Monthly Archives: January 2020

The Georgia First Amendment Foundations annual legislative breakfast in Atlanta is always enlightening, always thought provoking but this year it was more than a little bit scary.

Moderator Peter Canfield did a masterful job setting the stage and moving the conversations to the most meaningful discussions that lawyers, journalists and lawmakers could have relevant to the First Amendment and the publics right to know.

State Sen. Jen Jordan, State Rep. Josh McLaurin and journalist James Salzer are smart, intuitive and even funny at times.

But Tom Clyde, one the states top First Amendment attorneys, was more scary than funny Thursday morning.

Clyde gave a sober warning about the dangers of House Bill 734,Rep. Andy Welchs media ethics bill.

While the panel seemed to agree that Welchs ill-conceived bill is dead on arrival in its present form, Clyde warned that provisions contained in the bill could be tacked on to some other piece of benign legislation and sneak its way onto the floor.

Welch introduced the measure last year calling for state oversight of the media. He dropped the bill on the last day of the legislative session, and it remains alive for consideration this year.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitutions Salzer, offered some real insight at the GFAF legislative breakfast when he said he had talked to each person who signed on to the Welch measure, and they all recounted some bad experience they had with the media. That is telling.

This kind of assault on the media and attempt to squelch an open, free and unfettered press is an assault on freedom and the people of Georgia. Journalists must always be able to operatecompletely independent of and unrestrained by the government.

Journalists must always be free to operate as an independent watchdog, holding our public institutions accountable.Any attorney, including Welch should understand such basic, fundamental principles.

The First Amendment guarantees the freedom of the press and Welchs bill is simply unconstitutional.

Everyone agrees the media should operate in an above board, ethical manner but that does not mean that government should ever have a role in regulating the press.

The founders carefully enshrined the freedom of the press in the Bill of Rights and thismedia oversight bill flies in the face of that fundamental American liberty.

This legislation would create some official code of ethics and a policing mechanism to control the media, the very media that must hold government accountable.

Could anything be more unconstitutional?

CNHI Deputy National Editor Jim Zachary is the editor of the Valdosta Daily Times and president of the Georgia First Amendment Foundation.

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ZACHARY: First Amendment advocates warn of media oversight - Tifton Gazette

To the Editor:

Sandra Rzepecki in her letter states that restriction set out in a memorandum from the developer can override the rights granted under the United States Constitution. I probably need not say any more to show that her position is inane.She may not be aware that for many years deed restrictions (as opposed to a mere memorandum) prohibited home owners from selling to blacks, Jews and sometimes Catholics.In 1948 the Supreme Court held in Shelley v. Kraemer, that race restrictions in deeds were unconstitutional.By that same reasoning the Constitutional First Amendment right to free speech, especially political speech (the heart of the First Amendment) cannot be forfeited by a memorandum or deed restriction or home owners association by laws.Would Ms. Rzepecki find it acceptable if the developer put out a memorandum stating thatDemocrats, Jews, and blacks prohibit are prohibited from voting; or that every resident to vote for a certain political party.I do not particularly like Donald Trump. But, I also do not like hypocrisy or people making mis-statements about the law. With all due respect: how ill informed are you Ms. Rzepecki?

James MarkowskiVillage of Hadley

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Letters mis-stating the First Amendment and Trump flags - Villages-News

NEW YORK Ten years ago last week, a bogeyman was born. Its name is Citizens United, the Supreme Court ruling that struck down limits on independent corporate political spending and, liberal Cassandras say, ushered in a dystopian era in which big-money interests got official permission to buy democracy.

Quick history lesson: Citizens United was a nonprofit that, during the 2008 Democratic primaries, sought to air a 90-minute ideological documentary deeply critical of Hillary Clinton to Americans homes via pay-per-view. The Federal Election Commission barred its broadcast under rules enforcing the McCain-Feingold Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act.

The Supreme Court faced a question: How could such a ban stand in a nation whose Constitution has a First Amendment forbidding government limitations on speech, and in which political speech is deemed the most privileged and protected form of expression?

How could it be that, in an act of expression no one would ever contemplate abridging, a for-profit corporation could in the thick of the 2004 presidential election release into theaters and advertise on television Fahrenheit 9/11, a strident anti-George W. Bush documentary, but the release of Hillary: The Movie, a photo-negative film, could four years later be criminalized?

And how could it be, as Theodore Olson argued before the court, that it is a felony for a small, nonprofit corporation to offer interested viewers a 90-minute political documentary about a candidate for the nations highest office, that General Electric, then owner of NBC, National Public Radio, or George Soros may freely broadcast? He couldve added Fox News to the litany.

And how could it possibly be that government could never stop a publication owned by a billionaire or a corporation, like the one youre currently reading, from putting online and printing a 7,500-word, 14-chapter editorial urging readers to Bury Trump in a landslide, but it could prohibit other corporate entities from similarly speaking?

Those who worry about dark money corrupting elections are more than justified in arguing for stronger disclosure rules, changes that must happen at the FEC and IRS and which require congressional action, but arbitrary distinctions barring some political speech could never, can never, hold in a free society.

Democrats can rail all they like about the evils of independent political speech by individuals, groups of individuals or corporations. What they cannot do is use the power of government to silence it.

The New York Daily News

Continued here:
Other voices: Money, speech and truth - St. Paul Pioneer Press

We often remind readers of the importance of the First Amendment in ensuring a free press and an informed citizenry. But the First Amendment protects other vital aspects of American democracy: our rights to assemble and speak freely and petition the government. It also guarantees something most of us take for granted freedom of religion.

Religious tolerance often becomes the rallying cry for issues that spring from cultural or political differences. The freedom to worship or not worship without fear, though, is not just a right, but a cornerstone of our U.S. Constitution.

A recent discussion about anti-Semitism with Jaki Schreier, executive director of the Jewish Federation of Fort Wayne, and Ben Eisbart, president of the federation's board, provided a vivid reminder of that.

Schreier and Eisbart take indications of anti-Semitism's resurgence nationwide very seriously. Those signs include an attack by a man with a machete that left five people injured at the home of a rabbi in Monsey, New York, and several other violent incidents during Hanukkah last month.

Though there have been no such incidents in Fort Wayne, I think we could never take it for granted that it wouldn't happen here, Schreier said. It has become much more acceptable to say things that are anti-Jewish, anti-Israel, anti-Semitic and there are no repercussions for it.

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance, Eisbart said. Recent confrontations between Iran and the United States carry the possibility that Israel will become involved, and could contribute to anti-Jewish feelings in America, Eisbart said. My guess is it raises the temperature a bit, he said. Like other Jewish federations around the country, the local organization has trained, armed security at its events.

Eisbart and Schreier also see attacks on Jewish sites as part of a larger trend of attacks on houses of religion, noting that the day after the Monsey rampage two congregants were shot to death at a Church of Christ facility in Texas before a member of the church's security team shot the gunman.

We don't ever want to think that it's just the Jewish community that's picked at, Schreier said. Any time any group is allowed to be picked at, you're opening the door for everyone.

Muslims here stood with Jews to denounce the shooting at a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018 that left 11 dead. We've always showed up, said Ahmed Abdelmageed, a leader of Fort Wayne's Muslim community. When the City Council took up the hate-crimes bill, I spoke and I listed the Pittsburgh victims by name. Abdelmageed noted that Jewish and Christian leaders joined with local Muslims to denounce anti-Islamic violence when three Muslims were murdered in North Carolina in 2015.

Jews and Muslims tend to disagree sharply on such questions as the politics of Palestine, Abdelmageed said. But on religious freedom, I don't think you would find differences there.

When the string of anti-Jewish incidents began to play out in New York, this community had just concluded a remarkable, monthlong celebration of Jewish culture and courage.

What underscores the beauty of the Fort Wayne community to me in light of these incidents was the incredible response to Violins of Hope, Eisbart said. We distinguished ourselves as a community of caring people by that participation. Though there are an estimated 700 Jews in Fort Wayne, thousands of local residents attended the November eventsand exhibition of violins that survived the Holocaust.

Schreier said she and co-organizer Jim Palermo, director of the Fort Wayne Philharmonic, have fielded calls from cities all over the country asking how a Jewish-themed event drew support from a range of secular organizations and overwhelming communitywide participation.

I think it begins at the home, for the most part, in exposing kids to different cultures, different religions, Eisbart said, talking about the basic sense of humanity and goodness of people irrespective of whether they wear a cross or they wear a Star of David or are a Muslim. ... People basically are good. ... If you develop a loving, caring relationship with society, within the home and outside of your doors, that should, theoretically, mitigate anti-this, anti-that, and anti-Semitism.

One of the reasons the United States is so great is because of the diversity, Schreier said. I don't think we ever want to move away from that beautiful gift of being able to worship like we want and say what we want and vote for whom we want.

Schreier puts it exactly right. Whatever group it is directed at, intolerance is not just wrong, but un-American. Those who persecute those of other faiths are striking at the American soul.

Tim Harmon is an editorial writer for The Journal Gazette.

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Witness to the PERSECUTION | Columns | Journal Gazette - Fort Wayne Journal Gazette

I recently attended Ron Bloombergs lecture on comedy. To a question about Mel Brooks Springtime for Hitler (The Producers), Bloomberg responded that he found it deeply offensive and not a subject for comedy. While I well understand this reaction and respect it, he termed it over the line. I have to wonder if the goal posts for comedy are being narrowed in todays tribally divided culture?

Think back to Lenny Bruce, Don Rickles, Eddie Murphy and even Archie Bunker. Humor could be naughty and even offensive to some or many. Satire, even if offensive, always has been regarded as a legitimate branch of comedy. Today, even an ultra-liberal comic like Bill Maher seems amazed when a joke in his monologue elicits groans or boos from his audience.

Some of this is, of course, context. President Donald Trump was rightly chastised for making fun of a physically challenged reporter. Yet, a recent Seth Meyers bit drew hilarious laughs as he imitated Henry Weinstein wheezing into court bent over his walker. Meyers often uses context in his sketch where he shares the mic with an African American female writer and a lesbian writer telling jokes a white male shouldnt tell.

The point is, what is todays over the line on comedy? Is there no more room for satire? Many filmgoers enjoy violent films. I personally do not, but do not think the worse of those who do. Edgy humor, like that of Richard Pryor, may be offensive to many, but should it be swept off the table for that reason?

Clearly the boundaries of political and societal correctness are not etched in stone. Maher, for example, insists his standup shows play very well in red states.

So what is over the line? Years ago, as a professor, a student asked me not to refer to her as an Oriental, but rather as an Asian. Of course, I made the adjustment immediately. I had no wish to offend. I drew the line, however, when called on the carpet for using the term niggardly in a lecture. I refused to buy into the notion that some might be offended by a word that actually means stingy. Instead, I used it as a learning experience for those who rushed to tell the provost that I had used the N-word.

Up to now, courts have broadly defined protected speech under the First Amendment. The line was not based on offensiveness. Some found Robert Mapplethorpes photographs of nude men in sadomasochistic poses offensive. Many found the desecration of the American flag as a form of political protest highly offensive. Yet both were found to be protected speech under the First Amendment.

In an era like today, where tribalism and polarization shape our everyday world, it is my hope that comedy will be excluded from the chasm separating the countrys different schools of thought. If some dont find it funny or over the line, so be it. But for others who do, even if a minority, lets provide them an opportunity to be heard.

Let the marketplace shape the outcomes as restricted only by the parameters of the First Amendment.

Paul Lazarus has served as a practicing attorney, a film producer and executive, the film commissioner for New Mexico, and as chair of the Motion Picture Department at the University of Miami.

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Over the line in comedy | My View - Santa Fe New Mexican

RACELAND Ryan Biederman is a Social Studies teacher at Raceland-Worthington Middle School. Biederman said he wanted to show his students how government works on a local level with local residents, and thought it would be another way to engage his students to learn.

After clearing the field trip with Raceland-Worthingtons principal and securing permissions slips from the parents, Biederman brought his class to the Greenup County Courthouse where they we able to sit in on a fiscal court meeting and speak with other members of local government.

One of the cool things we got at the court meeting that you cant get in the classroom is that the Constitution came alive, Biederman said.

The Raceland-Worthington students were present for the recent discussion and passage of a resolution by the fiscal court concerning the Second Amendment to the Constitution, the right to keep and bear arms. Biederman said in his classroom they drew comparisons to when King George III was attempting to disarm the colonists.

We had this discussion, and of course my role as a teacher is to never give my personal opinion,Biederman said. Its my job to ask them questions to help them think; that way the students learn to form their own opinions.

Biederman said the students reactions during the fiscal court meeting as they followed both the lawmakers and the residents who attended the meeting and voiced their opinions demonstrated to him that the field trip was a success.

It was obvious they were following the speakers, Biederman said. And you could see the reactions on their faces. Many of them (the students) had formed strong opinions of their own before we walked in there.

Biederman said after the meeting the class discussed the outcome, and most were pleased with it. Some of them were as emotionally engaged as the residents who spoke, he said.

The experience was successful, Biederman said, and had the desired impact on his students.

History can be difficult to teach, he admitted. And I am all about practicality, and how things apply in real world settings. You couldnt get more practical than what they learned there at the court.

We talk about current events throughout the entire year, and often follow spirited discussions on some topics,he added. But one thing I try to stress to my students is that you can disagree with someone without hating them. I believe we have gone away from that, and I tell them that hopefully their generation can correct that problem.

Another major takeaway from the field trip was seeing first-hand an example of another topic the class had discussed.

The students learned you could communicate with your government, Biederman said. And that governments are to serve the people, so they need to and want to hear from the people. And in order to be a responsible citizen we should all want to be interactive with our government.

When we got back to school, we discussed some of the rights that were being practiced in the courtroom. And one of those rights was the First Amendment. Many people there were peacefully assembling and petitioning the government and exercising that right.

Biederman said he and the students believe the field trip was a success and that they look forward to other subsequent field trips in the future.

(606)326-2655 |

cromans@dailyindependent.com

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Social Studies in the real world: Raceland teacher takes his class on field trip to fiscal court - The Independent

When Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, was charged last year by the Trump administration in connection with the publication of secret United States government documents nearly a decade earlier, many journalists expressed deep concern about the dangerous precedent the case could set for investigative reporting in America.

But few seemed to consider that the case might also serve as a model for other nations eager to clamp down on press freedom.

On Tuesday, Glenn Greenwald, an American journalist living and working in Brazil, was charged, in a criminal complaint brought by Brazilian prosecutors, with cybercrimes in connection with his stories on private messages among Brazilian officials that revealed corruption and abuses at the highest levels of the government. Brazilian prosecutors asserted that Mr. Greenwald was part of a criminal organization that hacked the cellphones of government officials. He has denied the charges. (Full disclosure: Mr. Greenwald is a co-founder of The Intercept, where I work as a reporter; I also run the First Look Press Freedom Defense Fund, part of the nonprofit organization that includes The Intercept.)

The case against Mr. Greenwald is eerily similar to the Trump administrations case against Mr. Assange. Last April, the Justice Department charged Mr. Assange with aiding a source, the former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning, to gain access to a United States military computer database. In May 2019, the charges against him were broadened, and he was indicted under the Espionage Act in connection with the publication of American military and diplomatic documents by WikiLeaks.

Both cases are based in part on a new prosecutorial concept that journalism can be proved to be a crime through a focus on interactions between reporters and their sources. Prosecutors are now scrutinizing the processes by which sources obtain classified or private information and then provide it to journalists. Since those interactions today are largely electronic, prosecutors are seeking to criminalize journalism by turning to anti-hacking laws to implicate reporters in the purported criminal activity of their sources in gaining access to data on computers or cellphones without authorization.

This blunt approach gives the government enormous leverage over journalists and, in the United States, provides them with a detour around First Amendment concerns. If these cases become templates that prosecutors in the United States and other nations follow, virtually every investigative reporter will become vulnerable to criminal charges and imprisonment.

Both the Trump administration and the right-wing Brazilian government of President Jair Bolsonaro seem to have decided to experiment with such draconian anti-press tactics by trying them out first on aggressive and disagreeable figures.

In fact, by the time of his indictment last year, there was still an ongoing debate within the media about whether Mr. Assange should even be considered a journalist at all.

In 2010, when WikiLeaks began publishing the huge leaks of United States government documents it had obtained from Ms. Manning, Mr. Assange suddenly emerged as a strange new player in the modern journalistic landscape. Under his leadership, WikiLeaks both published the documents itself and also shared many of the leaked documents with other major news organizations, including The New York Times.

Mr. Assange was both a publisher and an intermediary between sources and reporters, which made it difficult to define his journalistic role. His later involvement in the Trump-Russia case in 2016, WikiLeaks obtained and released emails and other documents from the Clinton presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee from a hacker believed to be a front for Russian intelligence transformed Mr. Assange into an even more incendiary character with little public support. (The federal charges against Mr. Assange are not related to his involvement in the 2016 campaign.)

Mr. Greenwald revels in his divisiveness and his disdain for the mainstream media, and he and I have publicly clashed over our differing views of the Trump-Russia case. But he is also a zealous journalist who came to prominence in 2013 for his Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of a giant trove of documents from the National Security Agency that were leaked by the former N.S.A. contractor Edward Snowden.

Last year, Mr. Greenwald obtained another big leak, the private messages of Brazilian government officials concerning a major corruption case in Brazil that had led to the conviction of the former Brazilian president Luiz Incio Lula da Silva.

Mr. Greenwalds reporting revealed that the investigation that led to Mr. da Silvas conviction was deeply politicized and corrupt. The stories were explosive in Brazil, and ultimately helped lead to Mr. da Silvas release from prison in November.

But Mr. Greenwalds reporting enraged President Bolsonaro, who had been leveling threats against the journalist for months before the complaint issued on Tuesday.

In an interview with me on Thursday, Mr. Greenwald agreed that there are parallels between his case and Mr. Assanges, and added that he doesnt believe that Mr. Bolsonaro would have taken action against an American journalist if he had thought President Trump would oppose it.

Bolsonaro worships Trump, and the Bolsonaro government is taking the signal from Trump that this kind of behavior is acceptable, he said.

The State Department has not issued any statement of concern about Brazils case against Mr. Greenwald, which in past administrations would have been common practice.

This is all about targeting reporters who are publishing information that is embarrassing, and not like the 90 percent of the leaks coming out of Washington that are official leaks designed to support the people in power, said Joshua Dratel, a criminal defense attorney in New York who has represented prominent whistle blowers and who also represented WikiLeaks in a civil suit brought against it by the Democratic National Committee.

In fact, Mr. Trumps anti-press rhetoric and actions have encouraged authoritarian regimes around the world to prosecute and jail journalists, and to impose new anti-press laws and other measures designed to curtail negative coverage.

Joel Simon, the executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists, said in an interview that one of the latest tactics spreading around the globe is the creation of vaguely worded fake news laws that criminalize news that government officials deem to be wrong. Fake news is, of course, a phrase that Mr. Trump has helped popularize.

Qatar just promulgated a fake news law this week, Mr. Simon said, noting that Singapore also has one. These fake news laws are absolutely correlated with the Trump administration.

The most tragic evidence that Mr. Trump is enabling a global crackdown on the press has been his failure to hold Saudi Arabias leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, accountable for the brutal 2018 murder of the Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The Trump administration is an accessory after the fact to the Khashoggi murder, Mr. Simon said.

While the Bush and Obama administrations were inconsistent on press issues, they were still willing to discuss concerns about press freedom with another country in the framework of the bilateral relationship, he added. Thats gone now with Trump.

It will be tragic if journalists shrug off the attack on the contrarian Mr. Greenwald and dont see his case for what it truly signifies that Trump-like attacks on the press are spreading like a virus around the globe.

James Risen is the senior national security correspondent for The Intercept. As a reporter for The New York Times, he and another former Times reporter, Eric Lichtblau, received the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for national reporting on secret domestic eavesdropping by the federal government.

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Reporters Face New Threats From the Governments They Cover - The New York Times