First Amendment

The ACLU has filed a speech case that reveals how far we are from realizing the full potential and promise of our beautiful First Amendment. Our nation, the world's preeminent defender and champion of free speech, is in the relative Dark Ages. Colonel Morris Davis, a former Guantanamo prosecutor, expressed his personal opinion on issues related to trials for Guantanamo detainees and related matters. He was fired from his job at the Library of Congress, Congressional Research Service for his public personal expressions (others may have judged his expressions unacceptable, incorrect, or inconsistent or too political etcetera).

You simply do not have free speech rights if you can be fired or denied a job or denied advancement or denied anything or punished in any way because your public personal expressions may be diverse, divergent, inconsistent, incongruent, or incompatible from your employer's.

Kudos to the ACLU for pursuing this case—the issue shouldn't be whether Colonel Morris Davis' employer has adequately documented its ability to restrict his personal public expressions as a condition of employment, but whether such conditions were they to be clearly and boldly documented are nevertheless void as a matter of constitutional law and public policy. All such conditions, express or implied should absolutely be void.

To suggest that Colonel Morris Davis cannot have publicly diverse, divergent, inconsistent, incongruent, or incompatible personal expressions from his employer's is to treat Colonel Davis like a monkey and his employer like an organ grinder.

Web: ACLU Sues Library Of Congress On Behalf Of Former Guantánamo Prosecutor

Blog: FAS SP, ACLU Files Suit on Behalf of Fired CRS Official