignored the Supreme Court and enforced the Indian Removal Act. Or just before Bill Clinton created the Grand Staircase National Monument. The fact that this has been proposed by a ranking member of Congress indicates it is possible.

The leadership of both parties should repudiate this immediately. The sponsors should withdraw the proposal and apologize to the nation for having even considered the notion.

Thomas W. Brown

Murray

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Letter: Free speech must be protected for all individuals, groups

Leftists are killing free speech by calling disagreements hate speech and finding ways to intimidate even those who facilitate debate. But one victim recently fought back, showing us some Americans will stand up for a principle giving truth a chance to emerge. Mark Stevens, I think, is someone to emulate.

Stevens is a smart, tough guy from Queens. His father died when he was 17, leaving the family $84, an amount challenging the youth's initiative. All Stevens wanted was a chance. This country provided him with plenty, and today he is head of a hugely successful marketing firm, MSCO Inc. It advertises all over the place, including on the Rush Limbaugh radio show in New York.

It's because of that sponsorship that Stevens encountered the anti-speech "terrorists," a word he used in an interview with me in Colorado Springs. He was there to speak at a gathering of conservative think tanks about events after Limbaugh employed a nasty name to describe a woman involved in a public issue he had been discussing. It was an inexcusable slur, and Stevens hardly approved, but did not expect what would then come his way.

It was indeed an attack of crazies, people threatening Stevens with "surveillance," promising busloads of visits to his residence if he did not drop his advertising, telling even the female employees who answered the phone that they were "women haters."

Stevens pushed back, recognizing from the similarities that this was an organized hit. He went on the Limbaugh show and Fox News shows to denounce these thugs, increased his advertising and found great support in thousands of emails, faithful clients and even people volunteering to protect him.

I guess those trying to scare Stevens into hiding expected a mouse. They got a lion, but in cases of this kind, there are plenty of mice out there, such as Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Kraft Foods, McDonald's and Wendy's. Those are some of the companies that abandoned their membership in the American Legislative Exchange Council after extreme leftist groups emitted screeches about its support of such measures as stand-your-ground laws that permit self-defense when someone is trying to kill you.

What the council mostly likes as it effectively lobbies state legislatures is free enterprise, economic growth and jobs, but the left wants government control and portrays the organization in vicious terms.

Meanwhile, more tyranny loyalists have been on the march in the case of Rupert Murdoch, owner of News Corp. and its Fox News in America. In Great Britain, Labour Party members on a parliamentary committee denounced him as unfit to head a multinational news corporation. Hey, says Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, this means the Federal Communications Commission should revoke Fox's broadcast licenses, another anti-freedom absurdity of extreme leftist making.

At least we are not Denmark, where Lars Hedegaard, head of the Danish Free Press Society, was put on trial for saying in a private exchange that there were a disturbing number of cases of misogyny and family rape in some Muslim areas. In three different court decisions, he was found innocent, then guilty, then in late April finally innocent again of hate speech, for which he could have been imprisoned. Even if he had meant to make his observations public, so what? People cannot talk about such things even if they are true? Somebody's feelings might be hurt? What about stopping rapes?

Free speech evolved slowly and very, very painfully in the West. Even in America, where it has taken its greatest leaps forward, it has had continuous ups and downs, although we seemed to have arrived at some understanding that this is a supreme freedom without which there is vastly reduced hope for the others. Lately, people who like to call themselves progressives have been playing a frighteningly regressive game with this freedom, but there remains a great hope in America: citizens like Mark Stevens.

Read more from the original source:
Jay Ambrose: The ups and downs of free speech

By Bob Van Voris - Wed May 09 19:22:34 GMT 2012

A New York police officer who claims he was locked in a psychiatric ward after documenting corruption in the department told a judge he wants to amend his $50 million lawsuit against the city to add a claim that his free speech rights were violated.

A lawyer for Adrian Schoolcraft asked U.S. District Judge Robert Sweet today for permission to change his clients complaint to include a claim the city violated his right to go public with reports that officers were told to falsify crime and arrest statistics.

He was speaking out to the public about a matter of public concern, Joshua Fitch, the lawyer, said in a hearing today in Manhattan federal court.

Schoolcraft, who sued the city in August 2010, said police officials illegally tried to intimidate him and retaliate after he revealed an alleged policy requiring officers to boost arrests, falsify reports and suborn perjury to manipulate crime statistics.

Fitch said in an interview outside court that the city violated Schoolcrafts free-speech rights by trying to prevent him from reporting the misconduct internally and blocking him from talking to the press.

William Fraenkel, a lawyer for the city, told Sweet that reporting misconduct is part of a police officers job, and therefore isnt covered by the First Amendment.

Sweet didnt say when he will rule on Schoolcrafts request.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is founder and majority owner of Bloomberg LP, the parent company of Bloomberg News.

The case is Schoolcraft v. The City of New York, 10-06005, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).

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New York Policeman Asks to Add Free-Speech Claim to Suit

Leftists are killing free speech by calling disagreements hate speech and finding ways to intimidate even those who facilitate debate. But one victim recently fought back, showing us some Americans will stand up for a principle giving truth a chance to emerge. Mark Stevens, I think, is someone to emulate.

Stevens is a smart, tough guy from Queens. His father died when he was 17, leaving the family $84, an amount challenging the youth's initiative. All Stevens wanted was a chance. This country provided him with plenty, and today he is head of a hugely successful marketing firm, MSCO Inc. It advertises all over the place, including on the Rush Limbaugh radio show in New York.

It's because of that sponsorship that Stevens encountered the anti-speech "terrorists," a word he used in an interview with me in Colorado Springs. He was there to speak at a gathering of conservative think tanks about events after Limbaugh employed a nasty name to describe a woman involved in a public issue he had been discussing.

It was an inexcusable slur, and Stevens hardly approved, he but did not expect what would then come his way.

It was indeed an attack of crazies, people threatening Stevens with "surveillance," promising busloads of visits to his residence if he did not drop his advertising, telling even the female employees who answered the phone that they were "women haters."

Stevens pushed back, recognizing from the similarities that this was an organized hit. He went on the Limbaugh show and Fox News shows to denounce these thugs, increased his advertising and found great support in thousands of emails, faithful clients and even people volunteering to protect him.

I guess those trying to scare Stevens into hiding expected a mouse. They got a lion, but in cases of this kind, there are plenty of mice out there, such as Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Kraft Foods, McDonald's and Wendy's.

Those are some of the companies that abandoned their membership in the American Legislative Exchange Council after extreme leftist groups emitted screeches about its support of such measures as stand-your-ground laws that permit self-defense when someone is trying to kill you.

What the council mostly likes as it effectively lobbies state legislatures is free enterprise, economic growth and jobs, but the left wants government control and portrays the organization in vicious terms.

Meanwhile, more tyranny loyalists have been on the march in the case of Rupert Murdoch, owner of News Corp. and its Fox News in America.

See the original post:
Ambrose: Standing up for free speech

Just as the New York Times can decide All the News Thats Fit to Print, search engines have a free speech right to choose who or what to put in their search rankings.

Thats the conclusion of a prominent First Amendment scholar commissioned by Google to make the case that the government cant tell search engines how to design their results.

A Free Speech Right?

According to the report authored by UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh: Google, Microsofts Bing, Yahoo! Search and other search engine companies are rightly seen as media enterprises, much as the New York Times Company or CNN are media enterprises and deserve the same protections. It adds that search engines have the same freedom to choose a set of links as do news aggregators like the Drudge Report or the Huffington Post.

Search engine results are a form of opinion, says the report, in which companies offer information they think is most relevant to users.

In practice, this would mean Google has the right to punt sites like Yelp, which has complained that Google is a monopolist, to the search equivalent of Siberia if it decided that was best for users (Yelp now comes up second in a search for restaurant review).

The US has a long history of companies claiming First Amendment protections. One example is a newspaper that was allowed to exclude certain advertisers even though it had a substantial monopoly.

The courts have also made a few exceptions to the free speech rule. One case involved a publisher that was sued for providing inaccurate flight maps. Another involved cable providers which, a court said, did not have a free speech right to exclude certain channels.

Volokhs report says those free speech exceptions dont apply to search engines because, unlike cable providers, its not just a pipe for information. It also echoes Google position that consumers can easily use a competing search engine.

In an interview, Volokh said Googles situation is also similar to a 1980s case in which an author launched a failed suit against the New York Times over the accuracy of the newspapers weekly best-seller list.

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Search engines have same speech rights as the New York Times, says Google report

Just as the New York Times can decide All the News Thats Fit to Print, search engines have a free speech right to choose who or what to put in their search rankings.

Thats the conclusion of a prominent First Amendment scholar commissioned by Google to make the case that the government cant tell search engines how to design their results.

A Free Speech Right?

According to the report authored by UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh: Google, Microsofts Bing, Yahoo! Search and other search engine companies are rightly seen as media enterprises, much as the New York Times Company or CNN are media enterprises and deserve the same protections. It adds that search engines have the same freedom to choose a set of links as do news aggregators like the Drudge Report or the Huffington Post.

Search engine results are a form of opinion, says the report, in which companies offer information they think is most relevant to users.

In practice, this would mean Google has the right to punt sites like Yelp, which has complained that Google is a monopolist, to the search equivalent of Siberia if it decided that was best for users (Yelp now comes up second in a search for restaurant review).

The US has a long history of companies claiming First Amendment protections. One example is a newspaper that was allowed to exclude certain advertisers even though it had a substantial monopoly.

The courts have also made a few exceptions to the free speech rule. One case involved a publisher that was sued for providing inaccurate flight maps. Another involved cable providers which, a court said, did not have a free speech right to exclude certain channels.

Volokhs report says those free speech exceptions dont apply to search engines because, unlike cable providers, its not just a pipe for information. It also echoes Google position that consumers can easily use a competing search engine.

In an interview, Volokh said Googles situation is also similar to a 1980s case in which an author launched a failed suit against the New York Times over the accuracy of the newspapers weekly best-seller list.

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Search engines have same speech rights as New York Times says Google report