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Very fake MSM tries to set the narrative. The left wing disingenuous Old Gray Lady is upset along with very fake journalists. When I write a letter to this newspaper I am expressing an opinion based on facts collected from multiple sources. When journalists speak or write today they disseminate opinion instead of being objective reporting the truth. Theres a new sheriff in town, DJT, and he sets the narrative.

Celebrities, very fake forth estate, dedicated left wing crybabies and never Trumpers you can all whine until the cows come home. You see, while youve been acting out infantile temper tantrums, the Donald and his minions have been swamp draining in D.C. This is evident by all the leaking of sensitive information meant to embarrass or dissuade the administration.

As a former associate professor of management and an organizational development trainer for a large corporation, here are couple things I taught: 1) Dont put stuff in writing thats not factual or true lest it come back to bite you. 2) If you want to find organizational leaks, plant disinformation with the suspect leakers. Youll find out where the leaks came from. I had 17 different jobs with the same company for 25 years. Many of my assignments were spent as a fixer. Some of us, like DJT know that, in any organization, there are many imbeds that need a job change. That includes reporters with an agenda. When DJT scolds the MSM he is merely exercising free speech as protected by the First Amendment.

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Letter: Trump and the First Amendment - Twin Falls Times-News

Ronald Reagan

On MARCH 15, 1941, Franklin Roosevelt warned at the dinner of White House correspondents: Modern tyrants find it necessary to eliminate all democracies. A few weeks ago I spoke of freedom of speech and expression, freedom of every person to worship God in his own way. If we fail if democracy is superseded by slavery then those freedoms, or even the mention of them, will become forbidden things. Centuries will pass before they can be revived. When dictatorships disintegrate and pray God that will be sooner then our country must continue to play its great part. May it be said of us in the days to come that our children and our childrens children rise up and call us blessed.

The Senate voted down letting children voluntarily pray in public schools on March 15, 1984.

President Reagan said: I am deeply disappointed that, although a majority of the Senate voted for it, the school prayer amendment fell short.

On Sept. 25, 1982, Ronald Reagan said: Unfortunately, in the last two decades weve experienced an onslaught of such twisted logic that if Alice were visiting America, she might think shed never left Wonderland. Were told that it somehow violates the rights of others to permit students in school who desire to pray to do so. Clearly this infringes on the freedom of those who choose to pray, the freedom taken for granted since the time of our Founding Fathers.

Reagan continued: To prevent those who believe in God from expressing their faith is an outrage. The relentless drive to eliminate God from our schools should be stopped.

Ronald Reagan said Feb. 25, 1984: Sometimes I cant help but feel the First Amendment is being turned on its head.

Ronald Reagan stated in a Q & A session, Oct. 13, 1983: The First Amendment has been twisted to the point that freedom of religion is in danger of becoming freedom from religion.

Reagan told the Alabama Legislature, March 15, 1982: To those who cite the First Amendment as reason for excluding God from more and more of our institutions and everyday life, may I just say: The First Amendment of the Constitution was not written to protect the people of this country from religious values; it was written to protect religious values from government tyranny.

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Ronald Reagan stated in a radio address, 1982: The Constitution was never meant to prevent people from praying; its declared purpose was to protect their freedom to pray.

Ronald Reagan stated in a radio address, Feb. 25, 1984: Former Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart noted if religious exercises are held to be impermissible activity in schools, religion is placed at an artificial and state-created disadvantage. Permission for such exercises for those who want them is necessary if the schools are truly to be neutral in the matter of religion. And a refusal to permit them is seen not as the realization of state neutrality, but rather as the establishment of a religion of secularism.

Ronald Reagan told the Annual Convention of the National Religious Broadcasters, Jan. 30, 1984: I was pleased last year to proclaim 1983 the Year of the Bible. But, you know, a group called the ACLU severely criticized me for doing that. Well, I wear their indictment like a badge of honor.

Ronald Reagan worded it differently on the National Day of Prayer, May 6, 1982: Well-meaning Americans in the name of freedom have taken freedom away. For the sake of religious tolerance, theyve forbidden religious practice.

Ronald Reagan stated at an Ecumenical Prayer Breakfast, Aug. 23, 1984: The frustrating thing is that those who are attacking religion claim they are doing it in the name of tolerance and freedom and open-mindedness. Question: Isnt the real truth that they are intolerant of religion?

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What the 1st Amendment does - WND.com

President Donald J. Trump's call for the press to cease using anonymous sources is a blatant attack on the First Amendment. Without the ability to use anonymous sources to provide crucial information, it could seriously undermine the media's efforts to get to the bottom of major stories. Take Watergate, for example. An explosive story like that would have likely never broken in a country without protected media sources. By scaring away the Mark Felts of this world from aiding in the exposure of truth, we really do ourselves a disservice.

As veteran newsman Dan Rather once wrote, "A free and truly independent press fiercely independent when necessary is the red beating heart of freedom and democracy." In my opinion, a country that lacks a free press isn't much of a country. So for the sake of democracy and survival of liberty, President Trump's remarks and the subsequent exclusion of several mainstream media outlets from a White House briefing is something we all should be deeply concerned about.

Ryan Curtis

Salt Lake City

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Letter: Anonymous sources a First Amendment right - Deseret News

One of the major threats to free speech today is not censorship. Its harassment.

Heres how it works. People join or give money to groups that support causes they believe in. Those groups attract the ire of government officials when they criticize them or take a position they oppose. Unable to ban the group from speaking, an angry bureaucrat does the next best thing: launch an investigation into how the group operates and who supports it.

The best part for the government? It doesnt matter how the investigation turns out or if no charges are ever pressed. The investigation ties up the groups resources and scares away supporters. The process is the punishment for speaking.

This scenario has played out countless times at both the federal and state level. For years, the IRS slow-walked applications for nonprofit status from conservative groups, and subjected them to much greater scrutiny than others. In Wisconsin, members of groups that supported collective bargaining reforms were subjected to an illegal investigation that included pre-dawn raids of their homes.

Thanks to victims who were willing to speak out, these abuses became national news. But no one knows how many other instances of government intimidation have gone unnoticed. The solution is not to deal with these scandals one by one, but to roll back the sprawling disclosure laws that allow government to spy on our political associations and punish us if they dont like what they see.

Donald Trumps nominee for the Supreme Court, Neil Gorsuch, appears to take seriously the threat to First Amendment freedoms posed by government intimidation. His ruling in a 2007 case should encourage defenders of donor privacy.

In Van Deelen v. Johnson, plaintiff Michael Van Deelen alleged that a sheriff deputy intimidated him during a meeting with a county appraiser. Van Deelen alleged that the sheriff deputy made intimidating gestures, bumped him, and warned, They told me to do whatever necessary to put a scare into you. If you show up for another tax appeal hearing, I might have to shoot you.

Van Deelen argued that these intimidation tactics infringed on his First Amendment right to petition government. Judge Gorsuchs discussion of the case demonstrates a deep understanding that First Amendment rights are harmed when citizens can be bullied out of exercising them. When public officials feel free to wield the powers of their office as weapons against those who question their decisions, they do damage not merely to the citizen in their sights but also to the First Amendment liberties and the promise of equal treatment essential to the continuity of our democratic enterprise, Gorsuch explained.

[A] reasonable government official should have clearly understood at the time of the events at issue that physical and verbal intimidation intended to deter a citizen from pursuing a private tax complaint violates that citizens First Amendment right to petition for the redress of grievances, Gorsuch ruled.

The decision reversed a lower court ruling that Van Deelens tax challenge failed to qualify as protected constitutional conduct because it did not implicate matters of public concern.

[T]he constitutionally enumerated right of a private citizen to petition the government for the redress of grievances does not pick and choose its causes but extends to matters great and small, public and private, Gorsuch wrote. The case was remanded for further proceedings.

Although rulings from the Civil Rights Era strongly protect the privacy of individuals and groups engaged in advocacy, in recent years, the Supreme Court has neglected to clearly reiterate this stance. And as direct limits on political speech have been curtailed through cases like Citizens United and McCutcheon, would-be censors increasingly turn to disclosure as the best avenue to discourage speech. Thats led many states to implement disclosure requirements for advocacy groups and issue speech that extend far beyond any regulatory scheme ever endorsed by the Court.

This byzantine disclosure regime provides all the information a corrupt bureaucrat or off-the-wall activist needs to track down and harass citizens on the wrong side of an issue. Moreover, the public reaps no benefit from this disclosure. Were not talking about money given to candidates, political parties, or PACs. Were talking about donors to citizen groups that, in many cases, work exclusively on policy not elections.

If privacy fades from politics, politically motivated harassment is sure to rise. Judge Gorsuchs recognition of the harm done to First Amendment rights by government intimidation would be an excellent addition to the Supreme Court. Every American has the right to support causes they believe in without fear of harassment or intimidation. As a unanimous Court ruled in 1958s NAACP v. Alabama, It is hardly a novel perception that compelled disclosure of affiliation with groups engaged in advocacy may constitute as effective a restraint on freedom of association as [other] forms of governmental action.

The Court got it right then, and it needs to say so again now. States that abuse disclosure so government can monitor its citizens, rather than so citizens can monitor government, need to be set straight. There is a good chance that Neil Gorsuch understands that.

Luke Wachob is a Policy Analyst at the Center for Competitive Politics in Alexandria, Virginia. The Center is the nations largest organization dedicated to defending First Amendment political speech rights.

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Gorsuch Understands How Bureaucratic Bullies Harm First Amendment Rights - American Spectator

By Hillel ItalieThe Associated Press

NEW YORK Whenever Donald Trump fumes about "fake news" or labels the press "the enemy of the people," First Amendment scholar David L. Hudson Jr. hears echoes of other presidents but a breadth and tone that are entirely new.

Trump may not know it, but it was Thomas Jefferson who once said, "Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper," said Hudson, a law professor at Vanderbilt University.

"But what's unusual with Trump is the pattern of disparagement and condemnation of virtually the entire press corps. We've had presidents who were embittered and hated some of the press Richard Nixon comes to mind. ... But I can't think of a situation where you have this rat-a-tat attack on the press on virtually a daily basis, for the evident purpose of discrediting it."

Journalism marks its annual Sunshine Week, which draws attention to the media's role in advocating for government transparency, at an extraordinary moment in the relationship between the presidency and the press.

First Amendment advocates call the Trump administration the most hostile to the press and free expression in memory. In words and actions, they say, Trump and his administration have threatened democratic principles and the general spirit of a free society: The demonizing of the media and emphatic repetition of falsehoods. Fanciful scenarios of voter fraud and scorn for dissent. The refusal to show Trump's tax returns and the removal of information from government websites.

And in that battle with the Trump administration, the media do not have unqualified public support.

According to a recent Pew survey, nearly 90 percent of respondents favored fair and open elections while more than 80 percent value the system of government checks and balances. But around two-thirds called it vital for the media to have the right to criticize government leaders; only half of Republicans were in support. A recent Quinnipiac University poll found that Americans by a margin of 53-37 trust the media over Trump to tell the truth about important issues; among Republicans, 78 percent favored Trump.

"We're clearly in a particularly polarizing moment, although this is something we've been building to for a very long time," says Kyle Pope, editor in chief and publisher of the Columbia Journalism Review, a leading news and commentary source for journalism.

"I think one of the mistakes the press made is we became perceived as part of the establishment. And I think one of the silver linings of the moment we're in is that we have a renewed sense of what our mission is and where we stand in the pecking order, and that is on the outside, where we belong."

Hudson, ombudsman of the Newseum's First Amendment Center, says it's hard to guess whether Trump is serious or "bloviating" when he disparages free expression. He noted Trump's comments in November saying that flag burners should be jailed and wondered if the president knew such behavior was deemed protected by the Constitution (in a 1989 Supreme Court ruling supported by a justice Trump says he admires, the late Antonin Scalia).

Hudson also worries about a range of possible trends, notably the withholding of information and a general culture of secrecy that could "close a lot of doors." But he did have praise for Trump's pick to replace Scalia on the court, Neil Gorsuch, saying that he has "showed sensitivity" to First Amendment issues. And free speech advocates say the press, at least on legal issues, is well positioned to withstand Trump.

"We have a really robust First Amendment and have a lot of protections in place," says Kelly McBride, vice president of The Poynter Institute, a nonprofit journalism education center based in St. Petersburg, Florida. "That doesn't mean that attempts won't be made. But when you compare our country to what journalists face around the world, I still think the U.S. is one of the safest places for a journalist to criticize the government."

The First Amendment, which states in part that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press," is far broader and more uniquely American than when ratified in 1791.

At the time, free expression was based on the legal writings of Britain's Sir William Blackstone. The First Amendment protected against prior restraint, but not against lawsuits once something was spoken or published. Truth was not a defense against libel and the burden of proof was on the defendant, not the plaintiff. And the Bill of Rights applied to the federal government, but not to individual states, which could legislate as they pleased.

The most important breakthrough of recent times, and the foundation for many protections now, came with the New York Times Co. v. Sullivan case of 1964.

The Times had printed an advertisement in 1960 by supporters of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. that noted King had been arrested numerous times and condemned "Southern violators of the Constitution." The public safety commissioner of Montgomery, Alabama, L. B. Sullivan sued for libel. He was not mentioned by name in the ad, but he claimed that allegations against the police also defamed him. After a state court awarded Sullivan $500,000, the Times appealed to the Supreme Court.

Some information in the ad was indeed wrong, such as the number of times King was arrested, but the Supreme Court decided unanimously for the Times. In words still widely quoted, Justice William Brennan wrote that "debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open, and that it may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials." He added that a libel plaintiff must prove "that the statement was made ... with knowledge that it was false or with reckless disregard of whether it was false or not."

"It was breathtakingly new," First Amendment attorney Floyd Abrams said of Brennan's ruling. "It was an extraordinary step the court was taking."

But freedom of speech has long been championed more in theory than in reality. Abraham Lincoln's administration shut down hundreds of newspapers during the Civil War. Woodrow Wilson championed the people's "indisputable right to criticize their own public officials," but also signed legislation during World War I making it a crime to "utter, print, write, or publish" anything "disloyal" or "profane" about the federal government. During the administration of President Barack Obama, who had taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago, the Wilson-era Espionage Act was used to obtain emails and phone records of reporters and threaten James Risen of The New York Times with jail.

Predicting what Trump might do is as difficult as following his views on many issues. He often changes his mind, and contradicts himself.

During the campaign last year, he spoke of changing the libel laws to make it easier to sue the media. But shortly after the election, he seemed to reverse himself. He has said he is a "tremendous believer of the freedom of the press," but has worried that "Our press is allowed to say whatever they want and get away with it."

Trump's disparagement of the media has been contradicted by high officials in his administration. Secretary of Defense James Mattis said recently that he did not have "any issues with the press." Vice President Mike Pence was an Indiana congressman when he helped sponsor legislation (which never passed) in 2005 that would protect reporters from being imprisoned by federal courts. In early March, he spoke at a prominent gathering of Washington journalists, the Gridiron Club and Foundation dinner.

"Be assured that while we will have our differences and I promise the members of the Fourth Estate that you will almost always know when we have them President Trump and I support the freedom of the press enshrined in the First Amendment," he said, while adding that "too often stories make page one and drive news with just too little respect for the people who are affected or involved."

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'Polarizing moment' for the First Amendment - Rockford Register Star