1st Amendment Thread

[de officiis]

California Politician Seeks To Radically Curtail Free Speech To Combat “Fake News”

California Assemblyman Ed Chau (Democrat, Monterey Park) appears to be finally running into opposition over one of the most chilling, anti-speech pieces of recent years. Chau is trying to criminalize “fake news” and in the process would curtail free speech for everyone from parodies to comedies to opinion writers. He is the latest example of how some of the greatest threats to free speech around the Western world today appears to be coming from the left of the political spectrum from speech restrictions on campuses to new criminal laws on inciteful or intimidating speech.

Chau has pulled his bill shortly before a hearing after long ignoring the outcry for civil libertarians that he was threatening core free speech value with his poorly drafted and poorly conceived measure.

Known as the California Political Cyberfraud Abatement Act, Chau heralded his efforts as “an important step forward in the fight against ‘fake news’ and deceptive campaign tactics.” The Act would make it “unlawful for a person to knowingly and willingly make, publish or circulate on an Internet Web site, or cause to be made, published, or circulated in any writing posted on an Internet Web site, a false or deceptive statement designed to influence” an election. The wording is shockingly broad and ill-defined. It is would impact a great variety of opinions and parodies. What Chau considers “deceptive” or influential on an election is anyone’s guess. Hyperbole could then be prosecuted as well as Onion-like publications.

Surprisingly, Chau is a lawyer who appears to have missed basic constitutional law as a course at Southwestern University School of Law.

Sometimes I think about going to work for Turley.
It would be so much fun.

[de officiis]

Seething Mob Shuts Down Speech by Pro-Cop Writer Heather Mac Donald as Event Turns Violent

More anti-speech behavior by the BLM movement. And oh by the way, let's harrass the journalists, too, so they can't ask embarrassing questions that might reveal that the protestors don't even understand what they're protesting. Damn, I can't believe this is our country's future.

[SuburbanFarmer]

Seething Mob Shuts Down Speech by Pro-Cop Writer Heather Mac Donald as Event Turns Violent

More anti-speech behavior by the BLM movement. And oh by the way, let's harrass the journalists, too, so they can't ask embarrassing questions that might reveal that the protestors don't even understand what they're protesting. Damn, I can't believe this is our country's future.

Tidal wave of Stupid. Does this all go back to public education funding? Or is it the idiotic corporate media? I honestly have no idea anymore.

[Martin Hash]

It goes back to encouraging the behavior. It works.

[de officiis]

States Introduce Dubious Anti-Pornography Legislation to Ransom the Internet

More than a dozen state legislatures are considering a bill called the “Human Trafficking Prevention Act,” which has nothing to do with human trafficking and all to do with one man’s crusade against pornography at the expense of free speech.

At its heart, the model bill would require device manufacturers to pre-install “obscenity” filters on devices like cell phones, tablets, and computers. Consumers would be forced to pony up $20 per device in order to surf the Internet without state censorship. The legislation is not only technologically unworkable, it violates the First Amendment and significantly burdens consumers and businesses.

Perhaps more shocking is the bill’s provenance. The driving force behind the legislation is a man named Mark Sevier, who has been using the alias “Chris Severe” to contact legislators. According to the Daily Beast, Sevier is a disbarred attorney who has sued major tech companies, blaming them for his pornography addiction, and sued states for the right to marry his laptop. Reporters Ben Collins and Brandy Zadrozny uncovered a lengthy legal history for Sevier, including an open arrest warrant and stalking convictions, as well as evidence that Sevier misrepresented his own experience working with anti-trafficking non-profits.

The bill has been introduced in some form Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, New Jersey, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, West Virginia, and Wyoming (list here). We recommend that any legislator who has to consider this bill read the Daily Beast’s investigation.

But that’s not why they should vote against the Human Trafficking Prevention Act. They should kill this legislation because it’s just plain, awful policy.

[de officiis]

Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer

Facts (per Petitioner):

Trinity Lutheran Church applied for Missouri’s Scrap Tire Grant Program so that it could provide a safer playground for children who attend its daycare and for neighborhood children who use the playground after hours—a purely secular matter. But the state denied Trinity’s application solely because it is a church. The Eighth Circuit affirmed that denial by equating a grant to resurface Trinity’s playground using scrap tire material with funding the devotional training of clergy. The Eighth Circuit’s decision was not faithful to this Court’s ruling in Locke v. Davey, 540 U.S. 712 (2004), and deepened an existing circuit conflict. Three lower courts—two courts of appeals and one state supreme court—interpret Locke as justifying the exclusion of religion from a neutral aid program where no valid Establishment Clause concern exists. In contrast, two courts of appeals remain faithful to Locke and the unique historical concerns on which it relied.

Facts (per Respondent):

Missouri’s Scrap Tire Program competitively awards grants for the purchase of recycled tires to resurface playgrounds. The program is funded solely by setting aside a portion of a fee collected on new tires sold. Mo. Rev. Stat. § 260.273.6(2) (Cum. Supp. 2014). The program is administered by the Missouri Department of Natural Resources; Respondent Sara Parker Pauley is the Department Director.

Forty-four applicants sought grants from the funds available in the 2012 program. But there were sufficient funds to award grants to only 14 of those.

Petitioner Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Missouri, was one of the 44 applicants. Trinity Lutheran sought to place the rubber surface on a church playground used by Trinity Lutheran’s Learning Center. The Learning Center, for preschoolers, has been a Trinity Lutheran Church ministry since 1985. As the District Court found, “Through the Learning Center, Trinity Lutheran teaches a Christian world view ... including the Gospel.” Petition Appendix (“Pet. App.”) 35a.

Missouri’s constitution, adopted in 1945, includes a specific limitation on the State’s granting of funds to churches:

That no money shall ever be taken from the public treasury, directly or indirectly, in aid of any church, sect or denomination of religion, or in aid of any priest, preacher, minister or teacher thereof, as such; and that no preference shall be given to nor any discrimination made against any church, sect or creed of religion, or any form of religious faith or worship.

Mo. Const. Art. I, § 7 (1945).

Although on other criteria Trinity Lutheran ranked high among the 44 applicants, the Department declined to award a grant to Trinity Lutheran because the grant would have been “money ... taken from the public treasury ... in aid of [a] church.”

Trinity Lutheran filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri, seeking injunctive and declaratory relief against the Department. The District Court granted the Department’s motion to dismiss the complaint. Pet. App. 34a-75a. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit affirmed. Pet. App. 1a-31a.

Issue: Whether the exclusion of churches from an otherwise neutral and secular aid program violates the Free Exercise and Equal Protection Clauses when the state has no valid Establishment Clause concern.

We the People podcast discussion.

Audio recording of oral argument.

[SuburbanFarmer]

Yeah sure. You get grants when you pay taxes asshole.

[de officiis]

White House aims for Thursday signing of religious liberty executive order

President Donald Trump has invited conservative leaders to the White House on Thursday for what they expect will be the ceremonial signing of a long-awaited—and highly controversial—executive order on religious liberty, according to multiple people familiar with the situation.

Two senior administration officials confirmed the plan, though one cautioned that it hasn’t yet been finalized, and noted that lawyers are currently reviewing and fine-tuning the draft language. Thursday is the National Day of Prayer, and the White House was already planning to celebrate the occasion with faith leaders.

The signing would represent a major triumph for Vice President Mike Pence—whose push for religious-freedom legislation backfired mightily when he served as governor of Indiana—and his allies in the conservative movement.

The original draft order, which would have established broad exemptions for people and groups to claim religious objections under virtually any circumstance, was leaked to The Nation on Feb. 1—the handiwork, many conservatives believed, of Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, who have sought to project themselves as friendly to the LGBT community. Liberals blasted the draft order as government-licensed discrimination, and the White House distanced itself from the leaked document in a public statement.

Not sure why this is necessary...guess we'll need to see what it says. Not sure I like the idea of religious liberties hinging on something as fleeting as an EO.

[SuburbanFarmer]

White House aims for Thursday signing of religious liberty executive order

President Donald Trump has invited conservative leaders to the White House on Thursday for what they expect will be the ceremonial signing of a long-awaited—and highly controversial—executive order on religious liberty, according to multiple people familiar with the situation.

Two senior administration officials confirmed the plan, though one cautioned that it hasn’t yet been finalized, and noted that lawyers are currently reviewing and fine-tuning the draft language. Thursday is the National Day of Prayer, and the White House was already planning to celebrate the occasion with faith leaders.

The signing would represent a major triumph for Vice President Mike Pence—whose push for religious-freedom legislation backfired mightily when he served as governor of Indiana—and his allies in the conservative movement.

The original draft order, which would have established broad exemptions for people and groups to claim religious objections under virtually any circumstance, was leaked to The Nation on Feb. 1—the handiwork, many conservatives believed, of Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner, who have sought to project themselves as friendly to the LGBT community. Liberals blasted the draft order as government-licensed discrimination, and the White House distanced itself from the leaked document in a public statement.

Not sure why this is necessary...guess we'll need to see what it says. Not sure I like the idea of religious liberties hinging on something as fleeting as an EO.

Ummmm yeah. Apparently, we have a national religion now. Or a group of imbeciles running our country.

https://www.thenation.com/article/leake ... imination/

 Language in the draft document specifically protects the tax-exempt status of any organization that “believes, speaks, or acts (or declines to act) in accordance with the belief that marriage is or should be recognized as the union of one man and one woman, sexual relations are properly reserved for such a marriage, male and female and their equivalents refer to an individual’s immutable biological sex as objectively determined by anatomy, physiology, or genetics at or before birth, and that human life begins at conception and merits protection at all stages of life.”

[Alexander PhiAlipson]

Ummmm yeah. Apparently, we have a national religion now.

O, goody! Which one?