Posts Tagged First Amendment

Free Speech and the Threat of Violence

Bill Whittle on the Garland, TX attack.

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Surveillance Planes Tracked Over Baltimore

From The Washington Post:

Discovery of the flights — which involved at least two airplanes and the assistance of the FBI — has prompted the American Civil Liberties Union to demand answers about the legal authority for the operations and the reach of the technology used. Planes armed with the latest surveillance systems canmonitor larger areas than police helicopters and stay overhead longer, raising novel civil liberties issues that have so far gotten little scrutiny from courts.

 

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Defense Distributed Sues State Department

From The New York Times:

Now, with a high-powered legal team behind it, Mr. Wilson’s company,Defense Distributed, a self-described “anti-monopolist digital publisher,” has filed suit against the State Department claiming that its efforts to stop him from publishing his instructions, which are no more than computer code, amount to a prior restraint on free speech. The 25-page suit, filed on Wednesday in Federal District Court in Austin, Tex., is an innovative and apparently unprecedented effort to use the First Amendment in support of the Second.

From Wired:

Wilson’s gun manufacturing advocacy group Defense Distributed, along with the gun rights group the Second Amendment Foundation, on Wednesday filed a lawsuit against the State Department and several of its officials, including Secretary of State John Kerry. In their complaint, they claim that a State Department agency called the Directorate of Defense Trade Controls (DDTC) violated their first amendment right to free speech by telling Defense Distributed that it couldn’t publish a 3-D printable file for its one-shot plastic pistol known as the Liberator, along with a collection of other printable gun parts, on its website.

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How To Prevent The Government From Spying On Your Cellphone

From Democracy Now:

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California Sued For Regulating Gun Ads

From WND:

Weapons retailers in California are suing the state over a ban on the display of images of handguns – even the word “handgun” – in what the business owners say is a violation of the First Amendment.

“I am one of the most heavily regulated and inspected businesses in existence, but it’s still illegal for me to show customers that I sell handguns until after they walk in the door,” said Baryla, who owns Tracy Rifle and Pistol.

“That’s about as silly a law as you could imagine, even here in California.”

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FOIA Docs Show DOJ and White House Targeted CBS Reporter Sharyl Attkisson

From Judicial Watch:

On October 4, 2011, Holder’s top press aide Tracy Schmaler tells White House Deputy Press Sectary Eric Schultz, “I’m also calling Sharryl’s [sic] editor and reaching out to Scheiffer. She’s out of control”

Schultz responded, “Good.  Her piece was really bad for the AG.”

Schultz also detailed to Schmaler that he was working with a journalist (Susan Davis, formerly of the National Journal) to target Rep. Darryl Issa (R-CA), the House Republican leading the charge on Fast and Furious:

“And I sent NJ’s Susan Davis your way. She’s writing on Issa/FandF and I said you could load her up on the leaks, etc.”

(Davis authored a critical profile of Issa a few weeks later.)

Mrs. Attkisson gave an interview with The Blaze.

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Navy SEAL Who Shot bin Laden Being Pressured To Not Reveal Himself

The former SEAL is set to do an interview with Fox News on Nov. 11.

From Business Insider:

… in a statement issued to Business Insider the Pentagon stressed that anyone who participated in the 2011 operation that left the Al Qaeda leader dead was “still bound” by a “non-disclosure agreement to not discuss classified information, especially in a nationally televised interview.”

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Primer for Protesters and “Anti-Government Extremists”

From EFF:

Cell Phone Guide For US Protesters, Updated 2014 Edition

With major protests in the news again, we decided it’s time to update our cell phone guide for protestors. A lot has changed since we last published this report in 2011, for better and for worse. On the one hand, we’ve learned more about the massive volume of law enforcement requests for cell phone—ranging from location information to actual content—and widespread use of dedicated cell phone surveillance technologies. On the other hand, strong Supreme Court opinions have eliminated any ambiguity about the unconstitutionality of warrantless searches of phones incident to arrest, and a growing national consensus says location data, too, is private.

Protesters want to be able to communicate, to document the protests, and to share photos and video with the world. So they’ll be carrying phones, and they’ll face a complex set of considerations about the privacy of the data those phones hold. We hope this guide can help answer some questions about how to best protect that data, and what rights protesters have in the face of police demands. Read the rest of this entry »

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Texas Judge Upholds First Amendment For Open Carry Group

From KDFW:

Dallas News | myFOXdfw.com

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Which Amendment Comes First?

The question is in regards to states disclosing information about gun licensees.

From The Volokh Conspiracy:

There is no First Amendment right to access government records. There’s a First Amendment right to speak about what you’ve found in a record that was released to you, but not a First Amendment right to access the record in the first place. (Courts have recognized one significant exception this principle — a First Amendment right of access to documents filed in criminal prosecutions or civil lawsuits. But that exception is limited, and not applicable to ordinary government records.)

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Obama Signs Law That Makes Protesting a Felony

This former Constitutional law professor appears to have no respect for the Constitution itself.

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Most Transparent Administration in History, Not

From the Committee to Protect Journalists:

Six government employees, plus two contractors including Edward Snowden, have been subjects of felony criminal prosecutions since 2009 under the 1917 Espionage Act, accused of leaking classified information to the press—compared with a total of three such prosecutions in all previous U.S. administrations.

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Fast and Furious Book Censored

From The Washington Times:

The ACLU is slated to become involved in the case Monday, informing ATF it is representing Mr. Dodson and filing a formal protest to the decision to reject his request to publish the already written book, sources told The Times, speaking only on the condition of anonymity.

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McMillan Merchant Solutions

The company that revolutionized stocks has started a credit card processing company. The new company was created after McMillan‘s bank account at Bank of America was abruptly cancelled without explanation.

More information can be found in this article from World Net Daily.

McMillan Merchant Solutions

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OPSEC For Journalists And Leakers

Wired’s Danger Room has some tips for journalists to protect their identity from subpoenas like the one involving the AP.

We now live in a world where public servants informing the public about government behavior or wrongdoing must practice the tradecraft of drug dealers and spies. Otherwise, these informants could get caught in the web of administrations that view George Orwell’s 1984 as an operations manual.

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