Free Republic

The Supreme Court on Friday blocked a Montana court ruling upholding limits on corporate campaign spending. The state court ruling appears to be at odds with the high court's 2010 decision striking down a federal ban on those campaign expenditures. The justices put the Montana ruling on hold while they consider an appeal from corporations seeking to be free of spending limits. The state argues, and the Montana Supreme Court agreed, that political corruption gave rise to the century-old ban on corporate campaign spending. In the 2010 Citizens United case, a sharply divided Supreme Court ruled that independent spending by...

A court ruling last December would seem to indicate that no, bloggers are not privy to the same legal protections afforded so-called real journalists. Via the Washington Examiner: This past December, federal judge Marco Hernandez of Oregon issued a ruling in the libel trial of Obsidian Finance Group v. Cox that has dangerous First Amendment implications. Hernandez ruled that blogger Crystal Cox was not entitled to the same protection under media shield laws that other members of the press enjoy. This ruling made it easy for a jury to find her guilty of libel. That result threatens the First Amendment...

Over the weekend, a drama with potentially horrific consequences for freedom-loving Americans played out half-a-world away. A Saudi newspaper columnist named Hamza Kashgari was detained in Malaysia, reportedly on the basis of an alert by the International Criminal Police Organization, better known as Interpol. Reuters quotes a Malaysian police spokesman as saying that, “This arrest was part of an Interpol operation which the Malaysian police were a part of.” It was apparently mounted in response to a “red notice” (or request for help apprehending an individual) issued by Saudi Arabia. Kashgari was then sent back to Saudi Arabia where he...

One of the important early contributions of James Madison to American life was his impact on the framing of the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Virginia in 1776. One section stated that "all men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion according to the dictates of conscience." Another declared that "any citizen may freely speak, write, and publish his sentiments on all subjects, being responsible for the abuse of that right." The Bill of Rights of the U.S. Constitution went even further with the provision that Congress should make no law "prohibiting the free exercise" of religion or...

Following the pattern of other provocative statements about potential domestic terrorist threats from the Obama Justice Department, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has issued a statement exposing the threat of “hundreds of thousands” of “sovereign citizens” who can turn violent “at the drop of a hat” during encounters with the police. Citing three specific cases in three years and a trend of an increase in arrests of believers in individual sovereignty from 10 to 18 cases per year, mostly for non-violent crimes, the FBI declared law enforcement to be “inundated” with threats. This may be the most exaggerated and offensive...

Although more attention goes to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation's (OIC) prominent attempts to police speech in Western nations regarding Islam-related topics through the UN and the "Istanbul Process", Muslim and Islamist desires to restrict critical speech concerning Islam-related topics and promote a positive image of their religion have also played a role in yet another international organization's efforts to address the debate about Islam and Muslims. On October 28, 2011, a conference, titled: "Confronting Intolerance and Discrimination against Muslims in Public Discourse," was held at the Vienna headquarters of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). The...

A Muslim activist group with links to the Muslim Brotherhood has asked the British government to restrict the way the British media reports about Muslims and Islam. The effort to silence criticism of Islam comes amid an ongoing public inquiry into British press standards following a phone-hacking scandal involving the News of the World and other British newspapers. The Leveson Inquiry, established by British Prime Minister David Cameron in July 2011, is currently considering how to increase government oversight of the British media. But in a move that many worry will result in government regulation of the Internet, Lord Justice...

Eight years and three months ago, I wrote a column inspired by the furor over statements by General William Boykin attesting to the religious dimension of the so-called war on terror. The thought that there might be a religious dimension to Islamic terrorism is, absurdly and disastrously, the Big No-No-No of our age (as noted once or twice in my body of work). That a devout Christian might appreciate the religious dimension of Islamic terrorism and express it in Christian terms is similarly verboten. And if he dare express it in the uniform of the country that expunges this key...

According to the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), there is a grave threat to America that must be suppressed at all costs. The threat is that Lieutenant General William "Jerry” Boykin might be allowed to exercise his constitutionally guaranteed right to free speech. This proposition is bizarre on multiple levels. For one, General Boykin, who is a friend and greatly admired colleague of mine, is one of the United States’ most accomplished and decorated military heroes. He served in and led our most elite special forces units for decades, including in many of our most dangerous recent combat operations....

A judge in Detroit has ruled that the decision by police in neighboring Dearborn to arrest a Christian pastor who wanted to hand out Christian tracts at the city’s Arab fest in 2009 will cost the city some $100,000... Magistrate Judge R. Steven Whalen said his recommendation for fees and costs totaling $103,401.96 be awarded in the case that was handled by attorney Robert J. Muise. Whalen said Saieg and his Arabic Christian Perspective organization sued Dearborn and its police chief, Ron Hadda, because after distributing Christian information at the event for several years, he was told police would arrest...

FrontPage Interview’s guest today is Brooke Goldstein, a New York City-based human rights attorney, author and award-winning filmmaker. She serves as director of The Lawfare Project, a nonprofit organization dedicated to raising awareness about and facilitating a response to the abuse of Western legal systems and human rights law. Her award-winning documentary film, The Making of a Martyr, uncovers the illegal, state-sponsored indoctrination and recruitment of Palestinian children for suicide-homicide attacks. To view the trailer, click here. Goldstein is the co-author, with Aaron Eitan Meyer, of the recently published Lawfare: The War Against Free Speech: A First Amendment Guide for...

Following the lobbying efforts of the Organization of Islamic Co-operation (OIC), resolution 16/18 was agreed by the United Nations. The resolution reads as follows: “Combating intolerance, negative stereotyping and stigmatization of, and discrimination, incitement to violence and violence against, persons based on religion or belief” Is the OIC’s motivation with regard to defamation of religion motivated by a sincere belief in protecting religious freedom or is it a means to protect religious dogma? The plight of minority religious opinion in many OIC member states may perhaps suggest an answer to this question. We have therefore looked at two websites that...

(CNSNews.com) - Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich says it was "wrong" for debate moderator Brian Williams to silence the "free speech" of the debate audience in Tampa. At the start of Monday night's debate, Williams said, "We've asked our invited guests here this evening to withhold their applause, any verbal reactions to what they hear on stage, so as to ensure this is about the four candidates here tonight and what they have to say." Never again, Gingrich told Fox & Friends the morning after: "I wish in retrospect I'd protested when Brian Williams took them (the live audience) out...

No, I am not talking about the impending economic doom that some are predicting will impact both continents. I am talking about the complicit support given to Muslim countries in the UN who have been on a rampage to make it an international crime to criticize Islam in any way, shape or form. In December 2011, the United States hosted what is known as the “Istanbul Process Conference” in Washington, DC. This Conference is explicitly committed to a global ban on any verbal or written criticism of any aspect of Islamic Sharia—even if it is an honest assessment. After all,...

For the better part of a decade, companies like Google and IAC/InterActiveCorp have been pushing for the federal government to regulate the Internet in the name of net neutrality, and I’ve been fighting them every step of the way. We beat them in Congress. We beat them in the courts. We beat them in public opinion. But we lost to them on a 3-2 party line vote at the Federal Communications Commission, led by long-time IAC/InterActiveCorp general counsel turned FCC chairman Julius Genachowski. The FCC’s unlawful order gives that commission the self-appointed power to regulate how the broadband networks that...

German authorities have officially confirmed that they are monitoring German-language Internet websites that are critical of Muslim immigration and the Islamization of Europe. According to Manfred Murck, director of the Hamburg branch of the German domestic intelligence agency, the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz (BfV), his organization is studying whether German citizens who criticize Muslims and Islam on the Internet are fomenting hate and are thus criminally guilty of "breaching" the German constitution. The BfV's move marks a significant setback for the exercise of free speech in Germany and comes amid a months-long smear campaign led by a triple alliance of leftwing...

It’s funny in an Orwellian way that in Europe there are now militant groups with such cutesy names as Sharia4Belgium and Sharia4Holland. Less funny, but perhaps more Orwellian: Last month, the European Foundation for Democracy held an event in Amsterdam featuring two speakers who favor liberalizing Islam. More than 20 members of the pro-Sharia groups pushed their way in shouting “Allahu Akhbar!” They demanded the event be stopped, called the speakers apostates, spat on them, threw eggs at them and threatened to kill them. Now here’s the least funny and most Orwellian part: Few Europeans — few journalists, politicians, members...

A mixed martial arts fighter from Minnesota has been knocked out from his job as an assistant wrestling coach following comments he made about President Obama last month, he told FoxNews.com. Jacob Volkmann, 31, of White Bear Lake, Minn., said he was placed on paid administrative leave on Friday by the White Bear Lake School District after he invited Obama to make an appointment with him for a "glass-ectomy" on Dec. 30. "A glass-ectomy is when you cut your belly button out and put a piece of glass in there so when you have your head up your butt you...

We were all taught in civics and government classes that we could only achieve enlightenment through the free, open and dispassionate exchange of ideas and opinions. By this practice, truth will eventually win out over falsehood, we learned. Extending this maxim to freedom of the press, American essayist E.B. White said it best: "The press in our free country is reliable and useful not because of its good character but because of its great diversity. As long as there are many owners, each pursuing his own brand of truth, we the people have the opportunity to arrive at the truth...

an Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - In U.S. educational circles, the prevention of "bullying" has become somewhat of a cause célèbre recently, despite its historical omnipresence in scholastic institutions. The trajectory of this trend, which is not what it appears on its face, is fraught with the potential of having a substantial corrosive effect on the First Amendment. First, what is bullying? Of course all of us understand what has been the standard definition of a bully, one who by their aggressive action, seeks to impose their will upon others. The Miriam Webster dictionary notes that bullying consists of "blustering"...

The European Union has offered to host the next meeting of the so-called Istanbul Process, an aggressive effort by Muslim countries to make it an international crime to criticize Islam. The announcement comes less than one month after the United States hosted its own Istanbul Process conference in Washington, DC. The Istanbul Process – its explicit aim is to enshrine in international law a global ban on all critical scrutiny of Islam and/or Islamic Sharia law – is being spearheaded by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), a bloc of 57 Muslim countries. Based in Saudi Arabia, the OIC has...

..Computer Program As “Hate Speech” I have just been informed that my PJ article, “Egypt: As Grim Islamists March Toward Power, The Naïve Dance in Tahrir Square” has been barred on sites used by officials of a European government–hint, they speak English there and it is the birthplace of modern democracy and free speech–on the grounds that this article is “hate speech.” What this means is that if you work for any institution that is part of this government–including the Foreign or Defense ministries–you cannot read this PJ Media column on your computer that’s part of such a server. My...

JEDDAH, 8 Safar/Jan 3 (IINA)-Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, Secretary-General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) said that the European Union offered to host the third meeting of the ‘Istanbul Process’, which deliberates, in a series of meetings, on developing mechanisms to implement UNHRC Resolution 16/18 on combating intolerance, discrimination and incitement to violence based on religion ore belief. The Secretary General of Islamic Cooperation in his office in Jeddah on Tuesday 30 January 2012 pointed out that the EU’s offer to host the meeting represents a qualitative shift in action against the phenomenon of Islamophobia, which spread in many European countries,...

The ADL is now caught flatfooted by its own paralysis. Republicans are all over national TV, arguing passionately over which (and whose) approaches - given the sorry state of American society - might best set things right. They know Democrats will use the best barbs they throw at each other against the eventual GOP nominee; even so, the most thoughtful among them value sharp debate about our serious problems - to test and clarify ideas. So if Republicans can do this, why not the Jews? World Jewry is under significant strain. Iran presents an existential threat to Israel; the age-old...

Back in June of 2010 a leader of a pro-Palestinian student group at University of Berkeley allegedly rammed a Jewish woman with a shopping cart as she staged a counter-protest to an anti-Israel “Apartheid Week” rally conducted by the Muslim Student Association and Students for Justice in Palestine. The counter-protest was dubbed “Israel Wants Peace Week.” Now, U.S. District Court Judge Richard Seeborg has deemed that the Muslim students who harassed Jessica Felber and other Jewish students were simply engaging in protected political speech.

Helena, Mont. (AP) -- The Montana Supreme Court is setting up a possible challenge to aspects of the high profile U.S. Supreme Court decision that granted political speech rights to corporations. The state court decided Friday to restore Montana's century-old ban on direct spending by corporations . . .

So there are many jokes and speculations about it, but with the passing of the Cypertrrrorism acts, s. 978, NDAA and other such laws, is there anyone here who truly expects that American gulags will be set up for them, or internment/reeducation camps for posting here or even for just being a member here ? If so, that could mean that anyone, on the right or left, that ever said anything bad about our current govermnent, could get sent to a camp. That could lead to as much as the third or half of the population being sent to internment...

Would you be outraged if the Department of Justice shut down The Foundry [1] without any warning and blocked access for more than a year? That’s exactly what happened to a hip-hop blog called Dajaz1.com [2], which was falsely accused of criminal copyright infringement [3]. The blog posted music from artists promoting their work. But federal authorities viewed it differently. They seized the domain name, then shared virtually no information with its owner for more than year. Only recently did they quietly drop the case [4]. The government’s handling of this hip-hop blog is fueling fears about legislation moving quickly...

Almost missed this one, but Eric Goldman alerts us to the dozen comments filed with the US Copyright Office concerning its plan to force everyone to keep re-registering their official DMCA agent in order to keep retaining the DMCA's safe harbors. As we've discussed in the past, in order to make use of the DMCA's safe harbors, you have to register an official DMCA agent with the Copyright Office. In fact, we've suggested that anyone running a blog or forum site do exactly that. Many of the companies that were successfully sued by Righthaven (before it was discovered Righthaven didn't...

Quartzsite resident and activist Michael Roth, who was convicted in 2010 of two counts of disorderly conduct, has had his convictions overturned in appeals. The convictions stemmed from an incident at Quartzsite Town Hall while the Council was in executive session in another room. Roth addressed the crowd with his complaints about the Council and Police Chief Jeff Gilbert. An officer who was present testified that Roth became offensive in his remarks, and Gilbert arrested him. The appellate court found that there was insufficient evidence of disorderly conduct, finding that “the state failed to present any evidence that Roth’s conduct...

Frontpage Interview’s guest today is Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff, a free speech activist who was charged last year in Austria with “denigration of religious beliefs of a legally recognized religion” for asserting that “Mohammed had a thing for little girls.” In February of this year she was convicted, and will have to pay a fine of up to €480. Just recently, on December 20, 2011, her conviction was upheld by the higher court. If she refuses to pay the fine, she may spend a maximum of two months in jail. She grew up and lived in Muslim countries and experienced Islam first-hand....

The Obama administration is drawing fire for yielding what critics see as a huge propaganda victory to Islamist regimes seeking to curb American speech deemed "offensive" to Muslims. The State Department hosted a three-day, closed-door meeting last week with representatives of the Saudi Arabia-based Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) on measures to fight religious "intolerance, negative stereotyping and stigmatization." In her closing remarks, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton portrayed the conference as a sign that Washington and the OIC are working together to protect religious freedom around the world. "We have to get past the idea that we can suppress...

The Obama administration continues to deny that we are at war with Islamist jihadists. Indeed, the word “jihad” itself is forbidden in Obama-land if used to describe the Islamist warriors. At its highest levels, the Obama administration insists on using bland euphemisms rather than accurate language describing the Islamist ideology we are fighting. As far as the Obama administration is concerned, the global war against Islamist killers is an “Overseas Contingency Operation.” The Fort Hood massacre, in which thirteen people were killed and dozens more wounded by an Islamist jihadist, is described by Obama officials as “workplace violence.” In one...

So, a priest walks into a city council meeting — stop me if you’ve heard this one — and is nearly hauled away by the police for speaking calmly to his elected officials.  Hilarious, right?Father Nathan Monk wasn’t laughing at last night’s City Council meeting. During the Boyd Forum, an open comment period named in honor of the late civic activist LeRoy Boyd, Father Monk chided the council members — and Council President Sam Hall in particular — for their actions at Monday’s Committee of the Whole meeting. At that meeting, several citizens had spoken in opposition to the...

One of the most popular attractions in Washington, D.C. is a building that graces Pennsylvania Avenue with an exterior engraved with the First Amendment to the Constitution and its guarantee of, among other liberties, freedom of speech. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would have been well advised to hold her three-day meeting last week with the some of the most determined enemies of free expression – increasingly doing business as the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) – at the Newseum, rather a few blocks away in Foggy Bottom. After all, at that shrine to our most fundamental civil rights, the...

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Wednesday ended the “Istanbul Process,” a three-day, closed-door international conference hosted by the State Department on measures to combat religious “intolerance, negative stereotyping and stigmatization.” The conference was intended to “implement” last March’s UN Human Rights Council Resolution 16/18, on the same subject. Notwithstanding Clinton’s final speech defending freedoms of religion and speech, the gathering was folly. Resolution 16/18 was adopted in the place of one that endorsed the dangerous idea that “defamation of religion” should be punished criminally worldwide. That call for a universal blasphemy law had been pushed relentlessly for 12 years...

From December 12 to 14, the State Department is hosting the Organization of the Islamic Conference, a body of 57 Muslim countries that presents itself as a representative of all Muslims. Its top objective is eliminating “Islamophobia” by promoting legislation to punish those who criticize the religion or uses language is deems offensive. This week, the OIC is in Washington D.C., enjoying the company of the State Department. Sources within the OIC told the International Islamic News Agency that the event’s objective is to work on “developing a legal basis for the U.N. Human Rights Council’s resolution which [will] help...

We have been hearing a lot about the Muslim Brotherhood lately - and none of it is good news. Get used to it. With the Brotherhood's ascendancy in the Middle East, North Africa, Turkey and beyond, the world is going to be subjected to a crash course in Islamist supremacism - and what it means for the rest of us. We were on notice even before the Egyptian elections in which the Muslim Brotherhood (MB) and their allies secured upwards of sixty percent of the votes in that country's new, post-Mubarak parliament - and the murderous violence towards Coptic Christians...

Harvard University has dropped courses on economics taught by a Hindu professor, Subramanian Swamy, president of the Janata Party of India and a former Union Cabinet minister—not because they were poorly taught, or because Swamy advocated discredited economic theories (such as, say, socialism), but because he wrote an editorial last summer that Muslims find offensive. ... Neither Eck nor Kelly nor anyone else, however, bothered to mention that Swamy’s piece was called “How to wipe out Islamic terror,” and that it was written in the context of the Islamic jihad against India. I ran it on my website AtlasShrugs.com here...

UK police seize computers of skeptic blogger in England Posted on December 14, 2011 by Anthony Watts The first blogger to break the Climategate2 story has had a visit from the police and has had his computers seized. Tallbloke’s Talkshop first reported on CG2 due to the timing of the release being overnight in the USA. Today he was raided by six UK police (Norfolk Constabulary and Metropolitan police) and several of his computers were seized as evidence. He writes: After surveying my ancient stack of Sun Sparcstations and PII 400 pc’s, they ended up settling for two laptops and...

November 7, 2011 | By Trevor Timm The Stop Online Piracy Act: A Blacklist by Any Other Name Is Still a Blacklist During the past week, momentum against the House’s draconian copyright bill has gained steam, as venture capitalists, Internet giants and major artists have denounced it for handing corporations unprecedented power to censor countless websites and stifle free speech. In response, the bill’s big-pocketed supporters have gone on the offensive, attempting to mislead the public about the bill’s true reach. In a particularly egregious example, the Chamber of Commerce posted an attack on its website insisting that the Stop...

As Secretary of State Hillary Clinton welcomes Secretary General of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu to Washington this week, it is critical that Americans pay attention to what these two leaders intend to do. From 12 to 14 December 2011, working teams from the Department of State (DoS) and the OIC are going to discuss implementation mechanisms that could impose limits on freedom of speech and expression. The OIC's purpose, as stated explicitly in its April 2011 4th Annual Report on Islamophobia, is to criminalize "incitement to hatred and violence on religious grounds." Incitement is to be...

This seems noteworthy: A former University of Northern Colorado student has settled his lawsuit against a county prosecutor who signed off on a criminal libel investigation into the student over writings the student posted on a satirical website. The former student, Tom Mink, will receive $425,000 as part of the settlement, according to a news release put out today by the American Civil Liberties Union, which represented Mink in the lawsuit. Mink sued in early 2004 after Greeley police raided his home and took his computer while investigating things Mink wrote on “The Howling Pig” website. Mink posted satirical criticisms...

Yesterday marked the opening of the international conference announced by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at a high-level meeting on Islamophobia that she co-chaired, held last July in Istanbul and hosted by the Saudi-based Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). At the time, Secretary Clinton described this week’s conference as a move to implement U.N. Human Rights Council Resolution 16/18 on “combating [religious] intolerance, negative stereotyping and stigmatization.” This State Department conference, entitled “The Istanbul Process,” is proving to be a very bad idea. It remains to be seen whether speech limitations to protect religion generally and Islam specifically will be...

The State Department on Monday launched three days of closed-door talks with representatives of international organizations and several dozen countries with the stated aim of promoting religious freedom and tolerance while ensuring that freedom of expression is not harmed in the process. U.S. Ambassador at Large for international religious freedom Suzan Johnson Cook, said on Monday, "We must denounce offensive speech whenever we encounter it – but our commitment to universal principles makes clear that faith must never be a crime and religion must never be used as an excuse to stifle freedom of expression.” The Obama administration’s initiative, building...

Starting on December 12th in Washington, DC, a meeting is being held that jeopardizes freedom of speech as we currently understand it in the United States. The Obama Administration has invited the 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation ("OIC," formerly, The Organization of the Islamic Conference) to a meeting of "experts" to discuss the implementation of a UN resolution ostensibly targeting "religious intolerance." Now, even if by combating "religious intolerance" the resolution were just targeting actual violations of freedom of religion (READ: violating rights, not hurting feelings), it still should raise a few eyebrows that the OIC is behind the resolution...

The Obama administration says a meeting in Washington next week seeks to make progress in combating religious intolerance, but critics say the U.S. is pandering to an ideological agenda aimed at restricting speech critical of Islam. According to the State Department the aim is to find ways to combat religious hate without compromising freedom of expression. Detractors are skeptical that this can be done, and they suspect that free speech will end up the loser. Among those criticizing the event are GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, the Traditional Values Coalition, and scholars at the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom....

When President Obama delivered his much-anticipated speech to the Muslim world at Cairo University in June 2009, the free world trembled while the OIC (Organization of Islamic Cooperation) gushed with praise and begged for a meeting with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. The OIC is the largest head of state organization in the world after the United Nations (UN) itself and comprises 56 Muslim countries plus the Palestinians. It claims to be the “collective voice of the Muslim world,” i.e., the ummah, and speaks on its behalf in effect as the seat of the next Islamic Caliphate. In 1990, the...

A New Jersey high school admits that it “inadvertently” censored Christmas songs that include the words God, Jesus, Santa, Christmas and Chanukah – in place of music that would not be “belief-specific.” Colin Curran, a student at West Windsor – Plainsboro High School South, wrote about the incident in a Huffington Post blog titled, “Christmas, I mean Holiday, Music.” Curran wrote that he was in charge of creating a playlist for a holiday breakfast hosted by the student council for young children. He said the student council adviser told him to avoid any holiday music that included the words God...

The U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals has heard arguments in a religious liberty case that could determine whether a college has the right to require students to profess certain beliefs about homosexuality in order to get a degree. Augusta State University, in east Georgia, put counseling student Jennifer Keeton on academic probation in 2010 after she acknowledged in private conversations and during class that she disagreed with homosexuality. School administrators claimed Keeton said it would be hard for her to counsel gay clients, a stance they said violated ethical standards for licensed counselors, as put forth by the American...