Public has options in dealing with Twitter’s new country-specific censorship

After Twitter announced last week they would engage in country-specific censorship, EFF’s Eva Galperin says there are ways to fight the plan including checking to see if Twitter makes use of the Chilling Effects Project which publishes a country’s censorship orders and puts it in an archive. Galperin also says that a user can circumvent [...]

Twitter censorship plan provokes outrage

To cries of protest, Twitter announced last week that it will take a country’s laws and culture into account in conducting country-specific censorship. Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, who is also the second largest shareholder in News Corp., recently invested $300 million in Twitter. -db From the Courthouse News Service, January 27, 2012, by Adam [...]

U.S. press freedom plummeted in 2011

Press freedom took a hit in the United States in 2011 according to Reporters Without Borders who ranked contries according to their performance. The U.S. now shares 47th place in a tie with Romania and Argentina. Much of the drop may be based on the harassment, beating and arrest of journalists covering Occupy Wall Street [...]

South Carolina prison newsletter wins censorship suit

A South Carolina county will have to pony up nearly $600,000 to settle a censorship lawsuit brought by a group who publishes a monthly newsletter for prison inmates. Before the settlement, prison officials at a county detention center only allowed inmates religious texts for reading materials. -db From the First Amendment Center, January 26, 2012, [...]

Supreme Court police arrest man for ‘Occupy Everything’ words on jacket

In an incident reminiscent of  Cohen v. California, the Supreme Court police arrested a man in a corridor wearing a jacket with the words “Occupy Everything.” For the Citizen Media Law Project, Andrew F. Sellars analyzes the case finding little basis for the arrest. “Here, in the halls of the very building that brought us [...]

The Powerful anti-SOPA protests show why corporations, too, need First Amendment rights

BY PETER SCHEER—Some thoughts on the dramatic and remarkably effective demonstrations by Google, Wikipedia, et al. against federal anti-piracy legislation (the Stop Online Piracy Act, “SOPA,” and companion legislation in the Senate): Successful technology firms pride themselves on their capacity to disrupt the established order. The reference is usually to a technological advance that poses [...]

Citizen Media Law Project offers resources on online piracy laws

The Citizen Media Law Project is providing access to information on the SOPA and PIPA, the online piracy bills before Congress, and also to links for summaries and commentaries on the laws. -db From the Citizen Media Law Project,  January 18, 2012, by CMLP Staff. Full story

Website blackouts to protest online piracy laws called success

The blackout of websites, including BoingBoing, Reddit and Wikipedia, to protest the online piracy laws before Congress was successful in igniting opposition against the laws writes Ian Paul in PCWorld. Paul says that there were 2.4 million tweets on the topic during the first 16 hours on Wednesday and that the Los Angeles Times reported [...]

Online piracy legislation stalls in Congress

It now appears now that Congressional bills to protect copyright on the Internet will be embroiled in a long, intense struggle even as President Barack Obama declared his opposition to key elements of the bills. The technology industry opposes the bills out of concern that they will stifle free speech and innovation. -db From The [...]

First Amendment Center protests Indiana lawmaker’s attempt to censor ‘non-traditional’ versions of national anthem

The First Amendment guarantees that the government not regulate the expression of those who sing “off tune” argues Gene Policinski, executive director of the First Amendment Center. That someone might offend someone else by doing a non-traditional rendition of the national anthem should not be grounds for censorship writes Policinski. -db From a commentary for [...]

Opinion: Scholars say online piracy bills violate U.S. Constitution

Leading Constitutional scholars say the online piracy legislation currently before Congress throttles constitutional rights, writes Corynne McSherry for the Electronic Freedom Foundation. She says the revised legislation only gives lip service to the First Amendment and denies due process and free speech in ways described by the scholars. -db From a commentary for the Electronic [...]

Justice Department freezes music blog for a year supposedly for copyright infringement

The Justice Department seized the assets of a popular music blog, Dajaz1, reportedly for violations of copyright, but did not give the blog a day in court to fight the action. Writing in TechDirt, Mike Masnick says it was an outrageous act, “I suspect that nearly all of you [readers] would say that’s a classic [...]

State Department still says cables WikiLeaks released last year are classified

The Obama administration is still insisting that cables WikiLeaks released last year are classified even though the cables were released by the State Department in compliance with a Freedom of Information Act request. The classified information concerned targeted killings, detention at Guantanamo, torture and rendition. -db From a commentary for the American Civil Liberties Union, [...]

Michigan ACLU sues over Ann Arbor ad ban

The American Civil Liberties Union  of Michigan filed a lawsuit protesting the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority’s ban on a bus ad advocating the boycott of Israel for its Palestinian policy. The Authority rejected the attempts of an Ann Arbor man to buy an ad, “Boycott Israel, Boycott Apartheid” along side a picture of a spider [...]

Lawmakers propose alternative to entertainment industry-backed online piracy bill

Congressional critics of the entertainment industry-backed online piracy law have introduced a bill that would change existing trade laws to reflect that illegally downloading copyright content from foreign-owned web sites would constitute foreign imports. That would allow the International Trade Commission the power to decide if the imports violated intellectual property rights. The critics say [...]

CNET provides guide to effects on public of Stop Online Piracy Act

A guide published by CNET describes the effects on the public of the Stop Online Piracy Act should it pass Congress and signed into law. The law would affect Internet free speech, security and innovation. -db From a commentary for CNET, November 21, 2011, by Declan McCullagh. Full story  

Opinion: China’s censorship regimen spreading around the world

Totalitarian regimes around the world are successfully using the Chinese model of censorship against their citizens, reports David Rohde in a commentary for Reuters. Rohde says the Stop Online Piracy Act would seriously erode the ability of the United States to fight the new tide of international Internet censorship. -db From a commentary for Reuters, [...]

Opinion: Online Piracy Act seen as censorship threat

The Stop Online Piracy Act would bring China-style Internet censorship to the United States, argues Rebecca MacKinnon in an op-ed in The New York Times. MacKinnon said the bill before Congress, designed to protect intellectual property, would “inflict collateral damage on democratic discourse and dissent both at home and around the world.” -db From an [...]

Opnion: The Stop Online Piracy Act would would adversely affect journalists

If passed in its present form, the Stop Online Piracy Act would subject articles to censorship in blocking articles from appearing on sites accused of piracy, writes Jessica Ray for 10,000 Words. Even if one site contained content deemed illegal, the entire site could be blocked. Internet innovation and creativity would also take a hit. [...]

Philadelphia refuses advocacy ad for airport

Philadelphia is facing a lawsuit over its refusal to run a billboard ad by the National Association of Colored People (NAACP) advocating prison reform . In bringing the suit, the NAACP and the ACLU said the city has not been even handed in administrating its ad policy, accepting some political ads but refusing others. That [...]

Opinion: First Amendment scholar finds fault with high school ban on U.S. flag T-shirts

A First Amendment scholar criticizes a federal court ruling the wearing of American flag T-shirts were disruptive and exempt from First Amendment protections. David L. Hudson Jr. argues that the court was wrong in applying the “heckler’s veto” concept to the case that if the listeners to speech create a disturbance and silence a speaker, [...]

Safety trumps speech at Morgan Hill high school

A Morgan Hill high school acted legally when it ordered students to conceal T-shirts bearing American flags on Cinco de Mayo, a federal judge ruled. Because Mexican American and Anglo students had previously wrangled about clothing on Cinco de Mayo, Live Oak High School officials reasonably anticipated campus disruption and safety problems, U.S. District Judge James [...]

Out-sourcing the job of muzzling the media

BY EDWARD WASSERMAN–A comment posted to London’s Guardian newspaper said it best: “Censorship, like everything else in the West, has been privatized.”  The writer, somebody called “edensasp,” was referring to news that Wikileaks—the online whistleblower that has been embarrassing governments and corporations worldwide by disclosing their secrets–was suspending operations. Why? Had its leader, the mercurial [...]

Seattle school administration considers new policy of prior restraint for student free press

A policy under consideration by the Seattle School Board would give principals the authority for prior review of high school newspapers and allow a stop to publication if they detected libel, obscenity and violations of the school’s educational mission. Critics argue that the principal would gain censorship powers and take responsibility for content out of [...]

Chinese protesters use comic subterfuge to evade government censors

With the Chinese government employing more than 50,000 censors to monitor the Internet for politically deviant opinion, bloggers are using humor and satire to get their message across before the censors close in. There is always a strong element of fear and uncertainty for the bloggers as they never know where the line is between [...]

ACLU sues Philadephia for censoring ad at airport

The American Civil Liberties Union is suing Philadelphia for rejecting an ACLU ad for changes in the criminal justice and education systems. The city says it does not accept any political or advocacy ads. The ACLU pointed out a number of instances in which the political ads ran in the airport including one advocating for [...]

Texas: Professor says state censored report on environmental damage

A Rice University professor claims that a Texas environmental agency censored his report on Galveston Bay by deleting  certain references to climate change, sea-level rise and man’s role in the changes. An agency spokesperson said it would be irresponsible to publish whatever came to it. The professor said the deletions were based on politics rather [...]

Charges dropped against North Carolina student thrown off campus for criticizing college

The Catawba Valley Community College dropped charges against a student, allowing him back on campus after they suspended him for two semesters for criticizing the college’s aggressive marketing of a debit card company to its students. But the college has yet to change its policy regarding free speech online and is still requiring the student [...]

Opinion: United Kingdom enacting plan to put voluntary filters on porn, gambling

The Electronic Freedom Foundation criticizes a plan concocted by the Conservative government and the Christian group, Mothers’ Union to provide filters to customers who want to block sites offering pornography, gambling, information about self-harm, etc. Eva Galerin and Jillian C. York say that the plan’s flaws include the vagueness of the blocked categories, the unknown [...]

First Amendment: Stolen valor case goes to U.S. Supreme Court

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear the case of a California man held criminally liable for lying about his military exploits. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the man’s lies were permissible under the First Amendment. A dissenting judge wrote that the Supreme Court had already established that false statements of fact [...]

Canada: Anti-gay crusader contests hate laws in Supreme Court

An anti-gay proselytizer is challenging Canada’s hate laws in a landmark case before the Supreme Court pitting the right to free speech against the right be free of hateful campaigns. Proponents of the law claim the law has been narrowed in response to criticism, but opponents contend that the law can quell legitimate expression. -db [...]

Opinion: Entertainers exercising free speech rights should not be punished

The public should be consistent in supporting the free speech rights of entertainers, writes Ken Paulson for the First Amendment Center. “There’s a tendency to defend the free speech of those whose views we share, while condemning the abrasive comments of those on the other side. Too often we let politics trump principles,” says Paulson. [...]

Press freedom award goes to college newspaper in Southern California

The Sun of Southwestern College in Chula Vista, California has been awarded the 2011 College Press Freedom Award from the Student Press Law Center and the Associated Collegiate Press. The editors and staff continued to publish The Sun as the administration ordered it shut down. “The administrators of Southwestern College threw everything they had at [...]

Opinion: Indiscriminate web filters damage free inquiry

Web filtering in which key words can trigger a cutoff of sites hurts education by uncritically banning students from vital Internet sources, writes Ken Paulson in a commentary for the First Amendment Center. Paulson says that names of terrorist groups or words such as breasts or buttocks can trigger censorship and the First Amendment Center [...]

Professor censors profanity on student free speech wall

A Sam Houston State University professor removed an insult to President Barack Obama posted by a student on the student free speech wall. Incensed by the censorship, students reported the vandalism to the campus police. Rather than come to the aid of the student in support of the First Amendment, the police threatened students with [...]

Free speech: Students guilty of disrupting speech at University of California Irvine

A jury in Irvine, California found 10 Muslim students guilty of disrupting a speech by the Israeli ambassador at UC Irvine. They were sentenced to three years probation and 56 hours of community service. One legal scholar said the students’ speech directed toward depriving another of First Amendment rights was not protected but felt the criminal [...]

Opinion: Federal law forbidding ‘material support’ to terrorists runs afoul of First Amendment

The FBI arrested Jubair Ahmad for “glorifying violent jihad” when he uploaded a video to YouTube that included images of armored trucks hit by IEDs, footage of terrorist leaders, pictures showing Abu Ghraib and U.S soldiers with an attack dog. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last year that speech is not protected that  is “directed [...]

Report: U.S. corporations joining with tyrants to curb Internet freedom

Current laws and codes of conduct aren’t enough to prevent United States companies from helping repressive regimes censor the Internet and control information that have abetted human right abuses, according to a report from a Canadian security firm. The Global Online Freedom Act, a law under consideration, would prohibit U.S. companies from helping governments restrict [...]

Georgia mayor censors ‘Rocky Horror Show’

The mayor of Carrollton, Georgia banned the Rocky Horror Show from the city’s theater center. The local theater group who wanted to stage the musical has decided not to challenge the ban. The Rocky Horror Show centers on a cross-dressing scientist and his Transylvania friends but has not been considered obscene, the only legal grounds [...]

Teacher loses free speech case over display of ‘In God We Trust’ banner

The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals invoked the Supreme Court decision Garcetti v. Caballos in ruling that a math teacher does not have a First Amendment right to display banners with such messages as “In God We Trust” in his classroom. Garcetti established that public employees have no right to free speech when speaking [...]

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