Posts tagged first amendment
“Your First Amendment rights can be terminated.” Chicago police officers arrest members of the local media outside a hospital Sunday evening. [WMAQ-TV]
FJP: Chicago. Where arresting journalists happens.
Society underestimates the degree of bravery required to be a journalist. In the modern world, the notion of killing the messenger ought to just be a quaint metaphor, not a valid and accepted tactic. Freedom of speech is protected not even just for them to have leave to speak, but because the rest of us need to hear.
Kent, from Keene, N.H.
One of the 16,000 messages sent to the 70 journalists arrested during Occupy protests nationwide.
via Save the News:
For too long we have taken the First Amendment for granted, but increasingly we are taking responsibility for it. In the last few months, more than 40,000 Free Press members sent letters and made phone calls to their mayors, demanding that charges be dropped for the nearly 70 journalists who have been arrested while trying to cover Occupy protests nationwide.
We then asked people to write directly to the arrested journalists themselves, to stand with them and the organizations fighting to protect the First Amendment. Sixteen thousand people responded. This week we are delivering those messages to all those who have been detained.
Ben Franklin’s Ghost Teaches You Photographer’s Rights
It’s easier than ever to capture images of public goings-on with all our fancy camera gadgets. If you find yourself in the middle of some contentious event—particularly when the police are involved—you should know your rights. And who better to tell you than the singing cartoon ghost of Benjamin Franklin?
The American Civil Liberties Union teamed up with Joseph Gordon-Levitt to bring you this animation about photographing in public. Clearly targeting those of the Occupy Wall Street ilk, the video might just be the most entertaining explanation of your camera rights out there.
via: gizmodo.com
First Amendment Tweets
Via the Knight Foundation:
Today, students ages 14 to 22 who tweet creatively about the First Amendment – and use the hashtag #FreeToTweet – are eligible for a $5,000 scholarship.
The tweet-a-thon is a celebration of the 220th birthday of the Bill of Rights.
Learn more at FreeToTweet.org.
It’s really a good day for journalism teachers and journalism students everywhere. This is just an incredibly, incredibly important reaffirmation of the rights of students. It was an absolute must-win for the independence of student journalism and we’re very thankful the court got it right.
Frank LoMonte, Executive Director, Student Press Law Center, in a statement to the Chicago Tribune, Iowa court grants students broad free press rights.
Background: An Iowa school district disciplined the faculty advisor of a student newspaper after it ran an April Fools edition that included stories about a chemistry teacher running a meth lab, cheerleaders taking steroids and a doctored photo of a baby smoking in an article about the school’s tobacco policy.
The school contended that the articles violated state law for student-run newspapers by promoting illegal activity.
Via the Chicago Tribune:
The court ruled that an Iowa law gives students greater free speech rights than those afforded under a 1988 U.S. Supreme Court decision that granted school administrators more leeway to censor student publications. Eight other states have similar laws or rules that grant students broad press rights, but Wednesday’s decision marked the first time a U.S. court has interpreted any of them…
…While the decision only interprets the law in Iowa, it could affect debates and legal disputes in other states amid a growing movement to give students more rights, [LoMonte] said.
#FreeToTweet Scholarship Competition
1 for All, a non-partisan organization launched in 2010 to raise awareness about the US First Amendment, is holding a contest with 22 $5,000 scholarships for the winners.
Open to 14 to 22-year-olds, the “Free to Tweet” competition asks participants to write, perform or otherwise produce a piece of content that celebrates the First Amendment in its entirety, or any of the specific five freedoms it guarantees.
Via 1ForAll:
Beginning at midnight on Dec. 15, students ages 14 to 22 can tweet their support for the First Amendment with the hash tag #freetotweet, which will enter them in the “Free to Tweet” scholarship competition. Students are encouraged to freely express themselves in their entries, which can be posted on any publicly viewable social media platform, including blogs.
So, here’s the Website, here’s the competition and here’s the FAQ.
If you enter let us know. We’d love to see what you create.
Virginia Police Arrest Photojournalist Documenting Occupy Richmond Crackdown
Ian Graham, who was shooting for RVA Magazine, explains via the magazine’s Web site:
I was there to photograph the police dissemble the occupation, and therefore what many call the trampling of the first and possibly second amendments. The people assembled in a (literal) public square, were paid lip service to by local authorities, and on the last morning of October, the local police were forced into thuggery by an order from on high. Again, I was not at Kanawa Plaza to make a political statement, I wanted to take some pictures… and instead, I got arrested for crossing the fucking street. The official charge is of trespassing. There were people on both sides of the crosswalk where I was arrested, and none of them were arrested. But none of them had cameras, either.
Image: Screenshot from a CBS video of Ian Graham getting arrested.
What if the price of having a vital, well-financed string of newspapers included rare, but inevitable, sexual predation of minors?
Not a tough call, right? But maybe more complicated than you think for the businesses involved.
David Carr, New York Times. Fighting Over Online Sex Ads.
Carr reports that Village Voice Media’s Backpage.com, a classifieds site, is under fire from a coalition of religious leaders and the country’s 51 attorneys general for its “adult” section. Each contends that the site has been used to traffic children.
Village Voice Media CEO Jim Larkin counters that the company is not responsible for the content that appears on the site, and has spent millions on human and technological resources to screen ads that feature minors.
In 2010 a similar coalition went after Craigslist about its adult section, leading the company to ban such advertising in the United States.
All Your Weed Are Belong to Us?
Last week the US Justice Department announced a crackdown on medical marijuana dispensaries in California, arguing that federal law trumps state law with regard to controlled substances.
This week, a California US attorney is upping the ante, saying that she will prosecute any newspaper, radio or television station that advertises medical marijuana dispensaries.
Via California Watch:
U.S. Attorney Laura E. Duffy, whose district includes Imperial and San Diego counties, said marijuana advertising is the next area she’s “going to be moving onto as part of the enforcement efforts in Southern California.” Duffy said she could not speak for the three other U.S. attorneys covering the state but noted their efforts have been coordinated so far.
“I’m not just seeing print advertising,” Duffy said in an interview with California Watch and KQED. “I’m actually hearing radio and seeing TV advertising. It’s gone mainstream. Not only is it inappropriate – one has to wonder what kind of message we’re sending to our children – it’s against the law.”
Federal law prohibits people from placing ads for illegal drugs, including marijuana, in “any newspaper, magazine, handbill or other publication.” The law could conceivably extend to online ads; the U.S. Department of Justice recently extracted a $500 million settlement from Google for selling illegal ads linking to online Canadian pharmacies.
Duffy said her effort against TV, radio or print outlets would first include “going after these folks with … notification that they are in violation of federal law.” She noted that she also has the power to seize property or prosecute in civil and criminal court.
Marijuana dispensary ads currently appear in a wide range of alternative publications, as well as mainstream ones such as the McClatchy-owned Sacramento Bee.
Nothing like First Amendment meeting Drug War meeting States Rights meeting Federal Authority to start the day.
Social Media Increases Students' First Amendment Appreciation
A recent Knight Foundation study demonstrates that the more teenagers use social media, the greater their appreciation is for the US First Amendment.
The findings are rather dramatic. Back in the early social media days of 2006, 45% of teenagers surveyed said that the First Amendment “goes too far” in protecting citizens rights. Today, that number’s down to 24%.
According to a press release accompanying the study, “There is a clear, positive relationship between social media use and appreciation of the First Amendment. Fully 91 percent of students who use social networking daily to get news and information agree that “people should be allowed to express unpopular opinions.”
For the educators out there, Knight Foundation will release a teachers’ guide for social media and the First Amendment on December 15 at the Newseum in Washington DC.
Study (PDF).
As the depth and breadth of TV news has decreased – especially at the local level – communities have fewer and fewer sources of meaningful election coverage. The result is that people now receive the majority of their information about candidates from campaign ads – not from the news. In their recent future of media report the FCC noted that in 2006, “viewers of local news in the Midwest got 2.5 times more information about local elections from paid advertisements than from newscasts.”…
…And as campaign ads have become huge windfalls for TV broadcasters, there is little market motivation to change this equation. More than two-thirds of all campaign spending in the last election went to TV stations. In 2008, TV commercials ate up at least $2.8 billion in campaign funds nationwide. In the wake of the Citizen’s United decision political advertising broke the $400 million mark in the 2010 election. It is a paradox of our media moment that technology has put a printing press in almost everyone’s hands, but increasingly freedom of speech and the press is only available to those who can pay.
[C]hanges in technology and society have made the lines between private citizen and journalist exceedingly difficult to draw. The proliferation of electronic devices with video-recording capability means that many of our images of current events come from bystanders [and] news stories are now just as likely to be broken by a blogger at her computer as a reporter at a major newspaper. Such developments make clear why the news-gathering protections of the First Amendment cannot turn on professional credentials or status.
Judge Kermit Lipez, US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, in a ruling in favor of Simon Glik, a Massachusetts man arrested for videotaping police officers with his cell phone as they detained another man. Glik was accused of illegal wiretapping, aiding the escape of a prisoner and disturbing the peace.
Matthew Ingram, GigaOm, Freedom of the press applies to everyone — yes, even bloggers.
Photographers: Know Your Rights
The ACLU’s published a photographer’s cheat sheet on their rights when shooting in the field (US only):
- When in public spaces where you are lawfully present you have the right to photograph anything that is in plain view.
- When you are on private property, the property owner may set rules about the taking of photographs.
- Police officers may not generally confiscate or demand to view your photographs or video without a warrant.
- Police may not delete your photographs or video under any circumstances.
- Police officers may legitimately order citizens to cease activities that are truly interfering with legitimate law enforcement operations.
- Note that the right to photograph does not give you a right to break any other laws.
Click through for explanations of each, advice on what to do if stopped or detained, exceptions for shooting around airports and special considerations for videography (eg., “With regards to videotaping, there is an important legal distinction between a visual photographic record (fully protected) and the audio portion of a videotape, which some states have tried to regulate under state wiretapping laws.”)
A criminal trial subpoena is not a free pass for the government to rifle through a reporter’s notebook
Leonie Brinkema, US Federal Judge. United States of America v. Jeffrey Alexander Sterling.
In a case involving an ex-CIA agent accused of revealing classified national security information, the US government tried to force New York Times reporter James Risen to reveal his sources for his 2006 book State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration (NPR review and excerpt).
Earlier this month Brinkema ruled Risen would not have to testify.
As explained by Charlie Savage in the New York Times:
The judge wrote that Mr. Risen was protected by a limited “reporter’s privilege” under the First Amendment, meaning that prosecutors had to prove that there was a compelling need for the reporter’s testimony and there that were no other means of obtaining the equivalent of that testimony. The government argued that such a privilege did not exist, but she recounted numerous other cases -– though none as high profile as the C.I.A. leak case -– in which other federal judges had invoked it.
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