University Violates Student's Constitutional Rights of Free Speech

On October 14^th, 2014, a case against Free Speech arose at Southern Oregon University. The students on Southern Oregon’s campus were collecting signatures against the restrictive speech policies against restrictive speech on campus. The students were passing out copies of the constitution and informing the students about their rights. The students were approached my campus administrators and campus security asking them cease their protests and threatening them with disciplinary action and calls to the police. Campus officials also made allegations that the event was posing eminent danger to students because it was related to the SCC. His was clearly a peaceful protest that did not deserve these allegations.

The question raised here is do public Universities, like Southern Oregon University, have the right to restrict the First Amendment right of their students? This incident seems to be a blatant violation of these student First Amendment rights, and this case is unacceptable.

Read more about the incidents see video footage here: http://www.campusreform.org/?ID=5970

College Students Freedom of Speech violated-Amber Fleet

College students claim they were threatened after handing out Constitutions

The Freedom of Speech is a basic right that the citizens of this country have. The right to express our opinions, ideas, or thoughts with anyone that we so please. So why is it that there are continuous problems with the government or institution officials that want to limit us in doing that?

As society continues to develop and there are different mediums for how people can express those ideas, than we as citizens have a problem. In college, where students or young adults come to an institution to evolve, learn, and express themselves as people, officials of that institution want to limit them. The officials want the students to conduct themselves accordingly. This conduct gives the idea that they want them to walk in straight lines, wear respectable clothing, talk at a normal level, and think the way that the professors instruct them to.

However, this becomes apparent when student at Southern Oregon University came together to have a peaceful protest. These students that were a part of a student organization on campus were passing out Constitutions to students and getting them to sign a petition that could possibly allow people on campus to be licensed to carry handguns on campus. Despite the fact that they were doing this in a peaceful manor, officials made them move to their “Free Speech Zone”, an area that covers less than one percent of their campus.

These students feel that their rights to protest and Freedom of Speech were violated because officials threatened them with calling the police. This issue of being peaceful and still having school officials limit you in what you want to do shows there is a real problem. Students and Americans should feel safe that when they want to express their ideas peacefully they should do that without the fear of being harmed or persecuted.

From class, we have learned that Freedom of Speech is threatened and we should try to promote and gather together in order to achieve a solution. The solution should be a way for the people to speak our minds.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/10/16/college-students-claim-were-threatened-after-handing-out-constitutions/

http://www.thefire.org/?s=12+ways

Student Schools College

All Chris Morbitzer wanted to do was exercise his constitutional right - and the University of Cincinnati denied him of that. 

Morbitzer and his student group,  Young Americans for Liberty, asked permission from UC to gather signatures around campus for a statewide right-to-work ballot initiative. Morbitzer and his group did not even need to ask for permission in the first place, since UC is a public school. Morbitzer was surprised when he heard back that UC was denying their request. 

UC told Morbitzer the only place that they could ask for signatures on campus was the "free speech zone." If they were seen anywhere else, campus security would possibly arrest them. The "free speech zone" comprised just 0.1% of the school’s 137-acre campus. Obviously being so small, Morbitzer and his group were unable to interact with any of the students to get signatures. 

Morbitzer came back with a lawsuit against the University of Cincinnati and won. It's important to realize that your constitutional rights are yours no matter what any other person or official says. The things Morbitzer was asking for was not even controversial by any means. Just simply asking for signatures. By UC saying he could be arrested if he does not stay in the "free speech zone" obviously they are not respecting his right to free speech.  

View the story here.

Paige Patterson

Supreme Court to Decide When A Facebook Post Should Send You to Prison

CNN’s Bill Mears reported in June that the Supreme Court was going to have a run in with a speech crime involving the popular social media website, Facebook. A man named Anthony Elonis was convicted in federal court and sentenced to 44 months in prison for multiple criminal “threats” posted on his own Facebook page.

Elonis had posted multiple threatening posts about his wife and people involved in his case. The main problem is trying to figure out whether posts on a Facebook page can be considered as threats. One argument in Elonis’s favor is that his lawyers said, "Although the language was, as with popular rap songs addressing the same themes, sometimes violent, (the) petitioner posted explicit disclaimers in his profile explaining that his posts were 'fictitious lyrics,' they said.”

This reminded me of the Hustler case we viewed earlier in the school year. Hustler got off the hook because they labeled in their ad that it was a parody. I understand that Elonis did a similar thing, but if you are threatening FBI agents and judges investigating you, I absolutely think you have to be cautious of these and take them seriously.

I would definitely feel threatened if anyone posted this kind of stuff about myself. View the story here and see what you think.

Paige Patterson

Elonis vs. United States Raises First Amendment Questions

In December of 2014, the Supreme Court will hear a case titled Elonis v. United States. Elonis v. United States is an important First Amendment challenge that is facing a major First amendment issue of modern times; specifically, whether or not Internet threats are to be taken seriously. This case will once and for all decide whether violent threats over Facebook, or other social media outlets, are a First Amendment right. The defendant, who allegedly was exhibiting strange behavior at work and in public, posted rap lyrics he had written that threatened his wife and an FBI agent that was investigating him, and referenced other violent things, such as school shootings. Elonis was convicted by a Pennsylvania Federal Court to approximately three and a half years in prison, but appealed on an argument of First Amendment Rights.  

Elonis has made the argument that his themes in his rap lyrics are common in all rap music, and that rap music is a form of protest. Though his lyrics were in fact violent, it is true that themes in rap songs often take the violent tone that Elonis did. It is also a fact that music has traditionally been recognized as a form of protest, and, furthermore, violent and illegal rap lyrics are posted all over the internet. It seems that limiting Elonis’ rights does in fact violate a form of protest and freedom of expression.

Read more about the case at these links:

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2014/06/elonis_v_united_states_supreme_court_will_hear_the_facebook_speech_case.html

http://newsinpenn.com/facebook-posts-prompt-supreme-court-review/

by Caitlin Pond

Facebook posts, free speech to collide at Supreme Court-Amber Fleet

Facebook posts, free speech to collide at Supreme Court

By Bill Mears, CNN Supreme Court Producer

In this article, describes the current case of Anthony Elonis who was sentenced to forty four months in prison by a federal court over the Facebook postings that he posted on his personal account back in May of 2010. The postings were of him saying that he “I want to kill my wife”, and a picture of him with a knife over his coworker at a Halloween party with the caption “I wish”. Of course Mr. Elonis’ posts seemed to be threating however he states in the article that “Art is about pushing limits. I’m willing to go to jail for my constitutional rights. Are you?” Most people see that the government is stealing or trying to limit our right to Freedom of Speech. However, should not a person have the right to voice their opinions on all mediums, whether it is vocal, in writing, or visually?

http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/16/us/court-free-speech-internet/index.html?iref=allsearch

The question that all Americans are starting to ask when it comes to the U.S government and how it deals with people speaking out on issues they believe in. In "Freedom for the thought we Hate" written by Anthony Lewis, it states that  "The makers of the our Constitution...recognized the significance of man's spiritual nature, his feelings and his intellect. They knew that only a part of the pain, pleasure and satisfactions of life are to be found in material things. They sought to protect Americans in their beliefs, their thoughts, their emotions and their sensations." (69) This shows that Americans should have the Freedom to write or verbalize their feelings or opinions no matter what, they are protected.  However, the government is going over and above when dealing with this new age of technology. They do not know how to regulate crimes when dealing with the internet. For example, "Cyber-Bullying", this is a term that has just been recently defined and made into an issue. Cyber-bullying is a person or group of people harass another individual or group over the internet by social media or email or other technology. The government does not yet have the laws to keep up with this fast paced technology, so there is not a specific way to actually prosecute someone. 

Based on this article I think that Mr. Ellonis had the right to say his feelings even though they made the people who interacted with him on the internet feel uncomfortable, however this is when the harm principle could come in to affect. The principle that was learned in the reading of Freedom of Speech, the book that helped educate us on the fact that we can over look things that we do not particularly care for.

 

Amber Fleet 

Giant Inflatable Rats, Labor Disputes, and the First Amendment

Mascots have proven to have a large impact in our society today. Typically, we associate mascots with our favorite athletic teams, respectively.  Seldom do we imagine the use of mascots outside of this context, but for nearly 25 years a giant inflatable Rat has been the mascot for both workers and their rights. Recently, a New York court ruled that the use of "Scabby the Rat" by Labor Unions striking was, indeed, protected by the first amendment. The vindication of Scabby is a huge win for the morale of Labor Unions across the country, which in the past 30 to 40 years has not enjoyed the same bargaining power that they once did. Interestingly, the article provides a Supreme Court ruling in which the difference between free speech in the abstract and picketing (or striking more generally) are separated. It reads, “’Picketing by an organized group is more than free speech, since it involves patrol of a particular locality and since the very presence of a picket line may induce action of one kind or another, quite irrespective of the nature of the ideas which are being disseminated,’ said Justice William Douglas in a concurring opinion in the Bakery Drivers Local case.” It is important to recognize the act of labor as a type of speech, which must remain inside and not outside of the public discourse today.

If you would like, look to Lochner v. New York (1905) to begin to understand how Labor is defined by the court and the liberties associated with this topic.

http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/2014/11/even-giant-rats-have-constitutional-first-amendment-rights/

Guardian report: FBI seeks new computer survelliance powers

The government threat to free expression: A British newspaper, The Guardian, reported last week that the FBI is seeking new powers "to hack into and carry out surveillance of computers in the U.S. and throughout the world." According to civil liberties groups cited by the paper, this power represents "a power grab by the agency that would ride roughshod over strict limits to searches and seizures laid out under the fourth amendment of the U.S. constitution, as well as violating first amendment privacy rights."

The FBI request is part of a proposed change in its rules of engagement that critics say is an unconstitutional power grab. The newspaper quoted Ahmed Ghappour, an expert in computer law at UC Hastings college of law, who said, "This is a giant step forward for the FBI's operational capabilities…." To be seeking these powers at a time of heightened international concern about U.S. surveillance is an especially brazen and potentially dangerous move."

Under the proposed rule change, a judge can issue a warrant that will allow the FBI to hack into any computer no matter where it is located. Critics say this capability will give a green light for the FBI to hack into any computer in the country or around the world.

A link to the Guardian story is here.

Principles and discussion: This is an extremely troubling report because it expands the federal government's power to spy on U.S. citizens. Indeed, the critics cited by the Guardian find this extremely alarming. This kind of government surveillance, even if it's motivated by legitimate anti-terrorism concerns, appears excessive. As Geoffrey Stone notes in War and Liberty, the Fourth Amendment is supposed to guarantee "the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches…" (xvi). On the face of it, the new FBI powers appear very broad and easily abused, which is cause for concern. Moreover, as Lewis notes in Freedom for the Thought That We Hate, President George W. Bush "secretly ordered wiretapping of Americans' international telephone calls without obtaining the warrants required by law" (151). In short, the federal government in recent years has increased (and abused) its powers to spy on Americans and, at the same time, repeatedly failed to protect the civil liberties of citizens guaranteed by the First and Fourth Amendments.

--Submitted by John Coward