First amendment

Florida Representative Randy Fine and Texas Representative Keith Self introduced the “No Sharia Act” last weekend in the U.S. House of Representatives “to ensure that no U.S. court, public agency, or legal institution can ever enforce or legitimize Sharia law. On X, Congressman Fine wrote, “You don’t get to come to this country and demand that our legal system accommodate your oppressive laws.” Meanwhile, Texas has operated as ground zero for the fight. On September 12, Texas Governor Greg Abbott declared on September 8 that Sharia law was illegal in Texas. In a post on Facebook the Governor wrote: “In Texas, we believe in equal rights under the law for all men, women, & children. Any legal system that flouts human rights is BANNED in the state of Texas.

Charlie Kirk’s assassination was a tragedy. A young conservative voice was silenced by savagery, leaving behind grieving family, faithful friends and loyal supporters. But something deeply troubling is happening in the aftermath. The Trump administration isn't just mourning Kirk or pursuing his killer. They're using his death to justify an unprecedented crackdown on free speech that should alarm every American.Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that visa holders are being deported for "celebrating" Kirk's killing. The State Department warned immigrants against "making light" of his death. An anonymous group called the Charlie Kirk Data Foundation is building a database of social media users who criticized Kirk or his politics.

For years, Republicans have claimed that theirs is the party of free speech. They have correctly amplified instances of the intolerant left cracking down on conservative speech, particularly on campuses, often under the bogus guise of combating "hate speech," racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia and other scourges they grossly exaggerate. Many of us on the right have mocked safe-space-craving Gen Z and millennial students and their expansive needs to feel “safe” by insulating them from speech that hurts their feelings. But now Republicans are conflating legitimate criticisms of Israel with antisemitism and essentially embracing the left’s victim culture in calling for safe spaces — if not by name — for pro-Israel Jews on college campuses.

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, free speech was primarily defended by civil libertarians and the Democratic Party. This was in the 2000s, when a handful of civil libertarians on the right and many more on the left worried about how the Patriot Act would enhance the government's ability to monitor its own citizens. They also opposed the growing power of the intelligence community, which they thought could pressure companies into providing private information that the government could not legally grasp for itself. The past is a different country. Yesterday's hearing before the House Oversight Committee with three former Twitter executives illustrated as much. Democrats repeatedly made the case that the hearing was a distraction, unimportant, even conspiratorial.

A friend makes maps, colorful graphic maps of mostly Washington, DC neighborhoods. She sells them, often framed, by the bushel at farmer's markets and through her own shop. She often asks people where they live, but never how they live. Her service — the map — is neutral regarding whom one is married to, what religion they practice, which political party they support. Everyone is welcome to buy a map, and all the maps are the same. Not so for the hypothetical wedding cake maker in the next stall. While anyone is free (indeed, allowed by law) to buy an off-the-rack cake, she refuses to use her form of speech to support LGBTQ weddings. She'll sell a gay couple a cake reading "Have a Great Day" but will not create a rainbow design with two women holding hands.

Donald Trump is suing CNN for $475 million for defamation, claiming the network associated him with Adolf Hitler and portrayed him as a Russian lackey. E. Jean Carroll is in turn suing Trump for defamation in connection with him allegedly raping her. Mike “MyPillow” Lindell is being sued for $1.3 billion for defamation in connection with remarks he made about the 2020 presidential election being false. And way outside politics in America, a foreign English teacher in Thailand faces two years in jail for defamation over a negative online review of a resort he stayed at. What is defamation? Why is it so hard to prove in the United States but relatively easy to prove in most other countries?

The Supreme Court is poised to grant a victory to religious conservatives via the First Amendment in blocking recognition of an LGBT club at Yeshiva University. Yeshiva is a Jewish law school which objects to the club on religious grounds. This is important news for other religious schools across America facing similar legal challenges. Though the Court as an intermittent step referred the case back to the lower courts as Yeshiva University v. YU Pride Alliance, Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, and Amy Comey Barrett made no bones in their dissent that they would stand with the First Amendment when the full case comes before the Supreme Court, as it is expected the lower courts will demand Yeshiva recognize and fund the club.

It used to be called the "New York Times Problem." It asks at what point does the First Amendment stop protecting journalists against the receipt of stolen property, particularly classified documents. “The Problem” stems originally from the Pentagon Papers, a classified history of the Vietnam War stolen by Daniel Ellsberg and handed over to the Times and later others. The government sought prison time for reporters and editors but failed. What once threatened the Times has now been turned directly against Project Veritas, Ashley Biden's diary, and perhaps Julian Assange as well.

If politics makes strange bedfellows, defending free speech sends one down some equally odd paths. The First Amendment and laws protecting speech exist for every thing that can be said, but end up being tested at the margins of what society tolerates in the name of free speech. A recent case in Hawaii, involving a car license plate, is a perfect example. Like most states, Hawaii issues specialty/vanity license plates where the owner can chose his own letters or numbers. The only restrictions are that the letters/numbers not be "misleading" or "publicly objectionable." Otherwise pick your combination, pay the fee, and you have your unique license plate, such as LUV YOU. That was the plan of Edward Odquina, who runs a web site named www.fckblm.

Conservative media seems to have missed this story, and the limited liberal press it got took it as a simple win. But the real showdown is coming this fall. Later this year, it is possible — not likely, but possible — that the Supreme Court will take away the right of social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook to censor content. This would have the effect of granting some level of First Amendment protection, now unavailable, to conservative users of those platforms. The potential for change hinges on a law struck down by the lower courts, Netchoice v. Paxton, which challenges Texas law HB 20. That law addresses social media companies with more than 50 million active users in the US, like Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook.

For the anti-free-speech left, the most dangerous man in America today is Greg Lukianoff. The president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education for the past 16 years, the free-speech attorney has now decided to guide the organization, previously focused on free-speech battles within academia, into the broader territory of free-speech battles across the nation. FIRE has been rebranded as the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, and Lukianoff intends to take it into space once occupied by free-speech stalwarts like the ACLU. He has a massive new investment from supporters to the tune of $75 million.

If classic horror resides in the banality of evil, modern horror resides in the banality of predictability: yet another deranged man, driven by hate, kills, and the left seizes the opportunity to try and restrict speech, claiming not metal music, not violent porn, not Alex Jones, but social media spurred the shooter from basement to killing ground. This risks the loss of speech rights out of fear. As the bodies lay on the ground in Buffalo, New York governor Kathy Hochul blamed social media and called for speech restrictions in order to prevent another tragedy. Hochul claimed free speech had gone too far when it allowed someone to shout fire in a crowded theater for the shooter to hear.

A new year, a new assault on free speech in America. New York Senator Brad Hoylman claims that legislation he's introduced into the state senate targets Big Tech algorithms to keep them from promoting “controversial and harmful content.” Yet the bill seeks to “protect” public health by making almost any social media comment going against Hoylman’s beliefs illegal. Hoylman passes himself off as a defender of the public good by vowing to take on Big Tech, which he accuses of profiting by deliberately stoking controversy. He specifically mentions anti-coronavirus vaccine posts “as a false statement of fact or fraudulent medical theory that is likely to endanger the safety or health of the public.

The Biden administration intends to notify Facebook about ‘problematic’ postings, such as questioning the COVID-19 vaccine. Jen Psaki, the White House spokesperson, suggests that if you’re problematic on one social-media site, you should be banned from them all. Big Tech, meet Big Sister. I suppose this is still America. If Donald Trump had said he’d use extra-legal leverage over Big Tech, most of the media would be crying ‘fascism’. Brian Stelter would decry an unprecedented assault on the First Amendment. Jeffrey Toobin would bang one out about bypassing Congress and the law. Minor academics would op-ed in the New York Times about the classically fascist ‘collusion’ between government and big business.