Monthly Archives: November 2014

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Read more here:
When is an online threat illegal and when is it free speech?

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

But his wife didnt see it that way. Neither did a federal jury.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

See the article here:
U.S. Supreme Court to weigh free speech rights of threatening language on Internet

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

See the original post:
Justices weigh limits of free speech over Internet

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Read more here:
Supreme Court weighs limits of free speech over Internet

The Satanic Temple is in a battle with the state of Florida. Last holiday season, the Department of Management Services, an arm of the state government, allowed religious groups to construct displays of faith in the rotunda of Tallahassee's Capitol Building. First a Christian group erected a nativity scene that endorsed Christianity. Then an atheist group hung a winter solstice banner celebrating the Bill of Rights and freedom from religion. Inspired, another atheist built a Festivus pole made of beer cans, and the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster added a small pile of holy noodles.

Under current First Amendment law, the Capitol had no ability to turn down any of these groups; once the government opened the door to one religion, it had to let them all in.

But when the Satanic Temple applied to erect a display featuring an angel falling into a pit of fire, state officials turned it down. The display, they explained, was "grossly offensive during the holiday season." Now, with Christmas around the corner, the temple is reapplying, asserting its constitutional right to include its display alongside the others. And this time, it's bringing a legal team.

How did the Florida Capitol become the center of a constitutional showdown launched by Satanists? Surprisingly, the fault lies squarely with the U.S. Supreme Court's most conservative justices. In their quest to let the government endorse and sponsor mainstream religion, they accidentally granted groups like the Satanists and the Pastafarians a constitutional right to force the government to advertise their beliefs.

The seeds of the current Satanist showdown were planted in 1984, when the city of Pawtucket, Rhode Island, argued that it had a right to fund blatantly religious Christmas displays using taxpayer money. Five conservatives on the Supreme Court agreed, holding that the First Amendment (which bars the government from making any laws "respecting an establishment of religion") did not forbid the city from financing religious displays.

Writing for the court, Chief Justice Warren Burger ruled that the image of Christ in a manger was merely a "celebration of a public holiday with traditional symbols" and thus served "legitimate secular purposes." (When the dissenting justices pointed out that the court had placed deeply holy figures on the same spiritual level as "Santa's house or reindeer," Burger scoffed, "Of course this is not true." He did not elaborate further on his reasoning.)

Five years later, a similar issue reared its head after the city of Pittsburgh placed religious displays including a Hanukkah menorah and a nativity scene in the Allegheny County Courthouse. A badly splintered court ruled that the nativity scene endorsed Christianity in violation of the Establishment Clause, because an angel held a banner that proclaimed "Gloria in Excelsis Deo" ("Glory to God in the Highest").

The majority was also troubled by the scale of the nativity display; it was placed on the "grand staircase" of the courthouse, lending the impression that the city held it in special esteem. Six members of the court, however, ruled that the menorah didn't unconstitutionally endorse religion. Placed outside the courthouse, next to a Christmas tree and a sign saluting liberty, the menorah was, in the eyes of the court, merely a celebration of "the winter-holiday season, which has attained a secular status in our society."

The implicit message of the Allegheny case was that cities can allow, and even finance, religious displays on government property as long as the city doesn't appear to be favoring one religion over another. In most cities, these rulings have led to an all-comers policy; if officials permit every applicant to construct a religious display, after all, they can hardly be accused to preferring a specific religion. For a while, the policy was tacit and loose. Most cities probably assumed that they retained the ultimate right to refuse a religious display that strayed too far from their sense of decency.

See more here:
Bound for hell: A satanic display is likely to be placed in Florida's Capitol