Supreme Court Agrees To Rule On Limiting First Amendment

Page 1

Supreme Court Agrees To Rule On Limiting First Amendment by KURT NIMMO | INFOWARS.COM | JUNE 18, 2014

Case will directly impact political hyperbole on the internet The Supreme Court will soon decide if threatening speech posted on the internet is protected by the First Amendment. The Court said it will hear an appeal from a Pennsylvania man convicted of making threatening comments on Facebook against his estranged wife, elementary schools, judges and the FBI. Anthony Elonis was convicted of transmitting threatening communications in interstate commerce and sentenced to 44 months in prison. The case is Elonis v. United States. Mr. Elonis’ lawyers argued an individual should not be convicted of making a threat unless there is evidence he actually intended violence. Elonis said much speech posted on the internet is “inherently susceptible to misinterpretation.” He insisted his posted remarks did not demonstrate a “subjective intent to threaten” based on previous Supreme Court precedent and are protected speech under the First Amendment. The Justice Department countered by saying Elonis’ argument undermines “one of the central purposes of prohibiting threats,” which is to protect individuals “from the fear of violence and from the disruption that fear engenders.” According to the government the defendant’s behavior was not merely “careless talk, exaggeration, something said in a joking manner or an outburst of transitory anger. The statements that qualify as true threats (from the defendant) thus have a significant, serious character.” In the past the Court has ruled laws covering threats must not infringe on the First Amendment. This includes “political hyperbole” one may construe as subjectively threatening and “unpleasantly sharp attacks” that are not in fact true threats.


In The Ethics of Liberty Murray Rothbard argues that threats must be “palpable, immediate, and direct” and “embodied in the initiation of an overt act” in order to be considered actual threats. Language, no matter how abusive or subjectively threatening, cannot be regarded as violence. If the Court rules in favor of the government, the landscape of the internet will change dramatically. Political hyperbole, often uncivil and “unpleasantly sharp,” will become illegal and subject to prosecution. Last month Democrat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid moved to amend the Constitution in order to limit political speech. “If ultimately adopted, it would mark the first time in American history that a constitutional amendment rescinded a freedom listed as among the fundamental rights of the American people,” warns Ken Klukowski. Political speech falling outside the parameters set by the ruling political class constitutes a threat to the establishment. This speech flourishes on the internet, specifically on alternative news media websites. Many lawmakers may indeed be outraged by the ability of individuals like Anthony Elonis to issue verbal threats over the internet. However, for the elite, the overriding agenda is to limit and outlaw speech that may endanger their hold on political power. Facebook And The First Amendment: Supreme Court To Consider Online Threats VIDEO BELOW http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmvSueahQ7Y

House GOP Investigators Argue IRS Targeting Influenced By Obama by FOXNEWS.COM | JUNE 17, 2014

House Republicans seeking a direct link between President Obama and the IRS targeting of conservative groups -- a connection Democrats say is essential for a legitimate White House scandal --


have released a report detailing dozens of examples that they say prove the president and fellow Democrats pressured the agency to act. The influence campaign unofficially started during Obama’s January 2010 State of the Union Address in which he “delivered a stunning rebuke” of the Supreme Court decision in favor of the group Citizens United, among the IRS’s first and biggest targets, according to the 77-page report released Monday by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. The decision in part allowed campaign donors to remain anonymous. “The Supreme Court reversed a century of law that I believe will open the floodgates for special interests,” Obama said in the address. “I don’t think American elections should be bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests, or worse by foreign entities. ... And I’d urge Democrats and Republicans to pass a bill that helps to correct some of these problems.” The report attempts to show that Obama combined his master oratory skills with the “indisputably powerful” presidential bully pulpit to sound a clarion call that was heard by news outlets shaping the national agenda and that led IRS official Lois Learner to start targeting Tea Party and other conservative groups that applied for tax-exempt status. “IRS employees read and acted upon the news reports,” the committee report concludes. “Put simply, as the president’s political rhetoric drove the national dialogue and shaped public opinion, the IRS received and responded to the political stimuli.” Maryland Rep. Elijah E. Cummings, the top Democrat on the GOP-led House oversight committee, said the report is “partisan” and “recycles old allegations” already debunked by an inspector general and all 41 IRS and Treasury Department employees interviewed by the committee. “None of [them] identified any White House involvement or political motivation in the screening of tax exempt applicants,” Cummings said. The report -- which includes out takes from roughly 100 news stories, lawmakers’ remarks and Lerner emails through 2013 -- argues that Obama continued his “rhetorical assault” in campaign-style speeches across the country and that the IRS within a month of his national address began targeting the tax-exempt applications. Among the out takes in the report -- titled “Pressure from the Left Led the IRS and DOJ to Restrict Freedom of Speech” -- are roughly 65 examples of Obama or Capitol Hill Democrats objecting to the high court decision or supporting their failed Disclosure Act, which after the decision attempted to limit campaign spending by amending federal law. “The decision undermines democracy and empowers the powerful,” then- Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, said in June 2010 House floor speech in support of the legislation. “It opens the floodgates to a corporate takeover of our elections and invites unrestricted special interest dollars in our campaigns.” The report found that the Justice Department got involved by October 2010, arranging a meeting with the IRS to discuss how the high court’s decision would impact campaign-finance law. That same month, Lerner, whose division processed the applications and who retired amid the scandal, talked about the political pressure on the IRS to “fix the problem” posed by Citizens United, saying “everyone is up in arms” about the decision and are screaming at the IRS to resolve the issue before the 2012 presidential elections, according to the report. The White House did not respond Monday to a request for comment on the report but responded to congressional Republicans’ complaints about missing Lerner emails.


Spokesman Josh Earnest said the Internal Revenue Service has engaged in a good faith effort to find the emails and called GOP criticism “far-fetched." Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, asked by Fox News if he thought the administration would go so far as to delete the emails, replied, “I do. I think you can't put anything past this administration.” Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said, “We're pressing (the IRS) to get answers as to whether any relevant information is missing and whether the committee has gotten everything it needs on this investigation.” The IRS says the emails disappeared when Lerner’s computer crashed in 2011. Earnest also said the agency has produced 67,000 of her emails and has tried to track down the missing ones through other sources and those recovered have been provided to Congress. Facebook And The First Amendment: Supreme Court To Consider Online Threats VIDEO BELOW http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmvSueahQ7Y

High School Blocks Access To Conservative, Pro-Gun – But Not Liberal – Web Sites by KIT DANIELS | INFOWARS.COM | JUNE 18, 2014

Students are not allowed to visit Second Amendment sites but are free to visit Moms Demand Action and Planned Parenthood A Connecticut high school student discovered that his school’s web filters block access to conservative, libertarian and pro-gun web sites but will allow students to view sites supporting gun control, abortion and the Democratic Party. Nonnewaug High School’s SonicWALL Internet filters restrict access to web sites for the National Association for Gun Rights, the Connecticut GOP, RedState and even Townhall.


On the other hand, students are free to access the home pages of Moms Demand Action, Planned Parenthood, the Connecticut Democrat Party and the official site of Hillary Clinton. “I used my study hall to research gun control facts and statistics. That is when I noticed that most of the pro-Second Amendment websites were blocked, while the sites that were in favor of gun control generally were not,” Andrew Lampart told Campus Reform. He accused the school’s administrators of political censorship. “The school is trying to shelter students from real world issues,” he said, adding that none of the administrators did anything a week after he told them about the situation. “They are attempting to influence the way students think.” SonicWALL can be used by schools and other institutions to deny access to specific domains and domains with certain keywords, according to the software’s tutorial. Overall, political censorship through web filtering software is becoming more and more common. Just this morning we reported on how Internet filtering software by Blue Coat Systems miscategorized Infowars.com as a “Violence/Hate/Racism” site, denying access to thousands of users to not only the content of Infowars.com but also the free audio streams of the Alex Jones Show. Blue Coat described their Violence/Hate/Racism category as sites that advocate “extreme physical harm to people, animals or property” and sites that display hostility towards groups “on the basis of race, religion, gender, nationality, ethnic origin, or other involuntary characteristics,” making it clearly obvious that Infowars.com does not belong in that category whatsoever. SonicWALL likewise miscategorized Infowars.com as a pornography site back in 2011 and it took three years for the software company to remove the fraudulent label and restore access to the site. Other alternative media sites have also been targeted, such as World Net Daily in 2007 when American Airlines’ Admirals Club blocked the site as “hate speech” and the Drudge Report, which the Senate’s Committee on Environment and Public Works erroneously claimed was spreading computer viruses. The establishment and its supporters are not happy that alternative news outlets and other pro-liberty web sites are exploding in popularity on the Internet, eclipsing the government-manipulated mainstream media in terms of influence and reach, so now they’re trying to simply censor the world wide web and turn it into a tightly controlled medium no different than cable television. And this incident also highlights how government-run education is being used to indoctrinate students into supporting a larger government while also keeping them in the dark about their birth rights. “When government usurps a parent’s right to control their child’s education, it is inevitable that the child will be taught the values of government officials, rather than of the parents,” former Congressman Dr. Ron Paul wrote. “The result is an education system with a built-in bias toward statism.” “Over time, government-controlled education can erode the people’s knowledge of, and appreciation for, the benefits of a free society.”

INFOWARS.COM BECAUSE THERE'S A WAR ON FOR YOUR MIND


Turn static files into dynamic content formats.

Create a flipbook
Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.