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The freedoms offered by the First Amendment include the freedom to exercise personal restraint.

Picture this nightmare scenario: The year is 2024, and voting has just started in Hawaiis primary election. Two well-known candidates are running for office and are neck and neck in the polls, as they have been since the beginning of their campaigns.

Who will win is anyones guess, but both candidates have their own factions of special interests and big money behind them who are desperate for a win to shift the balance of power in Hawaii.

And then, just as mail-in ballots arrive, a cellphone video recording emerges on social media, showing one of the candidates speaking at a private fundraiser, making alarming promises of what political capture will mean for them and their friends.

In under an hour, the video goes viral and is re-shared, re-posted and highlighted on tens of thousands of social media accounts, and local media decides to do stories about a video thats circulating online.

The candidate denies ever making the statements, and claims the video is fake. Worse yet, it turns out the video was covertly made by malicious individuals through the use of new, hyper-realistic artificial intelligence tools.

By the time local media fact-checks and corrects the narrative, public opinion has already changed against that candidate, and enough mail-in ballots have already been cast against them to disrupt the election. And even more worrying, there are many people who still believe the video is real, and continue to share it, claiming that the media is attempting to suppress the truth about who that candidate really is.

Of course, neither the opposing candidate, their surrogates or their community supporters had anything to do with that fake video, but, in the end, the damage was done, and they all benefited from it.

This is exactly the direction that democracy is headed as both artificial intelligence and technology make leaps and bounds in the span of not even years, but months. The emerging ability to shift mass public opinion with fake or edited content that looks and sounds real over social media is something that can undermine our democracy and cause chaos on a statewide, even national scale.

Unfortunately for us, malicious people with an eye for disruption understand psychology and social media better than most of the good guys providing election security or even gatekeeping private media. Legal regulations and even technological countermeasures against deceptive content are no match for an inflamed public, and as is often the case, people arguing for and against the veracity of something online usually serve the goal of promoting lies further rather than actually advancing truth.

Let me give you a personal example.

A good friend of mine, who lives in one of thePersian Gulf states, sent me a video last week by private message, showing an incident that purportedly occurred during the current Israel/Gaza conflict. The video was emotionally upsetting, to say the least, and it was so awful that my first inclination was to denounce it.

But after watching it carefully, I realized it was completely fake, and I let the matter come to a halt right there. I didnt reply to my friend. I didnt repost it with a personal reaction to the content, and I didnt privately send it to other people, editorializing or voicing disgust about how much I hated that fake video. I recognized it was visual plutonium, morally contaminating anyone who might see it, and I employed what National Security Agency analysts callmokusatsu to kill by a wise and informed silence and just let it go into a memory black hole.

The problem with this type of fake content, if youll excuse my language, is that its specifically meant to piss you off and get you talking about it, for, or, against. In you doing that, it has the same effect on everyone else who sees it, and does the same. Its meant to play to your base instincts and hidden biases. In this regard, malicious content spread on social media is a kind of weapon of mass destruction, and it can cause everything from riots, to electoral manipulation, to even national upheaval.

So how do we as a community prepare against and fight this kind of thing?

Well, the problem of misinformed democracies is a problem that goes back even as far as Plato talking abouthis allegory of the cavewhere a philosopher has immense difficulty convincing his peers that what they think is real is actually fake. (If youve never taken a political science or humanities course, watch TED-Eds great,short explainer video on Plato here.)

The first thing we need to do is recognize that our social institutions and elections are vulnerable. Conformity, peer pressure, outrage and how malicious social engineering can affect those things need to be at the forefront of our minds. We need to do something we havent done before as a community and we need to train ourselves how to process observations (what we see/hear/feel) into correct decisions.

I know they dont teach this in school, but they should. Being able to have the patience to set aside biases and say wait, lets think about this for a moment and lets consider the source is going to be crucial to saving the American experiment of democracy in the years to come.

Second, the for-profit news media, which currently is rewarded for being the first to report on things and then correct the story later, needs to consider their role as it pertains to behavioral and social impact. There are too many evil people who have mastered the art of weaponizing the media, and there are too many people in positions of news prominence who want attention and popularity, no matter the long-term consequences.

The First Amendment was indeed created to protect what might be considered the most heinous and unpopular forms of expression to protect an oppressed or unpopular minority. But it leaves to us as individuals and communities the more important moral choice of asking ourselves whether we should choose to express something or not.

This freedom is not meant as a freedom to do evil, but rather, a freedom to exercise personal restraint and to engage in enlightened choices towards ones community, state, and nation.

Personally, Im worried about the future of our government and democracy. But I also have hope that if we know whats at stake, what our weaknesses are, and what threats are out there, we can be more than just reactionary voters and be good citizens.

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Danny De Gracia: Don't Fall For Fake Election News This Year ... - Honolulu Civil Beat

Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, the new Mr. Speaker proposed by the Freedom Caucus and anointed by the GOP, is a curiosity to science. Hes composed of anti-matter.

Heres what hes against; he is anti-: the LGBTQIA+ community (he says homosexuality should be criminalized; approves of dont say gay; thinks gay people brought down the Roman Empire (even though historians say it was barbarian invaders)), critical race theory, diversity programs, same-sex marriage, transgender care, freedom of reproductive choice, requiring military personnel to take COVID vaccines, hunger mitigation and nutrition programs, unions, investigating threats against school boards, Head Start, cannabis, fighting health and election disinformation, climate change mitigation, and a lot of science. He denies Joe Biden won the 2020 election; hes xenophobic, misogynistic and a hawk on China and immigration.

But its what he stands for the that keeps me awake at night. Mr. Speaker is an evangelical, white Christian nationalist.

Americas version Christian nationalism holds that our nation is defined by Christianity and was founded as a Christian nation. There should be no separation of church and state. Christianity should inform and guide law-making and governing. Our country should not be defined as a democracy, but, rather, a republicruled by the virtuous, not the majority. God intended America to be a new promised land for European Christians.

White Christian nationalism is bogus.

First, Christian nationalism has nothing to do with Christianity. Rather, it is a political deception, a trick, to obtain and retain power by the virtuous few over the unwashed masses. It is antithetical to democracy; it is authoritarian. (It is, for example, the religion of Hungarys dictator Viktor Orbna darling of the right-wing GOPand of Vladmir Putin).

Christian nationalism is absolutely antithetical to Jesus teaching in his Sermon on the Mount and in the parable of the Good Samaritan.

Second, Americas framers did not believe in nor did they form a Christian or any one-religion nation. The First Amendment to the federal Constitution has two religion clauses: The Establishment Clause and the Free Exercise Clausethe government shall make no law establishing religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. Additionally, Article VI Section 3 of the Constitution prohibits any religious test as a qualification for holding any office or public trust.

James Madison, a key framer of the Constitution, incorporated Section 16 of the Virginia Declaration of Rights (grounded in the free exercise of religion based on ones own conscience) into the drafting of the First Amendmentbecause the Colonies had established state religions and were persecuting and prosecuting those who held different religious beliefs. Madison held that without freedom of religion, there could be no representative government, because establishing one religion over others attacked the fundamental human right of freedom of conscience.

Indeed, in his first term as President, Thomas Jefferson referred to the First Amendment religion clauses as a wall of separation between Church & State.

Among the 56 framers, there was only one member of the clergy. Washington, Jefferson, Franklin and Madison were Deists, who, among other things, believed that the supreme being created the universe to operate solely by natural laws, and that after creation he absented himself from the world.

In a peace treaty between the United States and Tripoli, George Washington explicitly stated: The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion. . .

Certainly, they had no problem with a diversity of religions (nor do I), but if the framers intended to create a Christian nationas evangelical white Christian nationalists proclaimthey would have explicitly done so. Indeed, the framers intent and purpose was to do precisely the oppositeas expressed in the First Amendment and in Article VI, Section 3.

White Christian nationalism has no grounding in the history of American democracy. It is a false narrative; a toxic ideology. It is wrong.

So, Mr. Speaker is starting off on a whole list of negatives, denials and falsehoods.

But, why should we be surprised?

See the article here:
Mike Johnson: The Christian Nationalist Speaker Daily Montanan - Daily Montanan

Kevin Frazier is an Assistant Professor at the Crump College of Law at St. Thomas University. He previously clerked for the Montana Supreme Court.

The First Amendment protects a marketplace of ideasideally, speakers can freely offer information and the public audience can evaluate that information in light of other ideas, arguments, and proposals. This exchange has a clear goal: the maintenance of a deliberative democracy.

Content generated by AI will soon cause a catastrophic market failure, unless we act now to protect our ability to converse with and learn from one another. Two facts make that impending failure clear: first, in just three years, 90 percent of online content may be generated by AI; and, second, humans struggle--and will increasingly struggle as AI improves--to identify AI-generated speech.

The upshot is that our marketplace of ideas will soon be a marketplace of illusion and confusion. Its time to establish a Right to Reality. Our main marketplaces from Facebook to The New York Times--should have a legal obligation to label the extent to which content is altered by AI or organic--i.e., created by humans.

Though this Right to Reality may seem far fetched, its grounded in the core principles of the First Amendment. By way of example, the U.S. Supreme Court has held that theres a right to receive information. Justice Brennan, writing for the plurality in Board of Education v. Pico, argued that "[t]he right of freedom of speech and press embraces the right to distribute literature, and necessarily protects the right to receive it. The dissemination of ideas can accomplish nothing if otherwise willing addresses are not free to receive and consider them."

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In an information ecosystem polluted by altered content willing addresses lack that freedom. For one, its nearly impossible to receive organic information if it requires sorting through mountains of AI-generated mis- and disinformation. Second, even if one stumbled across organic information in that setting, they may not know it because of the increasing capacity of AI tools to mirror organic content.

Astute readers may contest the Right to Reality on the basis that the First Amendment under the Federal Constitution only protects against government interference. That argument has some weight--though, as an aside, the U.S. Supreme Court has recognized First Amendment rights in some settings involving private actors. Nonetheless, to the extent the federal First Amendment is bounded, theres another legal home for the Right to Reality--state constitutions.

Many state constitutions have distinct freedom of speech provisions that have been interpreted to afford greater protections. Case in point, the New Jersey Supreme Court held that freedom of speech and assembly provisions under the state's constitution protected students distributing political leaflets at Princeton, a private university. The court explained that a limited private right of action may exist based on the typical use of the space, whether the public had been invited to use that space, and the purpose of the expressive activity in question. Courts in California, Pennsylvania, and beyond have reached similar conclusions.

Theres little denying that our modern public spheres, including social media platforms, fit the profile of a space that ought to be subject to regulation under such state constitutional speech provisions. Social media platforms are commonly and increasingly used to exchange political views and news, are designed to facilitate such exchange, and are generally open to the public.

The legal viability of the Right to Reality is also bolstered by its minimal impact on expressive activity. Unlike other provisions that have run afoul of freedom of speech protections, the Right to Reality would not remove any content from public forums but merely assist in the evaluation of that content. Its also worth pointing out that the ability to evaluate the accuracy and origin of information serves several societal goals.

Our democracy cannot function if voters cannot confirm whether a candidate or a computer generated a message. Our children will struggle to mature into well-rounded citizens if they solely interact with altered content. Our collective capacity to challenge the status quo will collapse if we outsource our critical thinking to AI tools.

In short, its now or never for a right to reality.

Read the rest here:
AI and a marketplace of illusion and confusion - The Fulcrum

COLUMBUS, Ohio Theres an increased effort in Ohio to require more candidates to declare a party affiliation before putting their name on the ballot.

A recently passed law requires certain judicial candidates to make that information known, and the latest proposal out of the Statehouse wants local school board members to be added to the list.

Most voters do not pay close attention to politics, said Justin Buchler, a political science professor at Case Western Reserve University. Whether we are talking about the national level, the state or the local level. And that means they tend to look for cues in the simplest cue that voters tend to have is a party label.

Meanwhile, not everyone sees this as a benefit. Ohio Supreme Court Justice Jennifer Brunner filed a lawsuit over party labels being used in certain races. The lawsuit is centered on the new rule that requires certain judicial candidates to declare their party affiliation on the ballot. Brunner experienced the impact of party labels on the ballot first hand in 2022 when she ran against Republican Sharon Kennedy in the race for Ohio Supreme Court chief justice.

Ohio judicial code limits what candidates for elected judicial officers can say, and that puts judicial candidates in a different more restrictive place than other candidates who are running with party labels, said Jonathan Entin, Professor of Law at Case Western Reserve University.

The lawsuit claims party labels for these judicial candidates violate the First Amendment. But, political experts say its not that simple.

The concern becomes one of the First Amendment, said Atiba Ellis, a Professor of Law at Case Western Reserve University. One could, on the one hand, see that that information might be helpful to understand what a judge thinks and where they might be coming from. On the other hand, some might see this as a form of compelled speech in the sense of the government in issuing the ballot. Is labeling a candidate in a way that the candidate might not be labeled.

While constitutional law experts say a similar case could be made for local school board races. They also say the recent push to make more races partisan could be politically motivated.

Its tended to come from conservatives and republicans who have been making a big issue out of some of the things that or maybe being taught or they claim is being taught in schools or the kinds of materials that are available in school libraries, Entin said.

Read the original post:
Increased efforts to require party labels in Ohio races - Spectrum News 1

This article is part of TPM Cafe, TPMs home for opinion and news analysis. It was originally published at The Conversation.

When Louisiana passed a law in August 2023 requiring public schools to post In God We Trust in every classroom from elementary school to college the author of the bill claimed to be following a long-held tradition of displaying the national motto, most notably on U.S. currency.

But even under recent Supreme Court precedents, the Louisiana law may violate the establishment clause of the First Amendment, which prohibits the government from promoting religion. I make this observation as one who has researched and written extensively on issues of religion in the public schools.

The Louisiana law specifies that the motto shall be displayed on a poster or framed document that is at least 11 inches by 14 inches. The motto shall be the central focus and shall be printed in a large, easily readable font. The law also states that teachers should instruct students about the phrase as a way of teaching patriotic customs.

Similar bills are being promoted by groups like the Congressional Prayer Caucus Foundation, a nonprofit that supports members of Congress who meet regularly to defend the role of prayer in government. To date, 26 states have considered bills requiring public schools to display the national motto. Seven states, including Louisiana, have passed laws in this regard.

The Supreme Court has long treated public schools as an area where government-promoted religious messaging is unconstitutional under the First Amendments establishment clause. For example, the Supreme Court held in 1962, 1963, 1992 and 2000 that prayer in public schools is unconstitutional either because it favored or endorsed religion or because it created coercive pressure to religiously conform. In 1980, the court also struck down a Kentucky law requiring the Ten Commandments to be posted in classrooms.

At the same time, the court has protected private religious expression for individual students and teachers in public schools.

The Louisiana law comes at a time of rising concerns about Christian nationalism and on the heels of a pivotal court case. In the 2022 case Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, the court overturned more than 60 years of precedent when it ruled that a public school football coachs on-field, postgame prayer did not violate the establishment clause. In doing so, the court rejected long-standing legal tests, holding instead that courts should look to history and tradition.

The problem with using history and tradition as a broad test is that it can change from one context to the next. People including lawmakers are apt to ignore the negative and troubling lessons of U.S. religious history. Prior to the Kennedy decision, history and tradition were used by a majority of the court to decide establishment clause cases only in specific contexts, such as legislative prayer and war memorials.

Now, states like Louisiana are trying to use history and tradition to bring religion into public school classrooms.

Contrary to what people often assume, the phrase In God We Trust has not always been the national motto. It first appeared on coins in 1864, during the Civil War, and in the following decades it sparked controversy. In 1907, President Theodore Roosevelt urged Congress to drop the phrase from new coins, saying it does positive harm, and is in effect irreverence, which comes dangerously close to sacrilege.

In 1956, amid the Cold War, In God we Trust became the national motto. The phrase first appeared on paper money the next year. It was a time of significant fear about communism and the Soviet Union, and atheism was viewed as part of the communist threat. Atheists were subject to persecution during the Red Scare and afterward.

Since then, the motto has stuck. Over the years, legal challenges attempting to remove the phrase from money have failed. Courts have generally understood the term as a form of ceremonial deism or civic religion, meaning religious practices or expressions that are viewed as being merely customary cultural practices.

Even after the Kennedy ruling, the Louisiana law may still be unconstitutional because students are a captive audience in the classroom. Therefore, the mandate to hang the national motto in classrooms could be interpreted as a form of religious coercion.

But because the law requires a display rather than a religious exercise like school prayer, it may not violate what has come to be known as the indirect coercion test. This test prevents the government from conducting a formal religious exercise that places strong social or peer pressure on students to participate.

The outcome of any constitutional challenge to the Louisiana law is far from clear. Prior cases involving the Pledge of Allegiance offer one example. Though the Supreme Court dismissed on standing grounds the only establishment clause challenge to the pledge it has considered, lower courts have held that reciting the pledge in schools is constitutional for a variety of reasons.

These reasons include the idea that it is a form of ceremonial deism and the fact that since 1943 students have been exempt from having to say the pledge if it violates their faith to do so.

The Louisiana law, however, requires instruction about the national motto.

If the law is challenged in court and upheld, teachers could teach that the motto was adopted when the nation was emerging from McCarthyism and fear of communism was widespread. Moreover, they could teach that many people of faith throughout U.S. history would have viewed this sort of display as against U.S. ideals.

More than two centuries before Roosevelt argued that it was sacrilegious to put In God We Trust on coins, the Puritan minister and Colonist Roger Williams famously proclaimed that forced worship stinks in Gods nostrils. Williams founded the colony of Rhode Island, at least in part, to promote religious freedom.

Additionally, there is no prohibition on alternative designs for the national motto posters as long as the motto is the central focus of the poster. In Texas, a parent donated rainbow-colored In God We Trust signs and others written in Arabic, which were subsequently rejected by a local school board. This situation, which gained significant media attention, brought the exclusionary impact of these laws into public view.

It could be argued that accepting wall hangings that favor Christocentric viewpoints and rejecting those that reflect other religions or add symbols such as the rainbow is religious discrimination by government. If so, schools might be required to post alternative motto designs that meet the letter of the new law in order to uphold free speech rights and prevent religious discrimination.

The Louisiana law would have been brazenly unconstitutional just two years ago. But after the Kennedy decision, the law may survive a potential legal challenge. Even if it does, one thing is for certain: It will be divisive.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

More here:
Louisiana's 'In God We Trust' Law May Violate Establishment Clause Of The First Amendment - TPM