Category Archives: First Amendment

Court rules that publishing drivers license details broke the lawand First Amendment is no defense

In what could prove to be a consequential decision, the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit ruled Friday that the Chicago Sun-Times improperly obtained and disclosed personal information from motor vehicle records, and that the papers actions were not protected by the First Amendment. The decision by a three-judge panel allows a lawsuit against the paper, brought by five Chicago police officers who claim their privacy rights were violated, to proceed.

With its ruling, the court tackled a question that US courts have rarely if ever addressed: whether the First Amendment protects the publication of material that the press itself has unlawfully acquired. In this case, the judges ruled, it does notpartly because, in the courts view, the material in question was of marginal public value.

The cases underlying facts are colorful and tragic. In 2004, R.J. Vanecko, a nephew of Richard M. Daley, then the mayor of Chicago, had been drinking for eight hours before he punched a 21-year-old man, David Koschman, outside a Division Street bar. Koschman fell and hit his head, and died days later of a brain injury.

The Chicago Police Department investigated the incident, and at one point placed Vanecko in an eyewitness lineup, with five officers acting as fillers. Eyewitnesses failed to identify Vanecko as the perpetrator, so no charges were filed and the department closed the investigation in March 2011.

But suspicions lingered that the department had manipulated its investigation to protect Vanecko because of his family connections. The Sun-Times dug into the case and published a series of reports criticizing the investigation, including a Nov. 21, 2011, story about the Vanecko lineup. Under the headline Daley Nephew Biggest Guy on Scene, But Not in Lineup, the story suggested that several of the officers too closely resembled Vanecko for the lineup to be reliable.

The Sun-Times published lineup photos and the fillers names, along with their birth months and years, their heights and weights, and their hair and eye colors. The paper obtained the photos and names from the police department through a public records request. But apparentlyand crucially, for the legal analysisthe paper obtained the officers physical information from motor vehicle records maintained by the Illinois Secretary of State.

Eventually, a special prosecutor investigated Koschmans death, and in December 2012, eight years after the fatal incident, Vanecko was indicted and charged with one count of involuntary manslaughterto which he pleaded guilty in January 2014.

Along the way, the case took a bizarre turn: The officers sued the Sun-Times, claiming the paper had violated the federal Drivers Privacy Protection Act (DPPA) by publishing their physical information.

The DPPA and personal information

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Why five police officers can sue the Chicago Sun-Times

Practice First Amendment 1/28/15

By: OnnenJessica15

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Practice First Amendment 1/28/15 - Video

First Amendment PSA

By: david dors

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First Amendment PSA - Video

The First Amendment...(Historically Speaking) - Episode #14
Frederick Douglass Dixon hosts this weekly segment on UPTV.

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The First Amendment...(Historically Speaking) - Episode #14 - Video

Synopsis | Fighting For The First Amendment By Corydon B. Dunham
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First Amendment practice project
Intakes on our First Amendment rights.

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First Amendment practice project - Video

Part of the emoji exhibit at the Eyebeam gallery in New York City, on Dec. 14, 2013.

By Colin Daileda2015-02-07 20:41:12 UTC

When a 17-year-old from New York City was arrested and charged last month with making terrorist threats, the primary focus of the charge was two emoji.

Osiris Aristy posted several Facebook statuses last month that may not have explicitly threatened police, but included gun emoji pointing at emoji of police officers, which the New York City Police Department interpreted as a threat. While the terrorism charge was dropped, the case has raised questions over whether text and emoji receive equal protection under the U.S. First Amendment.

Aristy's lawyer said the NYPD overreacted; some would agree, but there is no definitive answer yet.

Although the law is murky when it comes to emoji, two things are clear, according to legal experts: First, symbols are as protected by the First Amendment as text, which theoretically means emoji are covered. Second, the terrorism charge would hinge on whether or not Aristy had made a "true threat."

A "true threat" is difficult to define. It requires knowing the intent of the message, and determining whether someone who heard or saw the message would feel threatened. But interpretations of emoji can vary.

It really comes down to whats surrounding the matter," Bradley Shear, a lawyer who focuses on social media law, told Mashable. "When someone sends an emoji, it can mean a whole bunch of different things.

On one hand, Aristy posted his emoji-littered statuses on Facebook for all to see. He didn't direct them at any particular officer, even if he clearly didn't like police.

"F*ck the 83 104 79 98 73 PCTKKKK," Aristy wrote in one status, which include a police officer emoji and two gun emoji. The numbers refer to NYPD precincts.

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Emoji arrest raises questions of First Amendment protection

The Twenty-first Amendment (Amendment XXI) to the United States Constitution repealed the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which had mandated nationwide Prohibition on alcohol on January 17, 1920. The Twenty-first Amendment was ratified on December 5, 1933. It is unique among the 27 amendments of the U.S. Constitution for being the only one to have been ratified by state ratifying conventions.

Section 1. The eighteenth article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.

Section 2. The transportation or importation into any State, Territory, or possession of the United States for delivery or use therein of intoxicating liquors, in violation of the laws thereof, is hereby prohibited.

Section 3. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by conventions in the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the States by the Congress.

The Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution had ushered in a period known as Prohibition, during which the manufacture, distribution, and sale of alcoholic beverages was illegal. Passage of the Eighteenth Amendment in 1919 was the crowning achievement of the temperance movement, but it soon proved highly unpopular. Crime rates soared under Prohibition as gangsters, such as Chicago's Al Capone, became rich from a profitable, often violent black market for alcohol. The federal government was incapable of stemming the tide: enforcement of the Volstead Act proved to be a nearly impossible task and corruption was rife among law enforcement agencies.[1] In 1932, wealthy industrialist John D. Rockefeller, Jr. stated in a letter:

When Prohibition was introduced, I hoped that it would be widely supported by public opinion and the day would soon come when the evil effects of alcohol would be recognized. I have slowly and reluctantly come to believe that this has not been the result. Instead, drinking has generally increased; the speakeasy has replaced the saloon; a vast army of lawbreakers has appeared; many of our best citizens have openly ignored Prohibition; respect for the law has been greatly lessened; and crime has increased to a level never seen before.[2]

As more and more Americans opposed the Eighteenth Amendment, a political movement grew for its repeal. However, repeal was complicated by grassroots politics. Although the U.S. Constitution provides two methods for ratifying constitutional amendments, only one method had been used up until that time; and that was for ratification by the state legislatures of three-fourths of the states. However, the wisdom of the day was that the lawmakers of many states were either beholden to or simply fearful of the temperance lobby. For that reason, when Congress formally proposed the repeal of Prohibition on February 20, 1933 (with the requisite two-thirds having voted in favor in each house; 63 to 21 in the United States Senate and 289 to 121 in the United States House of Representatives), they chose the other ratification method established by Article V, that being via state conventions. The Twenty-first Amendment is the only constitutional amendment ratified by state conventions rather than by the state legislatures.

The Congress proposed the Twenty-first Amendment on February 20, 1933.[3]

The proposed amendment was adopted on December 5, 1933. It is the only amendment to have been ratified by state ratifying conventions, specially selected for the purpose.[4] All other amendments have been ratified by state legislatures. It is also the only amendment that was approved for the explicit purpose of repealing a previously existing amendment to the Constitution. The Twenty-first Amendment ending national prohibition became officially effective on December 15, though people started drinking openly before that date.[5]

The various responses of the 48 states is as follows:

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Twenty-first Amendment to the United States Constitution ...

Book Review | The First Amendment And Related Statutes By Eugene Volokh
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Book Review | Anita Whitney, Louis Brandeis, And The First Amendment
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