Posts Tagged ‘first amendment’
Police Have More, Better Rights than You
Free Enterprise Zone, The Freeman, Wendy McElroy Last week redOrbit declared that Chicago is “on a path … to become the country’s most-watched city.” Over 10,000 government and private cameras are linked to an official surveillance system called Operation Virtual Shield. At least 1,250 of them are “powerful enough to zoom in and [...]
TX Free Speech Win for Student Wearing Rosary
Liberty Alerts, American Center for Law and Justice We represent Jonae Devlin, an eighth grade student at Hodges Bend Middle School in Houston, Texas. Since the beginning of the current school year, Jonae would periodically wear a rosary to school. She did so in order to express her Christian beliefs and in honor of her Catholic [...]
Compensating Bone Marrow Donors Could Save Lives But the Government Bans It
Liberty Alerts, Institute For Justice Arlington, Va.—Every year, nearly 3,000 Americans die because they cannot find a life-saving bone marrow donor match—a trend that disproportionately impacts minorities. But on Tuesday, Feb. 15, 2011, cancer patients from across the nation who can’t find a donor match will square off in court [...]
Under Pressure from FIRE, UMass Amherst Revises 2010′s Speech Code of the Year
Liberty Alerts, TheFIRE.org Under pressure from FIRE, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst has revised its policy governing rallies on campus—and not a moment too soon. FIRE supporters will remember that the policy had earned UMass Amherst intensely negative attention, both here on The Torch and in the national media. In January, [...]
Preserving Religious Freedom
Called Unto Liberty, Dallin H. Oaks, 21st Century Sermons I have made four major points: 1. Religious teachings and religious organizations are valuable and important to our free society and therefore deserving of their special legal protection. 2. Religious freedom undergirds the origin and existence of this country and is the dominating civil [...]
The Intolerance of the Atheists
By Phyllis Schlafly Fourteen crosses were placed alongside state highways in Utah. They were put there to honor state troopers who died in the line of duty. Each cross bears a name, photograph, badge number, Utah Highway Patrol symbol, and a plaque with biographical information on it. The crosses were designed by former police officers, [...]
Equal Access Win in Ohio
Liberty Alerts, American Center for Law and Justice While the law is perfectly clear that public schools must treat Christian after-school clubs in the same way they treat other after-school clubs, some schools still need to learn this lesson. We represent Children’s Outreach Ministries, an organization which runs Kid’s Club meetings in [...]
Palin: Stance on GOProud, CPAC Raises Pro-Family Questions
By Bryan Fischer Follow me on Twitter: @BryanJFischer Sarah Palin will not attend this year’s CPAC, but it will not be because CPAC now supports the radical homosexual agenda. In fact, quite the reverse. A number of pro-family groups, the American Family Association among them, are staying home this year because of CPAC’s inclusion of [...]
Appeal Ahead in Ohio Judge Case
Liberty Alerts, American Center for Law and Justice It's a case we've been involved with for years. And, after more than a year, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit issued a decision yesterday in the case of Judge James DeWeese. Judge DeWeese is the Ohio Court of Common Pleas judge whom we have been [...]
Speech Code of the Month: Claremont McKenna College
Liberty Alerts, TheFIRE.org FIRE announces its Speech Code of the Month for February 2011: Claremont McKenna College in California. Claremont McKenna's (CMC's) policy on "Acceptable E-Mail Usage" provides that "he College's system must not be used to create or transmit material that is derogatory, defamatory, obscene or offensive. Such material [...]
The Nanny Staters at Life’s Dangerous Intersections
By Selwyn Duke Increasingly, our government reminds me of a certain old Star Trek episode. It was titled “I, Mudd,” and in it the Enterprise explorers found themselves in the grip of seemingly perfect androids determined to serve man. The automatons informed the crew that humans were “self-destructive,” needed their “help” and [...]
Garbage In, Garbage Out
Liberty Alerts, Congress Shall Make No Law Over at ACSblog, Ohio State law professor Dan Tokaji argues that it’s time for campaign finance “reformers” to proclaim proudly that “equality,” rather than “corruption,” is the reason they favor restricting political speech: Acceptance of equality as a rationale won't make hard [...]
The Evils of Public Financing
Liberty Alerts, Institute for Justice Republicans in Congress have responded to the apparent desire among voters for smaller government with a proposal to eliminate the public financing system for presidential elections. Our friends over at the Center for Competitive Politics present some very compelling reasons for ending the program. As they [...]
FIRE’s Free Speech Billboard Ad about Michigan State Rejected
Liberty Alerts, TheFIRE.org An advertising company has refused to run a billboard ad from FIRE promoting free speech at Michigan State University (MSU). The ad, which would have appeared very close to MSU's campus this month, addresses MSU's draconian e-mail policy. Unlike virtually all colleges and universities, MSU claims in its policy [...]
William Orville Douglas; American Minute
American Minute with Bill Federer William Orville Douglas died JANUARY 19, 1980. He was a Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court for 36 years, after having taught law at Yale and Columbia University. In the 1952 case of Zorach v. Clauson, Justice Douglas wrote: "The First Amendment, however, does not say that in every and all respects there shall [...]
Recycling Is Now a Campaign Finance Violation
Liberty Alerts, Congress Shall Make No Law, Paul Sherman At a time when proponents of stricter campaign finance regulations continually howl about the increasing costs of political campaigns, you would think that a grassroots political group would be applauded for trying to keep costs down. But according to a Washington Post story released [...]
ObamaCare Reaches Court of Appeals with Filing of Brief Challenging Constitutionality
Liberty Alerts, Liberty Counsel Lynchburg, VA – Today Liberty Counsel filed its Initial Brief at the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals on behalf of Liberty University and two private parties, against the so-called “ObamaCare” legislation passed last year. District Court Judge Norman Moon found that Liberty University and two individual [...]
On Gun Control and Violence
Texas Straight Talk with Ron Paul The terrible violence in Arizona last weekend prompted much national discussion on many issues. All Americans are united in their sympathies for the victims and their families. All wonder what could motivate such a horrible act. However, some have attempted to use this tragedy to discredit [...]
Liberty Counsel Supports Iowa Legislative Prayer
Liberty Alerts, Liberty Counsel Des Moines, IA – Liberty Counsel has sent a letter of support to the Iowa General Legislative Assembly regarding its longstanding tradition of opening daily legislative sessions with invocations. The Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) has attempted to pressure the legislature to stop this venerated [...]
2010: The Year According to FIRE Staffers
Liberty Alerts, TheFIRE.org by Robert Shibley 2010 brought with it a vast array of developments for free speech on campus, some good, others bad. At the end of each year, FIRE staffers tackle the outstanding issues from that year in a series of blog entries. For those new to FIRE, or just too busy to read the huge amount of content [...]
Politicizing the Arizona Tragedy:
Liberty Alerts, Gun Owners of America First of all, our prayers go out to the families and victims of the horrific tragedy that took place in Tucson over the weekend. We pray that God will bring comfort to them in this time of trial. The political left is trying to pin this tragedy on gun owners and conservative talk radio. Never [...]
A Faulty Ruling Targets San Diego Cross
Liberty Alerts, American Center for Law and Justice It's disappointing, but comes as no real surprise. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has declared the long-standing war memorial cross on top of a San Diego mountain unconstitutional - a violation of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment. As [...]
If You Don’t Fight the Censors Will Win
Liberty Alerts, Congress Shall Make No Law Things keep happening to the right to speak in Wisconsin. It is hard for anyone to keep up with what you can, or cannot, say in the Cheesehead state.* First a quick recap. As we have discussed several times before at MakeNoLaw.org (here, here, and here), last summer the Wisconsin Governmental [...]
The First Amendment Blues
By Alan Caruba “Congress shall make no law, respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” - First Amendment, U.S. Constitution What part [...]
People Are Saying Bad Things About Me! Make Them Stop!
Liberty Alerts, Congress Shall Make No Law Recently reelected by an exceedingly narrow margin, Congressman Tim Bishop of New York’s First Congressional District, knows what is to blame for the electoral bullet he so narrowly dodged: the First Amendment. Writing in Newsday, Rep. Bishop calls for more campaign finance regulation because, [...]
The Most Cited Supreme Court Precedent
By Phyllis Schlafly One of the most often cited Supreme Court opinions is a 1986 decision on administrative law called Chevron v. NRDC. That obscure case has been cited 25,000 times, reflecting the massive growth in government regulations. A case called Citizens United v. FEC was handed down last January in another obscure field: election [...]
FIRE Supporters Making Voices Heard on Injustices at Syracuse
Liberty Alerts, TheFIRE.org As FIRE supporter David Ross has illustrated, Syracuse University College of Law's (SUCOL's) chilling investigation of law student Len Audaer over the publication of an anonymous, satirical website has prompted strong reactions from supporters concerned about the state of free speech at Syracuse. Since we issued [...]
Hands Off the First Amendment!
By Henry Lamb To listen, click here “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press…,” but the progressives on the Federal Communications Commission think their job is to do just that – regulate the speech of individuals, and of the press. Speaking to the Columbia School of Journalism, FCC Commissioner [...]
Pamphlet for Those Interested in Challenging College Speech Code
Liberty Alerts, TheFIRE.org FIRE is pleased to announce the publication of our new informational pamphlet for public university students interested in serving as plaintiffs in a First Amendment challenge to their universities' policies restricting free speech. Our new pamphlet, "Challenging Your College's Speech Code," answers students' [...]
