Monthly Archives: April 2017

In March 1964, the United States Supreme Court handed down its decision in New York Times v. Sullivan, one of the most important 20th-century rulings involving freedom of the press. The decision affirmed the right of the media and the public to criticize public officials even if some of the information they published is false.

Today, when the news media are under attack for publishing fake news and the president of the United States refers to The New York Times, CNN and other news outlets as the enemy of the people, it is useful to consider the circumstances surrounding that Supreme Court case.

The decision was made at a time when African-Americans in the South were demonstrating for voting rights and for equal access to schools and public accommodations. Southern public officials had begun to use defamation suits against the press as a way to limit criticism and coverage of their actions against the demonstrators. The New York Times had already lost two such suits, had been fined $500,000 in each case, and was facing 11 more suits that could result in an additional $5.6 million in fines.

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear the newspapers appeal of the first lawsuit. The case grew out of an advertisement titled Heed Their Rising Voices that appeared in the Times on March 30, 1960. The ad cataloged a number of attempts by activists, including Martin Luther King Jr., to protest inequality in the South and ended with an appeal for financial support.

At the time, the media had only a few ways to defend against a defamation lawsuit, and while truth was a defense, any error, no matter how small, would preclude its use.

Unfortunately for the Times, the ad included several errors. Some were small (the ad said students who were demonstrating at the state Capitol sang My Country Tis of Thee when in fact they sang the national anthem), while others were more substantial. The ad cited several actions that had supposedly been taken by public officials, including padlocking the dining hall at Alabama State College, ringing the campus with police officers armed with shotguns and tear gas, and arresting King several times for minor offenses. Now, the ad alleged, King was facing a perjury charge that could lead to his imprisonment for up to 10 years. In each instance, the information in the ad was almost but not quite accurate.

L.B. Sullivan, one of three city commissioners in Montgomery, Alabama, sued, arguing that because he was the commissioner responsible for the police, the ad accused him of taking possibly illegal actions against both the students and King. Under Alabama law, criticism of the public conduct of a public official was automatically considered libelous if the plaintiff convinced the jury that the remarks were of and concerning him and that the words could injure him in his public office or impute misconduct to him in his office, or want of official integrity

Because some of the statements in the ad were false, The New York Times essentially had no defenses available. As a result, Sullivan won easily at the trial court level, and the Alabama Supreme Court rejected the papers appeal of the decision and the $500,000 fine.

The New York Times then appealed to the nations highest court. In March 1964, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled in the newspapers favor. The majority opinion written by Justice William Brennan, and concurring opinions written by Justices Hugo Black and Arthur Goldberg, offered a full-throated defense of the right of the media and the public to criticize government officials and government actions even if the criticism included errors and false statements. Together, the opinions made it clear that the days of the Sedition Act of 1798 were long over and that elected officials could no longer stifle criticism of their public actions by means of a defamation lawsuit.

Quoting Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and previous court decisions in their opinions, the justices asserted that the media and the public have the right, and perhaps even the duty, under the First Amendment, to criticize, protest and report on public affairs. At the same time, they recognized that those critical remarks may include some errors.

Citing NAACP v. Button in the majority opinion, Justice Brennan wrote that erroneous statement is inevitable in free debate, and ... must be protected if the freedoms of expression are to have the breathing space that they need to survive. Anything else, he wrote, might lead the media to self-censorship for fear that they would not be able to prove the truth of the statements they published.

To counter that concern, Justice Brennan turned defamation law on its head, setting up the actual malice standard. Under this new standard, Brennan shifted the burden of proof to the public official who sued the media. Officials now had to prove with convincing clarity that the media published the statement with actual malice that is, with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not.

For a statement to reach the level of actual malice, the public official must prove that the media knowingly published a lie or went out of its way to avoid learning the truth. And, the official must prove that the false statement caused real harm to his or her reputation.

During his campaign, then-candidate Donald Trump regularly railed against the media, and threatened to open up libel laws to make it easier for public officials to sue. Since his inauguration, the relationship between him, his administration and some media outlets has been rocky at best. The president has been critical of what he calls fake news, which in many cases seems to be news that he simply doesnt like. His chief political strategist has referred to the media as the opposition party, and his press secretary barred selected media outlets from a press briefing.

In his majority opinion in the New York Times cases, Justice Brennan wrote that debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust and wide open, and that it may well include vehement, caustic and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials. Justice Black, in a concurring opinion, wrote that, at the least, the First Amendment leaves the people and the press free to criticize officials and discuss public affairs with impunity. ... I doubt that a country can live in freedom where its people can be made to suffer physically or financially for criticizing their government, its actions or its officials.

The First Amendment protects all of us. It gives all of us Protestants, Catholics, Jews, Muslims and Pastaferians the right to freely worship or not. It gives all of us immigrants, Native Americans, naturalized citizens and descendants of the Mayflower settlers the right to speak out and either support or criticize the policies of the government. It gives all of us women, men, members of the LGBTQ community, anti-abortion and Black Lives Matter supporters the right to assemble freely, to protest and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

And it gives all members of the media from The New York Times and The Washington Post to The Frederick News-Post, WHAG-TV and even local bloggersthe right to cover and, if they choose, to criticize the president, members of his administration, members of Congress and other elected officials throughout government. It doesnt matter if the officials dont like what is being reported. Nor does it matter if the criticism is, as Justice Goldberg wrote, unwise or unfair.

We have the right to be informed about the workings of our government and the right to respond to that information with praise or with criticism. If the media are muzzled, our right to make an informed and educated decision about who we select to lead us and whether to support their policies is severely diminished.

At a time when people are gravitating toward only those news sources they agree with, attempts by the president and his administration to undercut the credibility of the media could have serious consequences. The First Amendment is one of the shining lights of our American democracy. We have to fight the notion that information we disagree with is automatically fake news. No matter what our political leanings, we dont want to live in a country where information is controlled by the government, where protesters are threatened and where protections for free speech and a free press are reduced to empty platitudes.

Excerpt from:
Freedom of Speech - Frederick News Post (subscription)

Twitter is often criticizedand rightfully sofor some of the decisions it has made in the past, including the fact that it moved too slowly to try and stop abuse of the service by trolls and bots.

But there is one thing the company routinely does right, and that is to fight back against government attempts to force it to reveal user information.

It did so again on Thursday by filing a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security in San Francisco. In the suit, Twitter has asked a judge to block the government's order to divulge the personal details of the user behind a so-called "rogue" account, which claims to be run by employees of the Citizenship and Immigration Services department.

According to the company's filing, the @ALT_uscis Twitter account "has often criticized immigration policies" introduced by Trump, including the travel ban imposed on a number of Muslim countries. The account, which was created right after the first Executive Order that introduced the ban, is one of a number of accounts that purport to be run by either current or former government employees.

"Defendants may not compel Twitter to disclose information regarding the real identities of these users without first demonstrating that some criminal or civil offense has been committed," Twitter argues in its complaint . "Defendants have not come close to making any of these showings."

This is not the first time Twitter has used the courts to fight such demands by the U.S. government. One of the first was in 2011, when the Justice Department ordered it to produce information about several of the people associated with the WikiLeaks account, including founder Julian Assange, hacker activist Jacob Appelbaum, and Icelandic MP Birgitta Jonsdottir.

As it has in the current case, Twitter rejected the order and also defied the government's demand that it not inform the individuals in question about the agency's request for information.

Ultimately, Twitter lost that case, which was supported by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. But it at least tried to resist the government's demands, and it tried to force the incident out into the public eye as much as possible. Many other tech companiesincluding Facebookcomply with such requests but say very little about them.

Get Data Sheet , Fortune s technology newsletter.

Twitter fought a government order in 2012 that tried to get it to reveal information about an account associated with the Occupy Wall Street protests. And it has also fought in court to block demands by other governments, including those from the Turkish authorities, which have tried to force it to shut down accounts critical of those in power.

It appears from the evidence introduced by Twitter in the current case that the government has been trying to identify the users behind the rogue account since early March, when the Customs and Border Protection agency sent the company a court order demanding the personal information of whoever created it. The order also forbid Twitter from informing those users of the government's request.

Instead of complying, however, Twitter told the users behind the @ALT_uscis account about the agency's demands, and filed suit to try and have the order struck down.

In its legal argument, the company makes the case that the CBP order goes beyond the scope of what is normally permitted by subpoenas of that kind, and it also argues that submitting to the agency's demand would have a chilling effect on the users' freedom of speech and therefore is in contravention of the First Amendment's protections for such speech.

"The CBP Summons is unlawful and unenforceable because it violates the First Amendment rights of both Twitter and its users by seeking to unmask the identity of one or more anonymous Twitter users voicing criticism of the government on matters of public concern," the filing states.

The company's submission to the court goes on to point out that a "time-honored tradition of pseudonymous free speech on matters of public moment runs deep in the political life of America," and that these First Amendment rights are "at their zenith when, as here, the speech at issue touches on matters of public political life." The Supreme Court has written about the necessity for anonymity to allow for criticism of the government, the filing says.

Whether Twitter is ultimately successful or not in its latest attempt to resist the attacks on free speech, it deserves a lot of credit for at least trying to do so. That's more than many companies do.

Read the rest here:
Why Twitter Should Be Applauded for Challenging Trump's Attack on Free Speech - Fortune

America has a long tradition of demonstrations to oppose unAmerican policies dating back to March 5, 1770, when a group of Boston citizens gathered to protest the British in Boston.

The protest deteriorated into a riot and when the British shot 11 Boston protesters, it became the Boston Massacre.

A few years later, the Sons of Liberty protested the British governments tax on tea. They gathered at Boston Harbor and, disguised as Native Americans, destroyed an entire shipment of tea in Boston Harbor.

The American tradition of publicly protesting their governments action continues today.

My first experience as a protester began in Kentucky in the 1960s. I was a college student in Richmond. The town had one movie theater, and black Americans were limited to sitting in the balcony, the colored section. We protested and picketed the theater until they changed the rules. By the time I left college, the town no longer required black kids to sit upstairs. The demonstrations and boycott forced the theater to allow us all to sit wherever we wanted to sit, as it should be.

Still, the 1960s were turbulent times. Hundreds of marches were held across the nation protesting Americas discriminatory laws. We persevered and eventually laws protecting the rights of all Americans were passed. The demonstrations had a great deal to do with America coming to its senses and changing race-related laws.

Protesting and petitioning government continues today, and it is not limited to progressives.

In 2009, self-proclaimed tea party groups resorted to demonstrations to protest all things Barack Obama. I can recall watching the events on TV. Washington, D.C., protesters had the support of some members of Congress as they demonstrated against the administration of President Obama. I remember listening to Minnesotas crazy acting Rep. Michele Bachmann urging her followers to be louder and even more disruptive as she lied about Obamacare and expressed her disdain for the president.

Therefore, when Trump supporters in Citrus County lament the recent demonstrations at U.S. Rep. Daniel Websters open house, I am not sure how seriously I should take it. We heard thats not who Citrus County is, and this was supposed to be a welcome to our congressman.

This is what America is. It is free citizens petitioning their representatives to listen to them and tell him why they voted as they did. The people at Websters open house were there to ask him important questions.

We know there are numerous problems concerning Russian influence in our elections. Some of Trumps staff lied about their contacts with the Russians. One lied to Congress during his confirmation hearing. One was fired by Trump after revelations he lied about his contact with Russia.

Webster has voted to sweep those concerns under the rug. Why? Why has he consistently voted to keep an investigation partisan and not independent?

We wanted to ask him about the wall and health care, but he left and didnt answer any questions.

Now, according to ABC News, the Trump administration is considering cuts to the Coast Guard, Transportation Security Administration, Secret Service and FEMA including cuts to several notable national security and emergency response initiatives to help fund the presidents border wall.

Trump lied about the thousands of Muslims celebrating the fall of the New York towers. He lied about Obama bugging Trump Tower. He lied about his inauguration having largest audience ever. In spite of what he said, Mexico is not going to pay for his wall; we are.

We gathered in the Inverness City Hall to petition our congressional representative as allowed under the First Amendment. The First Amendment says Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Florida Congressional District 11 Indivisible had people attending the meeting, and some of them held signs. The signs said such things as Rubber Stamp Webster or Bannon is not my President, or some were like Andrea Reas of Floral City. She sported a sign saying Get $ out of politics.

Even the Trump supporters held signs saying God Bless Trump.

It was, as Inverness Mayor Bob Plaisted observed, a marvelous demonstration of freedom in America and it was a spectacular demonstration of liberty until it was unilaterally decided signs were not allowed because of building decorum, infringing on our freedoms.

If Rep. Webster keeps his word and has a town hall meeting, Florida Congressional District 11 Indivisible will be there, and we will have signs. Get used to us Citrus County. We want to be heard.

Bob Messersmith is a member of the Indivisible Steering Committee, Florida Congressional District 11.

Read and share your thoughts on this story

More here:
Freedom of speech protected by Constitution | ChronicleOnline.com - Citrus County Chronicle