First Amendment

Web: NYT, Washington’s Boyhood Home Is Found. A story tailor made for the 4th of July.

Washington's presidency is widely considered to be the gold standard of American presidents—hopefully all Americans will deepen their love of country by learning more about it, its founding presidents, and their spouses.

If you do not know where to begin check-out the The American Presidents Series.

The First Amendment forbade Los Angeles County Deputy Sheriffs Mark Darling, Mark Repcik, Xavier Aguilar, and Dave Despot from arresting detaining (75 minutes)¹ individuals expressing their anti-abortion views on a public street.

The deputies and nearby Dodson Middle School Assistant Principal Art Roberts thought the fetal pictures attached to the vehicle driving around the school were offensive—too bad says the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in Center for Bio-ethical Reform v LA County Sheriff (pdf).

It's Constitutional Law 101 that you cannot forbid speech simply because you don't like it or find it offensive, even if you're trying to "protect the children"!

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1. "The deputies cannot receive qualified immunity for their unreasonably lengthy detention of Kulas and Padberg. The deputies’ constitutional duty to act diligently and pursue a means of investigation likely to confirm or dispel their suspicions quickly was clearly established on the date of the detention in this case. See Sharpe, 470 U.S. at 686. Moreover, it should have been readily apparent to a reasonable officer that § 626.8 provided no basis for a detention, as no violation of the statute occurred unless the Plaintiffs stayed on the premises after being asked to leave. It was also apparent that calling school liaison Deputy Sheriff Despot or Assistant Principal Roberts was not likely to quickly confirm or dispel any suspicion of wrongdoing. Moreover, neither Despot’s nor Roberts’s presence was necessary to enforce § 626.8. As the unlawfulness of their actions was apparent, the deputies are not entitled to qualified immunity. See Hope, 536 U.S. at 739."--Center for Bio-ethical Reform--

Web:

• iCasualties Website.
• Flickr Photos Memorial Day 2008 Celebrating and Ceremonies.

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1. Senators like Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and VA directors like Dr. Ira Katz who deny our returning veterans resources should be removed from office.

Let's not have more reports that our veterans must sue for resources or suicide data are being obfuscated or diagnosis of depressive disorders are being withheld.

Additionally, let us resolve that our nation and troops will never again suffer under the likes of a criminal, grossly incompetent, and deceitful commander in chief such as George W. Bush—he's unfit to command a pack of Cub Scouts.

The Free Speech Protection Act of 2008 has recently been introduced (H.R. 5814 and S.2977) to prevent an abusive tactic whereby individuals unable to silence their American critics in American courts will obtain judgments in foreign courts. Then seek to enforce the foreign money judgments, sometimes for large amounts, in American courts¹.

This needed federal legislation (H.R. 5814 and S.2977) will enable (encourage) free speaking Americans confronted with a foreign defamation, libel, slander, or other forms of speech suppressing judgments to test, in federal court, whether those judgments meet American Constitution, First Amendment standards.

If the federal court determines a judgment does not meet American Constitution, First Amendment standards, the court is permitted to enjoin its enforcement and award litigation costs, including treble damages.

This will reduce the abuses like those suffered by Rachel Ehrenfeld when a Saudi billionaire didn't like that Ehrenfeld (and our government) accused him of funding terrorism².

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1. Britain is often the jurisdiction of choice because its judicial system most parallels our own, except for speech law, where it is opposite ours.

Imagine Mahfouz obtaining a judgment against Ehrenfeld in Saudi Arabia, which follows Sharia Law (Islamic religious tenets enforced as law) and then coming to the United States to enforce that judgment.

No court in America (well may one in Texas or Kansas, somewhere) would enforce that judgment—why, because it's fundamentally inimical to our constitutional system—British court's judgments, in the area of speech, are fundamentally inimical to our constitutional system of laws.

2. See Toocan->First Rachel Ehrenfeld v. Khalid Salim Bin Mahfouz or American Center for Democracy for more information.

Fortunately, Ehrenfeld is not easily intimidated and recent legislation signed by the newly designated governor of New York shields her from Mahfouz's abuses, while she fearlessly pursues litigation and terrorism links with respect to Mahfouz (and others).

Frustrated politicians, worldwide, are whipsawing Google seeking Internet censorship as solutions to the problems they perceive are confronting their nation.

Ironically, the latest demand for censorship comes from American Senator Joseph Lieberman (I-CT). No doubt frustrated by our devastating debacle in Iraq, his inability to persuade Americans that creating an Iran debacle is a good idea, and fearful about the strategic shifts occurring in the Middle East has focused on Google, demanding it censor users' videos.

Evidently, Senator Lieberman thinks Google can set up some sort of review board and pass judgment on which users' videos it thinks are Muslim religious fanatic recruiting videos and remove them from YouTube¹.

Google need not and should not engage these futile, silly, and harebrained demands to conform the Internet's information to each politician's or nation's definition of unwanted or uncontrollable "propaganda".²

The solution for America and all other nations is simple and direct—zero censorship of the Internet's information. If the Internet is being used to commit crimes then nations should cooperate to ensure warrants issue and prosecution follows in accordance with the rule of law.

Web:

• UPDATED 05/20/2008 AP, Cisco Systems denies online censorship role in China. Cisco denies helping China censor—Google's Deputy General Counsel, Nicole Wong, says Google is working hard to avoid censorship and stresses four points:

  • "First, our products are above all else platforms for free expression and access to information."
  • "Second, a wide range of legal and cultural barriers around the world regarding the free flow of information impact our products and services every day."
  • "Third, we are working hard to respond to these challenges through policies and technology that promote free expression."

    • Misblog commentary and not part of Wong's statement: The third point is very important to free speech—the uncontrolled and uncontrollable tools to circumvent all nations' censorship.

      While politicians, worldwide, engage in a perpetual debate on what constitutes censorship we can use these tools to ensure ALL information flows friction free through the Internet, including their perpetual debate on censorship. (see Lieberman's perpetual debate response to Google LIEBERMAN RESPONDS TO GOOGLE. Google and Americans should just ignore but not censor the senator from Connecticut on the issue of censorship.)

  • "And finally, we believe that governments around the world can and must do more to effectively reduce internet censorship and promote free expression online."--Go Nicole and Google--

• Lieberman called on Google to remove Internet video

Blog: CNet, Senator targets YouTube, but law not on his side

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1. Senator Lieberman's demand must seem confusing, if not inconsistent or hypocritical, to Google executives considering Yahoo's recent verbal lashing from the late Congressman Tom Lantos (deceased February 11, 2008) for assisting China with censorship and identifying anonymous Chinese dissenters. [see November 6, 2007 transcript of Yahoo! Inc.’s Provision of False Information to Congress (pdf), Yahoo lied about its efforts assisting China.]

Recent condemnation of China by the United States House of Representatives for Internet censorship (H. RES. 1075) of Tibetans must add to that confusion?

Tomorrow Google, Cisco, and Yahoo will be appearing before the Senate Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law on “Global Internet Freedom: Corporate Responsibility and the Rule of Law”. The hearing will focus, in large measure, on why these companies are assisting China with censorship. [see also AP, Cisco Systems document cites China censorship goal. Cisco's presentation lists as a China goal censoring Falun Gong and other hostiles—can't wait to hear who China thinks the other hostiles are.]

2. Americans (and others) must protect Google (and others) from retaliatory senators and representatives who are notorious for extorting our corporation by threatening regulation if they do not go along with Internet censorship.

Web: Mother's Day celebration reaches 100th anniversary

The Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF) has filed papers with the Superior Court of New Jersey, Mammoth County seeking to extract the Wikimedia Foundation (Wikipedia) from a defamation complaint filed by Barbara Bauer, dba Barbara Bauer Literary Agency (Docket Number: L-1169-07)¹.

Periodically a case comes along to remind us that possessing First Amendment Rights is no guarantee that those rights will be responsibly, reasonably, or artfully exercised!

There's a book in here somewhere...

Res: EFF, Bauer v. Glatzer

Web:

• UPDATED 07/02/2008Wikinews, Libel case against Wikimedia Foundation dismissed. If Bauer proceeds with her case it will be without Wikimedia Foundation as a defendant—as a general rule internet sites hosting internet content are not and should not be responsible for the content users post to the site.

  Most responsible internet hosting sites nevertheless have policies for reporting and removing unlawful or patently shocking and offensive content.

• UPDATED 05/17/2008 Wikileaks, Wikinews suppressed article on Barbara Bauer vs. Wikipedia case

  • Slashdot, Wikimedia Censors Wikinews

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1. In addition to Wikimedia Foundation the complaint names civil defendants Jenna Glatzer, MacAllister Stone, James MacDonald, Patrick Nielsen-Hayden, Teresa Nielsen-Hayden, Brian Hill², Dee Power², David Kuzminski, Thomas Tully, Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Inc., Victoria Strauss, Shweta Narayan, Lesia Valentine, Christina Walden, Stephan Spencer, Kristen Fischer, Gregory Ludwig, and Aimee Amodio.

The complaint alleges that the defendants defamed Barbara Bauer and harmed her business by writing or facilitating the writing in the blogoshpere or wikiosphere statements about Barbara Bauer and her business like: "The Dumbest of the Twenty Worst"; "no documented sales at all"; "[will] vacuum out your savings account [and] lie to you"; "[has] threatened 2/3 of internet at least once"; "[is] inept-but-abusive supposed literary agent"; "[is] a dodgy player"; "[is] a scammer"; [engages in] ...random nuttiness"; "[is] a faux literary agent"; "[is] kooky...that lunatic"; "questioning her Ph.D. degree"; "[is] among a group of questionable agents”; ”she engages in dirty business practices"; posted a photo of [Barbara Bauer] superimposed on it an indecent licking actions over the mouth area"; "caused to be published on You Tube videos about Barbara Bauer entitled "Crouching Snark, Hidden Dragon and Miss Snark's Happy Hooker Crapstravanganza"; "[she] is a crook"; "[she's] a thief";...

2. See comment section for more poster information.

The Open Net Initiative (ONI) has consolidated five years of nation-state Internet censorship and surveillance research into a recently published book, Access Denied: The Practice and Policy of Global Internet Filtering. Access Denied significantly advances our ongoing discussion of methods for reducing global Internet IP packet friction, particularly at national borders and their virtual gateways. Access Denied has published an excellent first approximation of relative indexes for nation-state censorship and surveillance.1

Worldcat

Access Denied focuses on the technology of IP packet impediment, but ultimately nation-state sponsored packet friction is the manifestation of symptoms for a widespread illness—the inability of the nation-state to understand, mediate, and resolve conflicts as virtual boundaries elide national boundaries—treatment begins by recognizing the symptoms.

ONI’s, Access Denied has begun the important work of documenting the developing symptoms of this serious pandemic illness—an essential read for everyone working² or planning to work treating the symptoms of nation-state Internet censorship and surveillance!

Res: The Open Net Initiative (ONI)

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1. When the second edition is published its editors will help readers and improve readability by differentiating between regimes and regimens.

It will help readers distinguish the dictatorial regimes from the oppressive IP censorship and surveillance regimens they implement.

2. For example the Global Online Freedom Act of 2007, H.R. 275, has been introduced in the United States House of Representatives.

It aims to increase online freedom of expression and decrease nation-state coercion of multi-national entities.

Index on Censorship, an organization committed to tracking and documenting worldwide censorship abuses has announced the winners of its Freedom of Expression 2008 Awards:

• Guardian Journalism Award: Arat Dink
• The Economist New Media Award: Wikileaks
• Bindmans Law and Campaigning Award: U Gambira (alias for a leader of Burma monks)
• TR Fyvel Book Award: The Art of Political Murder: Who killed Bishop Gerardi
• The Index Film Award: Ahlaam (Dreams)

The award recognizes those among us who speak-out on important issues or stories when most remain mute, fearing or judging the repercussion, repression, or retaliation.