Posted on October 7th, 2008 by Kip
(Introductory note: Ten years later, and we still have to write pieces such as this. How sad…) I found this hilarious: For the last several years, the Religious Right has been complaining about GLSEN's annual "Day of Silence" in which students pledge to "be quiet all day to protest the discrimination, harassment and abuse — [...]
Filed under: First Amendment - Speech, Gay Rights and Issues, Society, Religion, Culture Wars, Student Rights | Comments Off
Posted on September 17th, 2008 by Kip
The ACLU celebrates Constitution Day by seeking words of wisdom from a leading enemy of the Constitution: On this day in 1787, our founding fathers signed the Constitution, making us a nation of laws, not of men. The basic concepts of justice, liberty, and inherent human rights outlined in that founding document, are at the [...]
Filed under: First Amendment - Speech, Law, Libertarianism | 3 Comments »
Posted on September 11th, 2008 by Kip
Two separate federal courts, a trial court in Connecticut and an appellate court in the Eighth Circuit, have both ruled that a controversial provision of the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005 violates the First Amendment: Organizations representing thousands of attorneys filed the lawsuit in 2006, objecting to a requirement that they [...]
Filed under: First Amendment - Speech, Law | Comments Off
Posted on September 10th, 2008 by Kip
Just a quick pass-along: In 2005, Kentucky imposed a 1.3% tax on the gross revenues of telecommunications providers. In connection with the new tax, the legislature banned providers from "collect[ing] the tax directly" from consumers and from "separately stat[ing] the tax on the bill." The providers filed this lawsuit because they want to identify the [...]
Filed under: Activist Legislators & Nanny Statists, Capitalism, First Amendment - Speech, Law, Taxation & Fiscal Policy | 1 Comment »
Posted on September 10th, 2008 by Kip
To review: The high water mark in First Amendment protection of student speech was Tinker v. Des Moines School Dist., 393 U.S. 503 (1969), which famously held, "It can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate." In the almost forty [...]
Filed under: First Amendment - Speech, Law, Society, Religion, Culture Wars, Student Rights | 1 Comment »
Posted on August 28th, 2008 by Kip
"Help Keep Politics Out of the Exam Room!" –Planned Parenthood Website Since I have relentlessly railed against theocratic church leaders abusing their tax-exempt status by endorsing, overtly or otherwise, specific political candidates, I feel compelled to engage in a little equal-opportunity indignation: Clever — but is it legal? The Planned Parenthood Action Fund had stationed [...]
Filed under: First Amendment - Religion, First Amendment - Speech, Law, Politics, Society, Religion, Culture Wars, Taxation & Fiscal Policy | 3 Comments »
Posted on August 27th, 2008 by Kip
The headline: Ohio man sentenced for writing racial hate letters Reality: He pleaded guilty in May to six counts of mailing threatening communications and two counts of threatening interstate communications. "Hate" and "threatening" are two very different words — especially in the context of criminal prosecutions. "Hate" is not a crime — "threatening" is. This [...]
Filed under: First Amendment - Speech, Gay Rights and Issues, Law | 3 Comments »
Posted on August 20th, 2008 by Kip
It's about time: Today, a federal judge lifted an unconstitutional gag order that had prevented three Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) students from disclosing academic research regarding vulnerabilities in Boston's transit fare payment system. The court found that the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Agency (MBTA) had no likelihood of success on the merits of its claim [...]
Filed under: First Amendment - Speech, Law Enforcement Abuses, Libertarianism | 2 Comments »
Posted on August 15th, 2008 by Kip
The win: Yelling homophobic or racist names is free speech protected by the Oregon Constitution if the insults don't lead to violence, Oregon's high court has ruled. In a unanimous ruling, the Oregon Supreme Court struck down the "abusive speech" provision of the state harassment law that prohibited insulting a person publicly in a way [...]
Filed under: First Amendment - Speech, Law Enforcement Abuses, Terror v. Civil Liberties | Comments Off
Posted on August 14th, 2008 by Kip
To review: There is a First Amendment right not only to free speech, but also to anonymous speech, and especially to anonymous political speech. That has never been seriously doubted in our history, and is deeply entrenched in Supreme Court precedent. See, e.g., McIntyre v. Ohio Elections Commission, 514 U.S. 334 (1995) ("Under our Constitution, [...]
Filed under: First Amendment - Speech, Law Enforcement Abuses, Metablogging, Privacy Issues | 1 Comment »