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Most obviously, the power of speech remains proportional to wealth in this country, despite the growth of social media. When the Supreme Court did consider the impact of money on speech in Citizens United, it enabled corporations to translate wealth into direct political power. The A.C.L.U. wrongly supported this devastating ruling on First Amendment grounds.

Other forms of structural discrimination and violence also restrict the exercise of speech, such as police intimidation of African-Americans and Latinos. These communities know that most of the systematic harassment and threats that stifle their ability to speak have always occurred privately and diffusely, and in ways that will never end in a lawsuit.

A black kid who gets thrown in jail for possessing a small amount of marijuana will face consequences that will directly affect his ability to have a voice in public life. How does the A.C.L.U.s conception of free speech address that?

The A.C.L.U. has demonstrated that it knows how to think about other rights in a broader context. It vigorously defends the consideration of race in university admissions, for example, even as conservative challengers insist on a colorblind notion of the right to equal protection. When it wants to approach an issue with sensitivity toward context, the A.C.L.U. can distinguish between actual racism and spurious claims of reverse racism.

The governments power is not the only thing that can degrade freedom of expression, which Justice Benjamin Cardozo once described as the matrix, the indispensable condition, of nearly every other form of freedom. The question the organization should ask itself is: Could prioritizing First Amendment rights make the distribution of power in this country even more unequal and further silence the communities most burdened by histories of censorship?

This is a vital question because a well-funded machinery ready to harass journalists and academics has arisen in the space beyond First Amendment litigation. If you challenge hateful speech, gird yourself for death threats and for your family to be harassed.

Left-wing academics across the country face this kind of speech suppression, yet they do not benefit from a strong, uniform legal response. Several black professors have been threatened with lynching, shooting or rape for denouncing white supremacy.

Government suppression takes more subtle forms, too. Some of the protesters at President Trumps inauguration are facing felony riot charges and decades in prison. (The A.C.L.U. is defending only a handful of those 200-plus protesters.) States are considering laws that forgive motorists who drive into protesters. And police arrive with tanks and full weaponry at anti-racist protests but not at white supremacist rallies.

The danger that communities face because of their speech isnt equal. The A.C.L.U.s decision to offer legal support to a right-wing cause, then a left-wing cause, wont make it so. Rather, it perpetuates a misguided theory that all radical views are equal. And it fuels right-wing free-speech hypocrisy. Perhaps most painful, it also redistributes some of the substantial funds the organization has received to fight white supremacy toward defending that cause.

The A.C.L.U. needs a more contextual, creative advocacy when it comes to how it defends the freedom of speech. The group should imagine a holistic picture of how speech rights are under attack right now, not focus on only First Amendment case law. It must research how new threats to speech are connected to one another and to right-wing power. Acknowledging how criminal laws, voting laws, immigration laws, education laws and laws governing corporations can also curb expression would help it develop better policy positions.

Sometimes standing on the wrong side of history in defense of a cause you think is right is still just standing on the wrong side of history.

K-Sue Park is a housing attorney and the Critical Race Studies fellow at the U.C.L.A. School of Law.

Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTopinion), and sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter.

A version of this op-ed appears in print on August 17, 2017, on Page A23 of the New York edition with the headline: The A.C.L.U. Needs to Rethink Free Speech.

See the article here:
The ACLU Needs to Rethink Free Speech - New York Times

Alexa Renee, KXTV 3:14 PM. PDT August 17, 2017

7. Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park (Photo: TripAdvisor)

A right wing group has been granted legal permission through the National Parks Service to protest at Crissy Field in San Francisco.

The group, Patriot Prayer, obtained a "First Amendment" permit to be at the site Saturday, Aug. 26 from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m., according to KGO.

So what is a "First Amendment" permit?

Under federal law policy, the National Park Service (NPS) recognizes freedom of speech, press, religion, and public assembly, according to their website.

However, the agency also has an interest in protecting park resources and the public's use of parks, and is given the right to regulate events held on national parks. The NPS requires a permit establishing a date, time, location, number of participants and other details related to a First Amendment event.

The content of First Amendment activities doesn't need to reflect the NPS mission or views to be reviewed for a permit.

Each national park has its own set of details and rules for a permit but in general, a group of more than 25 people are required to apply for a permit to hold a First Amendment event.

Crissy Field is apark unit of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. A First Amendment permit is required for use of the area if a group will have more than 25 people, is utilizing special equipment such as generators and tents, if the organizers would like priority use of the area and if the group is requesting an area not otherwise open to the public, according to the NPS.

While a First Amendment permit is free to apply for at Golden Gate Park, large groups require a Special Events permit application fee of $45 and a certificate of liability insurance for $1,000,000.

Permit costs are separate from application costs and can range from free to $40,000, according to the NPS.

Ten business days is the minimum amount of time required to review most permit applications but larger events may take more time.

Some sensitive areas could be restricted and at least one park ranger needs to be present during an event as well as when loading and unloading.

For more details about First Amendment permits at national parks go to http://www.nps.gov.

2017 KXTV-TV

Read this article:
How groups use 'First Amendment' permits for protests at National Parks - ABC10

The mans a tool but I admire his immodesty in taking on all comers in a debate on a subject about which hes obviously ignorant. Hes the guy at the bar whos too drunk to stand up but proclaims himself ready to kick the ass of every man within earshot. You may think him sad and annoyingly belligerent. But hes got moxie.

We should not change the First Amendment to ban Nazis, by the way.

Pretty much everything the Nazis did in Charlottesville was free speech, up until James Fields got behind the wheel and fights started breaking out with counter-protesters. You can in fact chant blood and soil in a crowded theater in America, to borrow a phrase. (Although youll annoy the theatergoers around you.) Piers has it all figured out, though:

Lawyers who read that had a laugh, as did lots of people who didnt go to law school but are sufficiently interested in the history of free speech in America to have cracked a book on it once. Schenck is a notorious case from World War I in which an anti-war protester handing out leaflets urging people to dodge the draft got locked up for violating the Espionage Act(!). He sued on First Amendment grounds and lost, with the Supreme Court ruling that dangerous speech could of course be banned by the government. Thats where the infamous formulation about not (falsely) shouting fire in a crowded theater came from, courtesy of Oliver Wendell Holmes.

Soon after Schenck, though, Holmes and the Court started to have a rethink about the implications of banning dangerous speech and where that might lead. Fifty years later, in Brandenburg v. Ohio, the Court announced a new standard for criminal incitement drawn very narrowly, to protect as much speech as possible. (Under Brandenburg, which I mentioned here, virtually anything short of goading an angry mob to attack is protected.) In citing Schenck, Morgans relying on a case that the Supreme Court started inching away from nearly 100 years ago and which it abandoned nearly 50 years ago. Hes opening the door to reintroducing sedition prosecutions, citing a precedent that was used to jail a peaceful socialist war critic. Thats some fancy thinkin for a liberal.

When people started calling him out for this on Twitter, he fired back that he knows his incitement law quite well, thank you. Spoiler: He does not know his incitement law well.

Truth or falsity has nothing to do with incitement, a point that should be obvious if you reflect on it for two seconds. If an anti-semitic mob has a Jewish man cornered and someone yells Kill the Jew!, its, errrrr, not a defense to point out that the victim was in fact Jewish. Falsity is an element in defamation, another exception to the First Amendment but not one that has anything to do with incitement. There are three elements to unlawful incitement under Brandenburg intent to cause lawbreaking with your words, likelihood that people listening to you will in fact break the law, and imminence between the two. The last factor is important as it explains why so much Nazi speech is protected by the First Amendment. A Nazi might say Kill the Jews!; he might mean every word; and his audience of fellow Nazis might be ramped up to make it happen. But unless hes saying it in a situation where it seems like that audience might act imminently, its protected speech. Thats why Nazi or Islamist propaganda online isnt against the law. Even if the reader is inspired by it to behave violently, his lawless action isnt imminent at the time. Those are the variables you should be focused on if youre analyzing incitement, not false claims.

When Ben Shapiro, who went to Harvard Law, interjected to inform Morgan that he doesnt know what hes talking about, Piers (a) goofed on his height and (b) declared that American law schools suck. So maybe hes just trolling with all of this? Or maybe the thing about false claims was the germ of a tortured argument in which defamation committed by Nazis should be considered the lawless action that makes them indictable for incitement under Brandenburg? I dont know. I think maybe he was just bored and farting around on Twitter. As one does.

The rest is here:
Piers Morgan: C'mon, let's change the First Amendment and ban Nazis - Hot Air

Tucker: 'Today's Political Opponents Could Be Tomorrow's Designated Nazis'

Al Sharpton: Defund the Jefferson Memorial

Author Mark Steyn said that the First Amendment protections of freedom of speech and expression are paramount for a functional society.

"Freedom of speech enables you to argue for other freedoms, and that is the point of it," Steyn said.

Steyn was reacting to Tucker Carlson's monologue regarding corporations and progressives censoring speech of offensive factions.

He agreed that, while white supremacy is abhorrent, stifling the rights of more moderate factions lead to those factions finding other ways to express themselves.

"The less freedom of speech we have, the more we have what we saw over the weekend," he said. "All you can do is blow things up and shoot people."

"It always starts off with [white nationalist websites], but it goes further than that," he said.

Steyn said that PayPal recently banned a website from using its payment transfer services because the website is "immigrant restrictionist."

"If the U.S. government thinks in 1909 that [monopoly] Standard Oil had gotten too big... what is Google now?" he asked.

Watch more above.

Huckabee: 'Most Voices Unhappy With Trump' Are 'People Who Just Don't Like Him'

Ted Nugent Blasts Trump Critics: 'All Lives Matter, We Condemn All Violence'

See the article here:
Steyn: Without First Amendment Protections, You Have Charlottesville-Type Violence - Fox News Insider

Typically, all forms of expression are including free speech is protected at city parks, sidewalks, and streets (August 16, 2017)

Giacomo Luca, KXTV 7:44 AM. PDT August 17, 2017

After a gut wrenching weekend violence in Charlottesville, Virginia that lead to one person killed and at least 19 others injured, protests by right-winged groups are being planned in San Francisco and Berkley, California, next weekend, KGO-TV reports.

San Franciscos Supervisor Mark Farrell is working with the National Parks service to come up with a safety plan for the rally planned in Crissy Field near the Golden Gate Bridge, KGO-TV reports.

While the events in Charlottesville escalated beyond those protected by the U.S. Constitutions free speech clause -- The initial rally where white supremacists met in Charlottesville to defend a confederate statue of Robert E. Lee was protected speech, said constitutional law expert and professor Leslie Jacobs at the University of Pacifics McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento.

In this article we ask Ms. Jacobs what rights Americans have to protest, demonstrate, and speak freely at places like universities, government buildings, parks, sidewalks, and other public places.

Here in the United States, our Supreme Court has interpreted our free speech clause to protect very, very hateful speech, said Jacobs. It is not permissible for the government to put people in jail for expressing their points of view.

The government may not restrict a person from protesting at any location solely on the basis of what they want to say, Jacobs said. However, limitations may be set on the time, location, and manner in which a free speech activity may be held.

Typically, prior permission must be given to protest inside government buildings like a city hall, so it doesnt interfere with government operations.

Permits, deposits, and special fees can be asked before a large event or for events that may block traffic, use loud noise devices, or are held in special areas.

You may also need to get permission if protesting in front of a school during class hours, so it doesnt disrupt education -- Anyone may protest on a public college campus as long as its outside, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. For more on individual colleges and university policies in Northern California click here.

The American Civil Liberties Union has also published a Know Your Rights pamphlet on demonstrations and protests, which can be viewed by clicking here.

2017 KXTV-TV

Read more:
The First Amendment: Who can protest where? - ABC10