This Presidents’ Day, defend the First Amendment – The Hill (blog)

In many ways, free speech is the right that protects all others, reinforcing every freedom that we hold dear and that so many have fought and died for.

This Presidents' Day, we should reflect on the reasons our Founding Fathers enshrined this right in our First Amendment. And we must acknowledge that this fundamental right is under attackeven for those who have fought to protect it.

Brandon Coleman, a Marine Corps veteran, began working as a therapist at the VA hospital in Phoenix to provide care for his brothers and sisters in arms. When he found that veterans there were dying due to negligence, he spoke upand for that, he was punished. When he told management what was going on, they told him thats how people get fired. They even tried to use his own personal medical records against him, and issued a gag order to silence him.

Colemans VA experience reminds of President Abraham Lincoln, who famously said that we as a nation will never be destroyed from the outside. "If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher, he said if the United States loses its freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.

Veterans like Brandon fought to defend us against external threats, but more and more are realizing that the biggest threat to our freedom is a government that is quick to limit our inalienable rights. The oath servicemen and women take to support and defend our Constitution doesnt end when we hang up our uniforms and return to civilian life.

Brandons case is one of many instances in which the very same government thats supposed to be protecting the right to free speech has tried to suppress it. Its not just happening at the VAlook at the way the government has intimidated religious groups by leaking donor lists, or the scandal at the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), in which the agency targeted certain groups because of their views on public policy.

Time and again, the government has silenced those it disagrees with by using citizens private information against them. Which makes it all the more concerning that a growing number of states are now trying to get more information about Americans who exercise their First Amendment rights.

In South Carolina, legislation was recently filed in the state Senate that would force essentially every nonprofit organization that educates citizens about public policy to disclose to the government the names, addresses, and employers of supporters who donate more than a certain dollar amount. Similar efforts have surfaced in both Nebraska and South Dakota. Touted under the banner of transparency, these so-called disclosure laws are nothing more than thinly-veiled attacks on free speech.

Throughout our history, the First Amendment has allowed citizens to challenge the government and powerful groups in all sectors, rooting out fraud and corruption. It has allowed marginalized groups to speak out against injustice, spurring progress toward equality. It has allowed millions of Americans to contribute to a marketplace of ideas, fostering a free society, a thriving culture and the largest economy in the world.

All too often today, our free speech right that was designed to hold the government accountable is being used by the government to harass, intimidate, and silence the very citizens the right is meant to protect.

With a new administration and a new Congress, there may now be a real opportunity to scale back and prevent further threats facing our First Amendment rights. But during these turbulent political times, we cant take that for granted.

Abolition, the womens movement, civil rights the inalienable right to free speech is what gave the foot soldiers in all of these movements the ability to speak up for themselves. Now that free speech is under attack, will we speak up for it?

Mark Lucas is the executive director of Concerned Veterans for America.

The views expressed by this author are their own and are not the views of The Hill.

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This Presidents' Day, defend the First Amendment - The Hill (blog)