Except for the unwritten one to abortion. That one can not only not be restricted in any way, but it must be subsidized.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see some major new efforts to censor free speech after January 20th rolls around. Allow me to introduce the so-called Fairness Doctrine, which would be more appropriately named the Censorship Doctrine….

Where in this statement does it say that the government has the authority to impose “reasonable restrictions” on speech?

Where our early documents does it say that the government has the authority to impose “reasonable restrictions” on

firearms?
privacy?
… (pick from a list)

The government “receives” it’s authority when the citzens permit it.

Obama Attorney General Nominee Eric Holder Helped Enable 2000 Elian Gonzalez Seizure

Holder was Reno’s second in command at the Justice Dept.

Andrew Napolitano of Fox News stated:

The order issued by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals four days ago …. said once the INS chooses the guardian, and the INS chose Lazaro Gonzalez (Elian’s paternal great uncle — Ed.) to be the guardian, and an application for asylum has been made by the guardian, the INS can not change the guardian and that’s exactly what they did here.”

Asman: “So is this executive overreach?”

Napolitano: “This is more than executive overreach. This is contempt of the circuit court of appeals order. This is a high class kidnapping is what it is, sanctioned by no law, sanctioned by no judge…”

This is from an interview Napolitano did later that day with Holder:

Napolitano: When is the last time a boy, a child, was taken at the point of a gun without an order of a judge. Unprecedented in American history.”

Holder: “He was not taken at the point of a gun.”

Napolitano: “We have a photograph showing he was taken at the point of a gun.”

Holder: “They were armed agents who went in there who acted very sensitively…”

and

Napolitano: Tell me, Mr. Holder, why did you not get a court order authorizing you to go in and get the boy?

Holder: Because we didn’t need a court order. INS can do this on its own.

Napolitano: You know that a court order would have given you the cloak of respectability to have seized the boy.

Holder: We didn’t need an order.

Napolitano: Then why did you ask the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals for such an order if you didn’t need one?

Holder: [Silence]

Napolitano: The fact is, for the first time in history you have taken a child from his residence at gunpoint to enforce your custody position, even though you did not have an order authorizing it.

Jaibones on November 21, 2008 at 6:41 PM

good question ( and the answer is…..no one–no one who can’t be outvoted or ignored / ridiculed )

This guy is going to get destroyed in the nomination process.

WisCon on November 21, 2008 at 11:35 AM

Dude…wtf? By whom?

You can’t yell “fire” in a crowded theater . . .

Well, you can if there is a fire. And you would probably avoid any form of punishment, even if you should happen to cause a bit of a panic amongst those who head for the exits — that is, unless you were somehow “in on” setting the fire in the first place! What was famously said by Justice Holmes in Schrenk v. United States was: “The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic.”

and, as for

you can’t slander someone’s reputation without being liable for damages.

Sure. Tell that to Sarah Palin and Joe the Plumber! As for the former, they’ve only just started on her. And as for the latter, even if he goes after them (such as for the the use of motor vehicle records in violation of the Driver Privacy Protection Act) you’ve already seen the state workers claiming they were doing the look-ups to protect him!

But those are not really prior restraints on speech. Yes, they are intended to deter behavior, but not in the sense that regulation would be.

The federal government already does control some aspects of the internet, and punishes, or has the ability to punish certain forms of communication, e.g., child pornography, certain overt threats, facilitating terror-related activities, etc.

But this talk about regulation of the internet — or of talk radio — is an entirely different thing. Establishing governmental “fairness” standards for the purpose of controlling or manipulating content, is simply a preposterous notion. And words and phrases like “reasonable” and “rational basis” and “fairness” and “balanced” are all violative of any fundamental notion of free expression. Even if they pass, the Court will ultimately have something to say about it.

Once the discussion turns to any form of prior restraint that is, attempting to use the courts to stop the publication of anything before it is published . . . that is when the real fight is going to break out! I wouldn’t put my money on the regulators.

Scary folks….scary.

Pitchfork time?

American Revolution II …. let’s roll.

One down two to go.

I’m not sure any of the traditional case law on free speech (like Brandenburg) is even relevant to the Internet, except insofar as it provides a foundation to build on. Isn’t prevailing law at the moment defined by Reno v. ACLU in which the court struck down the Communications Decency Act? The Clinton administration tried six ways to Sunday to pass all manner of “reasonable restrictions” but they weren’t been particularly successful, so I’m not sure Barry will be any more so (not that it will stop him from trying of course). I think presently, free speech as it relates to the Internet is far less restricted than it is elsewhere for the simple reason that you cannot enforce such things as “community standards” or “reasonableness” when no actual community exists. Which begs yet another question, that being whether the United States government even has the jurisdiction to impose any kind of restrictions, taxes, etc. on Internet content and usage. I don’t see how they possibly could, given that “the Internet” does not really exist as an entity. What are they going to do? Only police content produced by U.S. citizens? What if said citizens register their child porn site in another country where the practice isn’t illegal? This is not something that can possibly be addressed via existing case law. The shouting fire in a crowded theater test doesn’t really apply here. All I know is, any attempts at controlling are doomed to failure. The Internet by its nature is not given to being boxed in by boundaries and parameters. If the wildly powerful entertainment industry with its army of attorneys and groves of money trees can’t stop the spread of illegal file sharing, then this band of pointy-headed utopians won’t be able to either.

If they want to impose some more rules and regulations and laws on us, they ought to try passing some legislation that requires people to exercise some personal responsibility. Then the liberals wouldn’t have to wring their hands over such things as Columbine and the fact that any idiot who can type (or read a book for that matter) can figure out how to construct a bomb in about half an hour.