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Censorship, and advocating for it, is anti-American. Banning and controlling information is the work of an authoritarian government, not a democratic one. It is also a violation of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.

Even still, individuals and entities make attempts to ban certain works of literature for a myriad of reasons. According to the American Library Association (ALA), the top three reasons written works are challenged are because there is sexually explicit content, content that is unsuited for any age group and/or content with offensive language.

Pen America, an organization that advocates for free speech, reported that from July 1, 2021, to June 30, 2022, schools banned 2,532 books. These bans occurred in 32 states and affected 4 million students.

2022 is set up to be a record year of book challenges; from Jan. 1 Aug. 1 alone, there have been 681 challenges on 1,651 unique titles. 41% of these books have LGBTQ themes and protagonists, 40% include protagonist or secondary characters of color, 22% contain various sexual content and 21% address race or racism.

Everywhere Babies is a picture book for children aged 1-3 containing illustrations of babies crawling, sleeping and being cradled by family members was placed on the Florida Citizens Alliance Porn in Schools Report because there is an illustration of a same-sex couple, which is absolutely asinine. If you are viewing a book about babies as having pornographic material, reevaluate yourself and your perspective. Same-sex couples taking care of a child is not pornography; this is a book intended for babies enrichment and learning.

Over half of the books challenged are intended for young adults or children. It is not children that are challenging books for their content, but adults who are fearful that their children may be exposed to certain themes or content, such as gender identity, mental illness, sexuality and racism. But this bubble they are fabricating is only to comfort themselves. Racial injustice will not end because a child doesnt read about it; queer people will still exist; mental illness will still be prevalent. Reading about these topics and seeing your identity and experiences in an empowered character is affirming and validating.

Books represent the most core experiences of a society and reflect the worlds most common occurrences. They are time capsules of their periods. You cannot coddle your children into ignorance and shield them from the realities of life.

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Attacking the First Amendment: The growing censorship movement - Chargerbulletin

An Ohio man is suing his local police department after he was arrested and jailed for poking fun at them on Facebook, asking the Supreme Court to rule that his First Amendment rights trump qualified immunity for law enforcement.

In 2016, Anthony Novak created a Facebook parody page of the Parma, Ohio, Police Department. The page looked nearly identical to the police departments real Facebook page, but it did not have the verified blue check mark.

In a series of about a half dozen posts, Mr. Novak suggested the department was racist and lacked compassion. He took the account down after it was online for only about 12 hours because the police threatened an investigation during a news interview. The department said people were confusing the posts with real law enforcement information.

Nearly a month after Novak had deleted the parody account, police arrested him, searched his apartment, seized his phone and laptop, and jailed him for four days, read his court papers, which were filed this week at the high court.

He was charged with violating an Ohio law making it a felony to interrupt or disrupt law enforcement using a computer. Mr. Novak, though, was found not guilty by a jury.

After being cleared of criminal wrongdoing at his trial, Mr. Novak sued the city claiming its police department upended his First and Fourth Amendment rights.

But the lower courts ruled the officers were protected by qualified immunity, a doctrine that protects government workers from facing civil liability when acting in the course of their duties.

I sued to hold the police accountable for violating my rights, but also to make sure this doesnt happen to anyone else, Mr. Novak said. My Facebook page was obviously a joke, but the criticism was serious. I hope the Supreme Court will take my case and put other police forces on notice by making it clear that what happened to me was wrong.

The city of Parma has until Oct. 28 to respond to Mr. Novaks appeal to the Supreme Court, according to the docket.

It takes four justices to vote in favor of granting review in a case for oral arguments to be scheduled.

Mr. Novaks attorneys are also representing a Louisiana man suing his local police sheriff after he was charged for violating an anti-terrorism law when he posted a joke online in 2020 comparing the COVID-19 pandemic to a zombie outbreak. Similarly, a lower court granted that officer qualified immunity.

If the police can use their authority to arrest their critics, everyones rights are at risk, said Caroline Grace Brothers, an attorney with the Institute for Justice, which is representing both Mr. Novak and the Louisiana man. Criticizing or making fun of the police on the internet is no different than doing so in books, pamphlets or the public square. Getting arrested for a humorous Facebook post is no joke.

The attorneys want the high court to review the doctrine of qualified immunity altogether, limiting its scope.

A spokesperson for the city of Parma did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Mr. Novaks appeal.

In a court filing this summer with the high court, the city argued the lower court was correct in granting the officers qualified immunity against Mr. Novaks lawsuit.

This Court has repeatedly affirmed that the doctrine of qualified immunity shields officers from civil liability so long as their conduct does not violate clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known, wrote the attorneys for the city.

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Ohio man who was jailed for making fun of police online takes First Amendment case to Supreme Court - Washington Times

Is the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) still filing intelligence reports about journalists?

It seems like a simple question. And I confess I wasnt expecting the routine status report a federal judge ordered the government to file on Wednesday to raise my eyebrowsmuch less to warrant an article. But asked to address this apparently easy question, the Justice Department saidin essencethat its not sure and will get back to the judge in a few weeks. Defendant needs additional time to appropriately address the question. ... Defendants response could potentially have a wide implication beyond this particular case.

I dont have any idea what it means either.

This strange filing is actually the second of two bizarre positions the government has taken in my lawsuit over DHSs filing of two open source intelligence reports (OSIRs) about me in 2020. I wont rehash the story of the two reports, about which I have written in detail elsewhere. To understand the first weird position, and how it led to this second one, the only relevant facts are these.

The two intelligence reports (here is the first and here is the second) were leaked to Shane Harris of the Washington Post, along with a third about New York Times reporter Mike Baker. Following their disclosure, DHS issued a statement assuring the public that the practice had been stopped: Upon learning about the practice, Acting Secretary [Chad] Wolf directed the DHS Intelligence & Analysis Directorate to immediately discontinue collecting information involving members of the press. In no way does the Acting Secretary condone this practice and he has immediately ordered an inquiry into the matter.

I filed a Freedom of Information Act request to reveal the paper trail on the reports about Baker and me, as well as any other journalists who might have had such reports filed about them. I also sought similar open source reporting for any other people based on their First Amendment-protected activity, information about the use of such open source reports, information about any investigations of the practice after it was revealed, and information concerning policies and procedures about such reporting. In March of last year, I sued, having received no documents in response to my request.

Production of material under the suit has been slow, and its fair to say that the litigation has not yet shed significant light on how DHS came to be filing these reports on journalists, what the scope of the activity was with respect to other peoples First Amendment rights, or how the agency ultimately evaluated the propriety and legality of this sort of reporting. I remain hopeful that it will do so in good time, though under the current production schedule, it will be a while.

One thing the department has disclosed, however, is the specific reports about mebut with an important catch. The documents are highly redacted. Assuming these are the same documents that were leaked to me in full, it appears that my name cannot be releasedto me. It further appears it cannot be disclosed that my Twitter feed is the subject of the reports. Ditto the substance of my tweets, which is available to all of my more than 400,000 Twitter followers and anyone else who wants to see them.

Remarkably, the government takes the position that these redactions of publicly available unclassified information are justified on the basis of protecting intelligence sources and methods. As the government explains its position to the court:

[T]he Department will provide a declaration explaining that the redacted information within the OSIRs included the sources and methods used by I & A and that the disclosure of these documents in full would reveal intelligence sources and methods utilized by I & A.

Specifically, the records would reveal: (1) the underlying sources of information and intelligence methods that I & A relies upon to engage in information collection that forms its analytical assessments and operations; (2) information that, taken together, may reveal these methods even if it does not do so individually; and (3) information which would reveal the method in which I & A shares information with other entities. Further, to avoid irreparable harm, I & A must protect not only specific sources, but also information that would allow a reader to discern a source or type of source, information revealing intelligence or analytic methods, and information that would assist targets in evading lawful intelligence activities. The obligation to protect sources and methods is direction from Congress that may not be waived by the Department, regardless of whether the source or method is sensitive or public, and regardless of whether a plaintiff has concrete or hypothetical knowledge of the source or method being referred to.

Suffice it to say that I and my lawyers take a rather different view of the matter, and sooner or later, the court is going to have to decide whos right.

This brings us to last weeks status hearing, where the immediate issue before U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss was whether to decide this sooner or later. My lawyers (Jacob Tracer and Andrew Elliott of Jenner & Block) had asked Judge Moss to resolve the question now of whether protecting sources and methods could possibly justify these redactions, on the theory that the answer to this question could affect the rest of the governments production. If we are right and the governments position is ridiculous, we argued, it would save everyone time to know that now. The government, by contrast, asked Judge Moss to wait until all the production is done.

Judge Moss indicated, as a general matter, that he prefers to resolve disputes over production at the end, not individually along the way. But there is one thing that might change his thinking on this score, he noted, and that was if he was not confident that the underlying activitythe filing of intelligence reports about journalistshad actually ceased. It was in that context that he asked government counsel to address this question directly. To make sure she had a chance to consult with the client agency, he asked her to file a brief on the matter, rather than demanding an answer in court.

This is the background to the governments filing Wednesday, and to be frank, I was not expecting the Justice Department to be in the odd position of being unable to answer the judges question. Government counsel set her own deadline for this filing, in response to a question from the judge. She asked him for a week in which to file the brief, and he granted her that timeat the end of which she was still not able to give him a simple no in response to his question of whether DHS is still filing intelligence reports about journalists. Thats a little unnerving.

Here is the relevant portion of her status report:

On September 21, 2022, the parties appeared for a pre-motion conference and the Court ordered, inter alia, Defendant to file a status report addressing whether ... Defendant discontinued the practice of collecting information involving members of the press. ...

In terms of the first question, Defendant needs additional time to appropriately address the question, as expressed during the September 21, 2022, pre-motion conference. Defendants response could potentially have a wide implication beyond this particular case. Consequently, Defendant requests additional time, to and through October 21, 2022, to provide a response.

I may have to wait until Oct. 21 for clarity on this matter, which I agree has a wide implication beyond this particular case.

In the meantime, however, I would like to stress two things: First, I am not an intelligence source; and second, reading my Twitter feed is not a sensitive intelligence-gathering method. Much as it would flatter my ego if seeing my daily Good Morning image and #BeastOfTheDay tweets counted as an intelligence method, it doesnt. Its great if government agencies and their personnel want to read my work. But the inability to distinguish between reading a journalists social media account and a sensitive intelligence-gathering method is dangerousboth for the intelligence community that cant see the difference and for the journalists who have to operate in an environment conditioned by that inability.

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I Am Not a Source; Reading My Twitter Feed Is Not a Method - Lawfare

Dear Editor: A part of the First Amendment is under attack.

There has been a renewed resurgence to declare the United States a Christian nation, no longer keeping the church separate from the state. Christian nationalists are promoting antidisestablishmentarianism.

That word has gained a renewed importance no longer just one of the longest words in the dictionary. It refers to Christian nationalists advocating for Christian churches to receive government patronage rather than be disestablished, meaning separate from state support.

Proponents believe the church should have say and sway in our country's governance and have an official status there. There is even a movement in Congress for this.

Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado is spearheading an effort to have the United States declared Christian, preferably with her own version and vision as a foundation. She has up to 61% of Republicans in her camp. But this might in numbers does not make it right.

It's stated in the First Amendment to the Constitution that Congress can neither establish, nor prohibit the practice of religion. To declare the United States Christian would violate the establishment clause and put a de facto pariah label to non-Christian religions and the agnostics and atheists among us. These groups make up to 35% of the United States population. That is a lot of people who would be given outcast status.

Many Christian nationalists cry foul over gun control regulations. They scream that their Second Amendment rights are being violated, yet when they want to violate the First Amendment with no separation of church and state, that's OK. For them the Constitution has become the Constitution is to be used as a convenient avenue to get what they want.

Bill Walters

Fitchburg

Send your letter to the editor to tctvoice@madison.com. Include your full name, hometown and phone number. Your name and town will be published. The phone number is for verification purposes only. Please keep your letter to 250 words or less.

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Letter | Beware the Christian nationalist movement | Letters to the Editor | captimes.com - The Capital Times

Attorney General Paxton has joined an Alabama-led multistate amicus brief in the Atlanta-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, fighting to defend the First Amendment rights of a Jewish synagogue facing unconstitutional discrimination.

The case revolves around the Hillsborough Area Regional Transit Authority (HART), a publicly-funded transit system, that refused to allow Young Israel of Tampa to advertise its Chanukah on Ice program pursuant to a policy banning religious advertising. After the district court enjoined its policy, HART appealed to the Eleventh Circuit.

As the courts have ruled on several occasions, public entities violate the First Amendment when they engage in viewpoint discrimination, regulating speech based upon disagreement with the point of view being expressed. That is precisely what HART did here.

HART further departed from the First Amendment by lumping in all religious advertising with more traditional categories of prohibited advertising, such as ads containing graphic violence or nudity. It flies in the face of the First Amendment, and the American tradition of respecting religious freedom, for HART to draw a moral equivalency drawn between a synagogue hosting a community event commemorating a religious holiday and pornographic or violent advertising

As the brief states: [T]he policy is at odds with the history and tradition of the First Amendment, sends the perverse message that religious discourse is like the other subjects HART bans (alcohol, pornography, discriminatory messages, and the like), conflicts with modern First Amendment jurisprudence forbidding viewpoint discrimination, and flunks even HARTs preferred test for content-neutral speech restrictions.

To read the full brief, click here.

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Paxton Works to Safeguard First Amendment Protections for Religious Group Facing Illegal Discrimination - Texas Attorney General (.gov)