Mediaboss Marketing

June 5, 2020

Philadelphia Mayor James F. Kenney

Philadelphia Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw

Philadelphia City Council

Dear Mayor Kenney, Commissioner Outlaw and the Philadelphia City Council:

Over the course of several days, we have witnessed and documented multiple instances of police violence. This has included unlawful arrests of journalists and protesters who are documenting the civic demonstrations within Philadelphia.

We, the collective media of Philadelphia, representing digital, broadcast and print journalists, join with national press-freedom, civil-rights and social-justice groups to ask you to acknowledge these unprovoked acts of violence and denounce the tactics police have used that suppress and infringe upon our constitutional rights and protections under the First Amendment.

Since these protests began:

After her arrest, Kristen Graham, a veteran Inquirer journalist who won the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, said, I am a born and bred Philadelphian, an Inquirer journalist for the past two decades. Ive never experienced anything quite like what I saw Monday. Im still not sure how to explain it to my children.

These instances of violence speak to a troubling national trend of police violence toward the press, from the unlawful arrest of CNN reporter Omar Jimenez in Minneapolis to the police attack on Australian journalists in Washington, D.C.

There is stress in our communities stemming from decades of systemic oppression and silence from elected leaders. The challenges that arise for law enforcement when Philadelphia residents assert their right to assemble in no way justifies police violence toward the press and others who enact their protected rights to document and record these protests.

Our laws give us protection to report and document what is happening in our city and across the country. Our laws give us the right to talk to the public, hold police accountable for their actions and ask questions that shed light and give context that inform the public.

As elected leaders, you are sworn to uphold our rights. We, the undersigned, call on you to do the following:

Signed,

Free Press Movement

Alliance Project

Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists

ACLU of Pennsylvania

Asian American Journalists Association Philadelphia

Bonfire Media

Collective Boston Institute for Nonprofit Journalism

Common Cause

Common Cause Pennsylvania

Doc Society / Good Pitch Local Philly

Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR)

Freedom of the Press Foundation

G-Town Radio

Generocity

Germantown Info Hub

Globalvision

Government Accountability Project

Green Philly

Independence Public Media Foundation

Kensington Voice

KYW News Radio

Media Alliance

Media in the Public Interest Media, Inequality & Change Center

National Association of Hispanic Journalists Philadelphia

National Coalition Against Censorship

National Press Photographers Association

The NewsGuild

The NewsGuild of New York

Online News Association

Open Media Foundation

PEN America

Philadelphia Citizen

Philadelphia Inquirer

Philadelphia Local | SAG-AFTRA Philadelphia Neighborhoods

Philadelphia Weekly

PhillyCAM

Philly Your Black News

Public News Service/Keystone State News Connection

Reporters Without Borders USA

Society of Professional Journalists

Student Press Law Center Technically Media

The Temple News Temple University Television Station

Temple Update

Thomas Jefferson University Communication Program

Tully Center for Free Speech

WHIP Radio

WHYY Writers Guild of America, East

Sources: WHYY Reporter Arrested While Covering Philadelphia Protest https://whyy.org/articles/whyy-reporter-arrested-while-covering-philadelphia-protest/

Tear Gas, Then Handcuffs: I am an Inquirer Journalist Who Was Arrested for Doing My Job https://www.inquirer.com/news/george-floyd-protests-philadelphia-jouranlist-arrested-kristen-graham20200602.html

Journalists Covering George Floyd Protests Face Attacks from Police https://6abc.com/journalists-covering-george-floyd-protests-face-attacks-from-police/6226798/

Original post:
Letter to Philadelphia Leaders and Police on 1st Amendment Rights - Government Accountability Project

Montana Gov. Steve Bullock says first amendment rights need to be protected as Pres. Donald Trump is calling for governors to respond with force to violent protests popping up around the nation in response to the death of George Floyd.

We need to recognize that people across the country and indeed many Montanans are in pain," Bullock told reporters on a press call June 1 after sitting in on a call with the president but before Trump made public remarks later in the day. "And we need to protect avenues for people to express those first amendment rights. Doing so can be done lawfully and peacefully.

Rallies in Floyds honor and against systemic racism have popped up in several Montana cities in recent days. Those havent turned violent. But nationwide, protests have sparked violent clashes between protesters and police.

On Monday Trump called for governors to deploy the National Guard, adding if they didnt take actions to halt violent protests, hed mobilize the military.

Billings rally organizer Amber Palmer expects a peaceful, socially distant event this weekend. She says it wont require the National Guard.

I dont see the need when the protest is peaceful to deploy such serious, I guess, manpower against it," Palmer said.

She believes Trumps comments are a reaction to the riots in larger cities and comes from a place of fear. The Billings protest begins Sunday at 1 P.M.

Judith Heilman is the founder and executive director of the Montana Racial Equity Project, a Bozeman-based non-profit that helped organize Bozeman Rally for Black Lives on Sunday that drew over 1,000 people.

In response to Trumps remarks about law enforcement dominating the streets, Heilman said, I can speak to Montana about that and say, thats not necessary.

Follow this link:
Bullock: First Amendment Rights Need To Be Protected - MTPR

Opinion | LetterEveryone who wants to see our freedom of civil discourse continue must speak out

By Matt Regier // May 31, 2020

One of the elements at the heart of the First Amendment is a deep respect for the people. It is the public that has the great responsibility of listening to free speech and determining the validity of that speech. We were entrusted by the framers of our nation to have the discernment to judge for ourselves. That is why I was very concerned to read the Flathead Beacon article, Pressure Intensifies on County to Remove Health Board Member. It quotes the Whitefish City Council saying Dr. Bukaceks right to engage in free speech ends where the publics right to be safe from COVID-19 begins.

A quick search to learn more revealed Dr. Birx (an Obama appointed U.S. AIDS coordinator and White House coronavirus task force appointee) stated, There is nothing from the CDC that I can trust. She also said she was worried the CDC was inflating the COVID-19 death rate by as much as 25% (Washington Post, May 9). No matter where you land on the topic of death rates, CDC, government response etc., should we not be able to have the discussion on these topics?

Health board members or Dr. Birx are not my point in writing. This pandemic will pass and we will be on to something else. What will not pass is a city council that is so scared of the First Amendment and the power that it gives to the people that they feel the need to silence the conversation.

I have many friends that are liberal in their thinking. It is fun to grab a pint with them and chat about government roles and personal freedoms. At times we agree, sometimes minds are changed but most of the time we walk away having had a rousing conversation and a good IPA. The same happens with my conservative friends. However, a leftist does not want to even have the conversation. They make accusations like being a danger to the citizens. This of course is according to them. The underlying notion is they dont trust the publics intelligence enough to think for themselves. They skip the dialog and say things like right to engage in free speech ends where the publics right to be safe from COVID-19 begins.

What is ironic is that the Whitefish City Council does have the First Amendment right to express speech that degrades and limits that very same First Amendment right. It is up to us, the people, to stand up for our rights against those that express anti-constitutional views. There are those that enjoy a good conversation; liberal, conservative, independent or even if you are one who could not care less about politics. Everyone who wants to see our freedom of civil discourse continue must speak out. We can change minds, change votes, and change leadership of those around us. Bottom line is have the conversation. President Ronald Reagan was right when he said Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.

Rep. Matt RegierR-Columbia Falls

Read this article:
Stand Up for the First Amendment - Flathead Beacon

In episode 123 for June 1st 2020: The controversy continues over fact checking and First Amendment rights on Twitter, and why government mandated encryption backdoors are bad for everyones security.

** Show notes and links mentioned on the show **

Trump to sign executive order aimed at cracking down on Facebook and Twitterhttps://www.cnbc.com/2020/05/28/trump-to-sign-executive-order-aimed-at-cracking-down-on-facebook-twitter.html

The law enforcement backdoor debate continueshttps://www.helpnetsecurity.com/2020/05/26/backdoor-encryption/

OWASP Top 10 2020 Data Analysis Planhttps://owasp.org/www-project-top-ten/

** Thank you to our sponsors! **

Silent Pocket

Visit https://silent-pocket.com to check out Silent Pockets amazing line of faraday bags and other products built to protect your privacy. As a listener of this podcast you receive 15% off your order at checkout using discount code sharedsecurity.

Edgewise Networks

Find out how Edgewise can stop lateral threat movement and prevent data breaches. Visit https://edgewise.net and request a demo!

Take the Click Armor 3-minute interactive assessment: Can I be Phished?https://www.clickarmor.ca/canibephished

** Help support the show **

Looking for an affordable, reliable, no logs VPN provider? Support the podcast by purchasing a Private Internet Access VPN subscription via our affiliate link: http://www.privateinternetaccess.com/pages/buy-vpn/sharedsecurity

** Subscribe and follow the show **

Sign-up for our email newsletter to receive our free Facebook Privacy & Security Guide, full transcripts of each weekly episode, contest announcements, and special offers from our sponsors: http://eepurl.com/dwcc8D

Subscribe on your favorite podcast app: https://sharedsecurity.net/subscribe

Contact us: https://sharedsecurity.net/contact

Website: https://sharedsecurity.net

Twitter: https://twitter.com/sharedsec

Facebook: https://facebook.com/sharedsec

Instagram: https://instagram.com/sharedsecurity

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/SharedSecurityPodcast

The post First Amendment Rights and Twitter, Encryption Backdoors appeared first on Shared Security Podcast.

Recent Articles By Author

*** This is a Security Bloggers Network syndicated blog from Shared Security Podcast authored by Tom Eston. Read the original post at: https://sharedsecurity.net/2020/06/01/first-amendment-rights-and-twitter-encryption-backdoors/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=first-amendment-rights-and-twitter-encryption-backdoors

Read the original here:
First Amendment Rights and Twitter, Encryption Backdoors - Security Boulevard

Post Views: 393

Neal Boortz, former attorney and popular radio host famously said, Free speech is meant to protect unpopular speech. Popular speech, by definition, needs no protection. In the rest of the western world, speech is not protected. In Canada, comedian Mike Ward was fined $42,000 by the Human Rights Tribunal for telling a joke about young disabled singer, Jeremy Gabriel. In Scotland, stand up comedian and YouTuber Mark Meechan was brought to court and fined $800 by the British government for making a video of his pug doing a Nazi salute. Whether or not one sees the humor in this, by an American standard it is clearly ridiculous that any government would infringe upon a comedians free speech rights.

America has a long history of defending even the worst kinds of speech in our society. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which fights for the rights of immigrants, LGBTQ, reparations and reproductive rights, also fights to defend the greatest constitution ever written in the history of mankind, for it provides more civil liberties and freedoms for its people then any constitution ever has.

The ACLU defended the Nationalist Socialist Party of Americas (NSPA) right to march in 1977 in Skokie, Illinois. The Village of Skokie passed three city ordinances which would prevent any future political demonstration like this from ever happening. People could not wear military-style uniforms during demonstrations, the distribution of hate speech literature was prohibited and there was a required $350,000 insurance bond to hold a demonstration. The case was taken to the Supreme Court in National Socialist Party of America v. Village of Skokie in which the ACLUs lawyers argued before the court that to prevent the NSPA from marching was a violation of the First Amendment.

The requirement of a $350,000 insurance bond is similar to todays battle on college campuses over exorbitant security costs on student clubs that want to bring incendiary speakers to campus. These student clubs, aided by groups similar to the ACLU like the FIRE Legal Network which focuses specifically on defending the First Amendment on college campuses, have argued that these security costs prevent clubs from bringing speakers to campus a clear violation of the right of the people peaceably to assemble.

Nevertheless, there are limits to the peoples right to free speech. In the 1969 Brandenburg v. Ohio decision the Supreme Court wrote, Speech aimed at sparking lawless action such as inciting a riot, true threats or words that incite violence. The problem with this is that those seeking to limit college campus free speech have used this case to justify shutting down speakers.

It should be obvious to anyone that the ruling applies to what the speaker says, not how people are offended by it. For example, if an incendiary speaker like Richard Dawkins, who has been denied a platform before by universities such as UC Berkeley, advocates for atheism and then encourages his audience members to go out and harm Christian students on campus, this would violate Brandenburg v. Ohio. Making a criticism of someones belief system or political ideology is not an advocation of violence. It was clearly not the intention of the Founding Fathers that the peoples right to freely assemble should be infringed upon or prohibited because a separate group threatens violence.

What is considered to be hate speech or a controversial idea is ultimately subjective. A Catholic student club might find sexually explicit images offensive while a person who advocates for sex-positivity might consider this to be an element of her free speech. Essentially, all people have strongly held beliefs and an identity which carries an ideology, and when those strongly held beliefs are criticized or challenged, they might very well be offended.

It is important that people do not just use their right to free speech, but they should also devise solutions to remedy violations. First and foremost, the equal time clause, Requires radio and television stations and cable systems which originate their own programming to treat legally qualified political candidates equally when it comes to selling or giving away air time, should be expanded not only to all forms of news media but also to college campuses.

Moreover, social networks should be considered public forums and subject to the First Amendment protections, meaning that companies like Facebook and Twitter cannot mitigate or shut down certain speakers while propagating others. As these social networks become an increasingly popular way in which Americans consume their news, they should be subject to the same equal time clauses as traditional news media companies.

Last but not least, public universities that consume tax dollars who deny any speakers a platform to speak should lose their public subsidies. The dollars of liberals, conservatives, libertarians and socialists, pay to support our public parks, public hospitals and even public universities. Therefore, its very usage is supposed to be available to everyone, because every American, of all ideological backgrounds, pays into the system to support these amenities that improve society.

The whole point of the First Amendment is to allow controversial speech. Words can be restricted when they incite violence or call one to action, but merely offensive words are not an incitement of violence. It was former U.S. Congressman Henry Hyde who said, Free Speech is meaningless unless we tolerate the speech that we hate. Free speech is not a privilege, its an unalienable right, and every new generation of Americans has to fight to preserve it, otherwise it will slowly be chipped away until it is completely eroded and we are left with nothing but rubble.

Read the original post:
America's First Amendment is what sets it apart from the rest of the western world we have a duty to protect it - Highlander Newspaper