Archive for the ‘First Amendment’ Category

HCSO First Amendment Audit (pivothead video gasses unedited) – Video


HCSO First Amendment Audit (pivothead video gasses unedited)
pivothead http://www.pivothead.com/#stay-in-it-alt March 10th 2015, shortly after taking this photo from a public sidewalk, Undercover Hillsborough County Sheriff #39;s Detectives conducted...

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HCSO First Amendment Audit (pivothead video gasses unedited) - Video

US Border Patrol & Tribal Police revoke First Amendment – No Filming from Public Highway, Starlight – Video


US Border Patrol Tribal Police revoke First Amendment - No Filming from Public Highway, Starlight
U.S. Border Patrol Tribal Police revoke First Amendment - No Filming from Public Highway, Starlight Starbright, Criminal Trespass Citation, 9 November 2014, Santa Rosa, Arizona, Tohono O #39;odham...

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US Border Patrol & Tribal Police revoke First Amendment - No Filming from Public Highway, Starlight - Video

Meet The Attorney Defending Confederate Flag License Plates

R. James George Jr. Courtesy George Brothers Kincaid & Horton LLP hide caption

Supreme Court advocates do not always play to type. To wit, R. James George Jr., arguing Monday for specialty license plates featuring the Confederate flag.

Not what you might expect from a man who started his legal career as a law clerk for Justice Thurgood Marshall, the first African-American to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court.

When asked if he would have a license plate on his car honoring the Confederacy, George replies, "I would not generally do that."

But George adds that he got involved in this case and many others because he is a staunch defender of the freedoms protected by the First Amendment.

"I've been dealing with First Amendment issues most of my career," he says. "And I believe these people are entitled to have their say just like other people are entitled to have their say."

George has represented an array of clients in speech-related cases, from large media companies to prominent television personalities. And more than a few of those cases were "ripped from the headlines."

George defended rapper Tupac Shakur in a suit during the 1990s alleging that the rapper's lyrics on his album 2Pacalypse were so provocative that they caused the shooting of a Texas state trooper.

He also defended television host Phil Donahue in an invasion-of-privacy suit involving a show about incest. George was successful in convincing a Texas court that "a person's right to make public the most private details of their own life," even when that information reveals painful intimacies of other persons, is protected by the First Amendment.

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Meet The Attorney Defending Confederate Flag License Plates

How the First Amendment affects your specialty license plate

GWEN IFILL: It was a busy day at the Supreme Court. The justices decided not to take up a voter I.D. case out of Wisconsin, and they heard arguments over the right to issue license plates in Texas that feature a Confederate Flag.

NewsHour contributor Marcia Coyle of The National Law Journal was there again and joins me now.

Lets start by talking about this Wisconsin case. In 2011, it was a big deal, this idea that voters had to present photo I.D.s at the polls. And this was considered by Democrats to be voter suppression and by Republicans a chance to beat back voter fraud.

So now this gets to the Supreme Court, and they decided to end it?

MARCIA COYLE, The National Law Journal: Not really.

They decided not to hear the Wisconsin case, so that leaves in place the lower court decision upholding Wisconsins law. But the court said nothing about the merits of the challenge to Wisconsins law. And, Gwen, right now, there are a number of other cases pending and moving up the pipeline that challenge other states voter I.D. laws, and, in particular, Texas and North Carolina.

Texas, there was a full-blown trial and the judge in that case found intentional racial discrimination by the state of Texas, unlike in Wisconsin. That case is now on appeal in the Fifth Circuit, and it is expected whoever loses will take it to the Supreme Court. So as of today, we really dont know how the justices think about some of these laws.

GWEN IFILL: But we know that, originally, this was put on hold not because of the merits of the case, but because it was too close to an election.

MARCIA COYLE: Exactly. Theres a court doctrine. The court doesnt like to see changes to election law shortly before elections.

The Wisconsin law was going to go in effect right before midterm elections. Now, today, the ACLU and other groups that have challenged Wisconsins law immediately went to the lower court to ask again that it be put on hold temporarily, because there is an April 6, I believe, election. And, again, they havent had time to implement the changes.

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How the First Amendment affects your specialty license plate

Supreme Court skeptical of specialty license plate case

The case marks the first time the justices will consider the First Amendment implications of the program, similar to other programs across the county, and whether the speech depicted on the plates is government speech or the speech of the driver.

In Texas, individuals can choose to have standard issue plates, or pay a fee and design a plate that is subject to the approval of the state. It can be rejected if state officials find it offensive.

READ: Supreme Court takes on specialty license plates

In court, Texas Solicitor General Scott A. Keller stressed the messages on the licenses plates constitute government speech. He said the state "etches its name onto each license plate" and that the law gives Texas the "sole control and final approval authority over everything that appears on a license plate."

Mary-Rose Papandrea, a constitutional law professor at Boston College Law School, said that "in general the free speech clause of the First Amendment does not apply when the government is speaking."

"The only check on what the government can say is the political process, " she said.

But Keller ran into skeptical questions.

Chief Justice John Roberts, for example, expressed doubt that the license plate program constitutes government speech. He said there is no coherent government message but instead it seems like they are "only doing this to get the money."

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg pointed to one plate that says "Mighty fine Burgers".

"Is it government speech to say 'Mighty fine Burgers' to advertise a product?" she asked.

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Supreme Court skeptical of specialty license plate case