Banned Books Week, held annually on the last week of September, emphasizes the importance of intellectual freedom and the threat of censorship. [more inside]
posted by orrnyereg on Sep 28, 2009 - 51 comments

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has published a criticism of Burning Man, LLC's Terms and Conditions, saying that the automatic rights assignment to BMOrg for photos & video taken during the event is "creative lawyering intended to allow the BMO to use the streamlined “notice and takedown” process enshrined in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to quickly remove photos from the Internet" and that this is corrosive to our freedom of speech. Burning Man responds.
posted by scalefree on Aug 14, 2009 - 123 comments

Ward Churchill reinstated. A jury has found that The University of Colorado wrongfully dismissed the controversial professor, author, and activist. After a day and a half of deliberation, they cited the tenured professor's infamous post-9/11 essay, wherein he compared technocrats who died in the World Trade Center to "little Eichmanns," as the "substantial or motivating" factor in the University's decision to fire him and awarded him $1. (previously here and here.)
posted by inoculatedcities on Apr 4, 2009 - 54 comments

The Obama Justice Department has released nine legal memos from the Bush administration that assert broad extra-Constitutional powers for the president. The memos assert that both the First and Fourth Amendments may be subordinated to the needs of wartime. [more inside]
posted by EarBucket on Mar 2, 2009 - 81 comments

The previously-mentioned Summums want to place their own monument in a park which contains the Ten Commandments, making the Supreme Court's heads explode in a a hilariously weird oral argument^[pdf]: "Scalia: I don't know what that means. You keep saying it, and I don't know what it means. [...] Breyer: Suppose that there certain messages that private people had like "eat vitamins"—and then somebody comes along with a totally different content, "ride the roller coaster," and they say this part of the park is designed to get healthy children, not put children at risk." [more inside]
posted by Non Prosequitur on Nov 13, 2008 - 116 comments

Out of Step With Allies, U.S. Defends Freedom to Offend NYT article [more inside]
posted by lalochezia on Jun 11, 2008 - 140 comments

Is it Art? The Assassination of Hillary Clinton/The Assassination of Barack Obama [more inside]
posted by Xurando on Jun 4, 2008 - 73 comments

Texan judge rules $5 "pole tax" violates First Amendment rights. Further, Judge Scott Jenkins found no evidence to justify the purpose of HB 1751 (PDF), finding the anecdotal link of the patronage of strip clubs with a lack of health insurance and increased sexual assault rates for dancers insufficient, and ordered the state to pay the plaintiffs' legal fees. Activists are already looking to appeal Jenkins' ruling and reenact the tax. (Previously on Metafilter.)
posted by Blazecock Pileon on Apr 3, 2008 - 9 comments

If European and North American societies are morally responsible (print-friendly) for safeguarding free speech, should we also take financial responsibility for its proponents' safety (pf)? Hitchens seems to think so.

Today's moral dilemma is brought to you, of course, by the West's favourite Voltairian nightmare: prominent Islam critic, former Dutch MP, and scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane on Oct 9, 2007 - 17 comments

37% beleive the media shouldn't be allowed to "freely criticize the U.S. military about its strategy and performance."; 55% believe the Constitution establishes a Christian nation. The State of the First Amendment Survey.
posted by orthogonality on Sep 12, 2007 - 77 comments

Presidential Advance Manual [pdf] has been leaked, apparently. WaPo reporter Peter Baker discusses the "rally squads" to be set up by the advance team, whose job is to drown out potential protesters with chants of "USA! USA!" Slate's Dahlia Lithwick opines as well, and relates the document to the recent payment of 80,000 dollars to two people who had the unmitigated gall to wear anti-Bush T-shirts at a public event.
posted by bardic on Aug 22, 2007 - 38 comments

A very big day for the Supreme Court. In Morse v. Fredrick, the Court ruled that a school could suspend a child for holding up a "Bong HiTs for Jesus" banner. (Previous post here). In Hein v. Freedom from Religion, the Court held that taxpayers lacked standing to challenged Faith Based Initiatives (previous discussions). In Wilke v. Robbins, the Court held that land owners do not have Bivens claims if the federal government harasses landowners for easements. In FEC v. Wisconsin Right to Life, the Court held that the portion of the campaign finance law which had blackout periods before elections on issue advocacy advertising was an unconstitutional restriction of speech (other). This Thursday, the Justices will deliver their last opinions of the term, including a death penalty case and the school assignment cases. (Opinions are .pdfs)
posted by dios on Jun 25, 2007 - 224 comments

"The president's right to control his own message includes the right to exclude people expressing discordant viewpoints from the audience". (NYT, reg req). More. Lots more
posted by unSane on Apr 16, 2007 - 87 comments

So Much for Privacy (Part II) In another Sunshine Week "exposé" columnist Christian Trebjal of the Roanoke (Va.) Times decided that everyone needed to know the full names and addresses of every Concealed Handgun Permit holder in Virginia. So he got a list from the VA state police and had the newspaper put it in a handy searchable database. In the ensuing blog post regarding the column and database comments quickly got heated and comments were closed for several hours for unknown and unstated reasons (though perhaps due to the publication of Trebjal's home address). Of course, Virginian CHP holders were completely and wholly unamused. Following the outcry, the newspaper has removed the database, with a self-serving statement about concern for public safety but there was no concern for public safety guiding their actions before the objections. Overall, a question is raised: if Sunshine Week is supposed to be about open government why are newspapers aggregating and publishing information about private citizens at all?
posted by Dreama on Mar 13, 2007 - 46 comments

Bill Sullivan calls his strict approach to taking candid shots "situational photography." Each subject in the uniformly composed photos is doing the exact same thing, like going through a turnstile or posing for a street artist. More candid street photograpy: Harry Callahan (1 2 3 4 more), Philip-Lorca diCorcia (1 2 3 4 more) ,and previously. One diCorcia photo led to a recent ruling that non-commercial street photography is protected under the 1st Amendment. 'more' links have NSFW images. The other direct links should be fine.
posted by hydrophonic on Jan 23, 2007 - 15 comments

VBlogger and journalist jailed for refusing to give up footage of protest
Josh Wolf is a video blogger and freelance journalist who was jailed by a U.S. district court on August 1, 2006 for refusing to turn over a collection of videos he recorded during a July 2005 anarchist protest in San Francisco, California. During that event, anarchists allegedly set a police cruiser on fire. [more inside]
posted by stenseng on Oct 1, 2006 - 58 comments

(NSFW) “If you are denying yourself pleasure then you have to take responsibility for where you are right now. When you get to a place where you are happy then love comes into your life. When you begin to love yourself then people recognize that and you can start receiving it. Self-pity will get you nowhere. Our society is sexist, racist, ageist, but I am a biological creature with all these amazing gifts of orgasm and I cannot wait for the world out there to change for me to be happy. I have all the happiness I need inside myself and I’m keeping it. I have denied it and avoided it for myself for too long. I have waited around for other things to be arranged before I gave myself happiness and I’m not going to do that anymore. It wasn’t until I stopped wallowing in all that self-pity and took matters into my own hands that things started to change for me. . . . Don’t wait around for another person to give that to you, give it to yourself. . . . We have been taught to not like ourselves and it takes a lot to unteach that to ourselves. There is a lot of conditioning and everyone has their own kind of conditioning that they have to unlearn. . . . All I can tell people about myself is that I give it to myself just as I can. My area just happens to be sex, while others have art, painting or public health or whatever. I’m just as true to myself as I can be.” --Nina Hartley
posted by jason's_planet on Sep 23, 2006 - 79 comments

From the guy who brought you the Whitewater scandal and the impeachment of President Clinton for lying about oval antics in the Oral Office, a legal push to make the Supreme Court just say no to "Bong Hits 4 Jesus." Ken Starr's petition to the Court [PDF] makes clear that Starr believes this is no laughing matter, but a chance for the Court to make a landmark ruling that will give school adminstrators the power to limit student speech: "This case presents the Court with a much-needed opportunity to resolve a sharp conflict among federal courts (and to eliminate confusion on the part of school boards, administrators, teachers, and students) over whether the First Amendment permits regulation of student speech when such speech is advocating or making light of illegal substances."
posted by digaman on Aug 28, 2006 - 131 comments

America's craziest bookstore has gone out of business. Loompanics, a libertarian publisher in Washington State, has gone out of business. Some blame the changed political climate after 9/11. Others blame Amazon.com and the big bookstore chains. No matter what the cause might be, I will miss them. What will I do if I decide I want to try to cook some crank? And if that doesn't succeed in paying the bills, what if I need to go dumpster diving for my dinner? And if get truly desperate, what if I decide to rip off a drug dealer instead? I'm glad that Amok is still with us.
posted by jason's_planet on Jun 30, 2006 - 23 comments

SCOTUS strikes down campaign finance restrictions [pdf]. The Supreme Court issued an opinion today in Randall v. Sorrell, striking down limits on campaign contributions and campaign spending imposed by the state of Vermont. The Court, in a fractured opinion (six separate opinions, including two dissents), concluded that restrictions on both contributions and expenditures ran afoul of the First Amendment. More from Amy Howe at SCOTUSblog. Expect more from Rick Hasen later today.
posted by monju_bosatsu on Jun 26, 2006 - 81 comments

Federalism and Faith. [more inside]
posted by monju_bosatsu on Jun 1, 2006 - 16 comments

The Ninth Circuit (maligned by many as a hotbed of extreme liberal judicial activism, but defended by others PDF) issued its opinion in the case of Harper v. Poway Unified School District last week. Judge Stephen Reinhardt - who, to some people, embodies the alleged evils of the Ninth Circuit - issued the majority opinion, and Judge Alex Kozinski filed a strong dissent. The majority opinion held that a high school principal who ordered a student to remove his T-shirt that said "Homosexuality is Shameful" did not violate the student's First Amendment rights, reasoning that "limitations on speech" are permissible in cases where speech is "derogatory and injurious remarks directed at students' minority status such as race religion and sexual orientation," and the limitation is "narrow, and applied with sensitivity and for reasons that are consistent with the fundamental First Amendment mandate." [more inside]
posted by Pontius Pilate on Apr 26, 2006 - 152 comments

How modern evangelicals are ignoring their own history. "Even though Jefferson was labeled anti-religion by some, he had become a hero to evangelicals—not in spite of his views on separation of church and state, but because of them." (via A&L Daily)
posted by darkstar on Mar 19, 2006 - 18 comments

Could Tom Cruise sue South Park for suggesting he is gay? A discussion of the legal implications of a recent South Park episode suggesting Cruise was "in the closet." (Link to the clip in question) (via)
posted by Ljubljana on Dec 8, 2005 - 87 comments

In a sardonic new editorial, the Register asks whether the EFF is harming the very causes that it's supposedly fighting for. This isn't coming out of left field. The EFF has lost numerous cases that could have been won, and in doing so is helping to creating precedents that make fights for civil liberties harder to wage.
posted by bshort on Dec 6, 2005 - 35 comments

In July, Georgia federal judge William C. O’Kelley ordered Barrow County to remove a Ten Commandments plaque from its courthouse. The suit was filed by ACLU Georgia, which not only succeeded in getting the plaque removed, but also recovered $150,000 in attorneys’ fees and expenses. Ten Commandments-Georgia pledged to reimburse the county for its legal expenses. In order for the group to raise the last $52,000 it needs to meet that pledge, it has put the actual Ten Commandments plaque that was removed from the courthouse under the order of the court up for auction on eBay.
posted by monju_bosatsu on Sep 13, 2005 - 40 comments

The End of Internet P8rn? The updated 2257 regulations, which go into effect June 23, will expand the proof of age record-keeping requirements that producers of sexually explicit content must follow. Industry insiders are scrambling to prepare for the new regulations and claim they are too burdensome to 'net p9rn providers and are illogical. (The AVN links are NSFW) The Free Speech Coalition is seeking a temporary restraining order (Doc file) to enjoin the enforcement of the new regulations hoping to prevent what some predict to be an industry wide shutdown. Is this a matter of the law keeping up with technology, or an assault on .xxx?
posted by greasy_skillet on Jun 21, 2005 - 64 comments

Anti-Porn Law Is Unconstitutional A federal court in U.S. v. Extreme Associates has struck down the federal anti-obscenity law. In this case, the government argued that "entertaining lewd and lustful thoughts stimulated by viewing material that appeals to one's purient interests . . . . is immoral conduct even when done by consenting adults in private." The court, however, wanted no part of this moralizing, as it declared "upholding the public sense of morality is not even a legitimate state interest."
posted by expriest on Jan 23, 2005 - 36 comments

This Highway Adopted By The Ku Klux Klan The US Supreme Court has declined an appeal by the state of Missouri seeking to reverse an 8th Circuit opinion which allows the Ku Klux Klan to adopt a highway. Under the controlling ruling of the 8th Circuit, "desire to exclude controversial organizations in order to prevent 'road rage' or public backlash on the highways against the adopters' unpopular beliefs is simply not a legitimate governmental interest that would support the enactment of speech-abridging regulations."
posted by expriest on Jan 10, 2005 - 114 comments

Don't put a restraining order on God the toughest challenge of living in a democracy is to respect the freedom of other people to live according to values that are not your own. Real freedom, however, does not thrive in a moral vacuum (the ardent secularist) or a moral straightjacket (the ardent theocratic). What does my ideal of democracy look like? I can sum it up in a single sentence: A person arrives at faith freely, practices it openly, and uses dialogue with others about their own life path to deepen their understanding. another interesting read from the same webpage: God is not a Republican or a Democrat: the Religious Right does not speak for you. Remind America that Jesus taught us to be peacemakers, advocates for the poor, and defenders of justice.. this article is a little dated, but it is relevant for people who choose to accept Jesus as the Christ but do not want someone's political agenda attached to their belief system.
posted by Hands of Manos on Dec 9, 2004 - 127 comments

Weapons that can incapacitate crowds of people by sweeping a lightning-like beam of electricity across them are being readied for sale to military and police forces in the US and Europe. From guns that shoot streams of conductive fibers to plasma that will stop a truck, the military and the police are getting whole new ways to deal with protestors.
posted by dejah420 on Jun 17, 2004 - 30 comments

The Supreme Court ruled today that Michael Newdow did not have standing to sue on behalf of his daughter in challenging the recitation of the pledge in a public school classroom in California.
posted by monju_bosatsu on Jun 14, 2004 - 81 comments

Freewayblogger.com When you put a sign on the freeway people will read it until someone takes it down.
posted by srboisvert on Nov 24, 2003 - 56 comments

The Subpoenas are Coming! The FBI, in an attempt to prosecute Adrian Lamo (discussed here) is sending letters to journalists telling them to secretly prepare to turn over their notes, e-mails and sources to the bureau. And by secretly, they mean don't tell your colleagues, editors or lawyers, or risk facing obstruction of justice charges. (Via dailyrotten)
posted by Officeslacker on Sep 30, 2003 - 11 comments

Free speech zones Appearing everywhere from Florida to Oregon. In California the concept has been fought and defeated, but in Kansas there seems to be little resistance. It's not just the usual suspects, either. Watch where you are standing no matter who you are protesting, even if it's just governors.
posted by betaray on Sep 21, 2003 - 31 comments

The Bush administration has today stepped into the Supreme Court’s next major church-state case, by siding with the ACLJ and asking the high court to allow a state merit scholarship to be applied towards a degree in theology at a Christian College. Is this a valid example of the separation of Church and State, or unreasonable anti-religious discrimination? More inside.
posted by gd779 on Sep 11, 2003 - 18 comments

A Good Day for Video Games. Turns out that video games are protected by the First Amendment, at least according to the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, which today overturned a St. Louis ruling that video games do not constitue protected speech. A good quote from the opinion: "If the first amendment is versatile enough to 'shield [the] painting of Jackson Pollock, music of Arnold Schoenberg, or Jabberwocky verse of Lewis Carroll,' we see no reason why the pictures, graphic design, concept art, sounds, music, stories, and narrative present in video games are not entitled to a similar protection. The mere fact that they appear in a novel medium is of no legal consequence."
posted by jscalzi on Jun 3, 2003 - 7 comments

"I begin to feel like I was in the last generation of Americans who took a civics class. I begin to feel like most Americans don't understand the First Amendment, don't understand the idea of freedom of speech, and don't understand that it's the responsibility of the citizen to speak out....When I write a political column for the Chicago Sun-Times, when liberals disagree with me, they send in long, logical e-mails explaining all my errors. I hardly ever get well-reasoned articles from the right. People just tell me to shut up. That's the message: 'Shut up. Don't write anymore about this. Who do you think you are?'" Roger Ebert chats about dissent, celebrities, the power of film to effect change, and Moore.
posted by fold_and_mutilate on Apr 24, 2003 - 114 comments

Appellate Court Rules Media Can Legally Lie. "The attorneys for Fox . . . argued the First Amendment gives broadcasters the right to lie or deliberately distort news reports on the public airwaves." And they won. Learn about the alleged deception (regarding BGH in milk). Read the appellate court's opinion which essentially says that there's no law against lying.
posted by vraxoin on Mar 7, 2003 - 32 comments

Down with Free Speech? Poll shows American support for the first Amendment down. Would any politician be stupid enough to try to capitalize on this sentiment? Should we all be watching our words?
posted by Hall on Aug 30, 2002 - 41 comments

"If this were a sci-fi melodrama, it might be called Speech-Zilla meets Trademark Kong. ... The parties are advised to chill." (PDF file) The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit is at it again. Aqua's hit song "Barbie Girl" is judged not to be a violation of Mattel's trademark, but to be a parody protected by free speech. And all laboured judgely joshing aside, the decision offers a nice summary of trademark law. Get a plain HTML news story from CNN here. (The chorus is running through your brain now, right? And it's going to be there all day, too. *snicker*)
posted by maudlin on Jul 25, 2002 - 5 comments

The Family Policy Network is suing the University of North Carolina for "forcing freshmen and transfers to study Islam against their will." The flap is over an assigned reading that includes of 35 passages from the Qur'an. The FPN claims that the students' First Amendment Rights are being violated. Does anyone else this find this very bizarre?
posted by Bag Man on Jul 24, 2002 - 54 comments

Raisethefist.org shut down? This hasn't been picked up by major media yet, but does appear in the Progressive Review. Apparently, raisethefist.org was shut down by Secret Service, FBI, and local law enforcement, for unspecified reasons. Is this a First Amendment issue? Is this a police state in action? Or does anybody have credible evidence that there's genuine illegal activity behind the shutdown?
posted by yesster on Jan 31, 2002 - 31 comments

The Federal Trade Commission is seeking to curtail the activities of telemarketers through the creation of a national 'do-not-call' registry. But the telemarketing industry says the FTC's plan would violate their First Amendment rights.
posted by jjg on Jan 23, 2002 - 20 comments

Why Don't Prosecutors Want to Let Her Go? An interesting article from Texas Monthly about journalist Vanessa Leggett, currently clocking record-setting jail time for refusing to turn over names of her sources. The article speculates on the rationale for the prosecution's hard line. (via Romenesko)
posted by BT on Nov 26, 2001 - 13 comments

Small town fights for right to insult minorities. NPR's Kathy Lohr reports that the small city of Ringgold in northwest Georgia has a new approach to religion in public places. At City Hall, it is putting up a display of the Ten Commandments, the Lord's Prayer -- and a blank plaque for non-believers. Councilman Bill McMillion says he proposed the blank plaque so no one would feel left out. The American Civil Liberties Union says the display is unconstitutional.

As an aethiest and a resident of this town, I can't help but feel insulted by the blank plaque. Local florist Melissa Hill adds: "But I do think it's sad that they needed to place a blank [plaque] to make the aethiests and the people in the world who don't believe that this world was created by god, um, to keep from them from causing trouble."
posted by mcsweetie on Oct 17, 2001 - 107 comments

First Amendment advocates fear erosion of rights in aftermath of attacks. In the aftermath of the worst terrorist attack in America, First Amendment proponents expect and fear that the nation's heightened national security concerns will soon overpower some of its basic freedoms.
posted by tpoh.org on Sep 14, 2001 - 3 comments

Americans less supportive of 1st amendment. Roughly four in 10 people (41%) said the media have too much freedom. Four in 10 respondents (39%) believed the First Amendment goes too far in guaranteeing rights. 71% said it was "very" or "somewhat" important for the government to hold the media in check.
posted by frednorman on Jul 8, 2001 - 17 comments

Anti-abortion site wins appeal. In a ringing defense of the First Amendment, Judge Alex Kozinski wrote that "political speech may not be punished just because it makes it more likely that someone will be harmed at some unknown time in the future by an unrelated third party.

Courtney Love can sue when her cell phone # is released on a website, and yet doctors have their personal information posted online specifically so they can be tracked and killed. Scary.
posted by jragon on Mar 29, 2001 - 35 comments

can standing up for your 1st amendment rights go too far? the independent florida alligator, the independently owned and run student newspaper of the university of florida, where i go to school, has entered into a lawsuit with the orlando sentinel trying to gain access to and copy the autopsy photos of dale earnhardt... saying that the injunction issued at widow teresa earnhardt's request by the state to block the public from access to these photos is a violation of the sunshine laws and their first amendment rights, they have thrown compassion to the wind in a self-righteous publicity stunt, and it's funny that their only supporters are other editors, writers, etc. is this going too far? i know writers live by their reputations, and this will certainly make them known, but how low is low? what do you guys think?
posted by zerotype on Mar 22, 2001 - 9 comments