Posts Tagged ‘First Amendment’

Internet blackout has bill supporters backing out

Wednesday, January 18th, 2012

In the House, Rep. Ben Quayle, R-Ariz., who originally co-sponsored SOPA, withdrew his name from the list of sponsors on Tuesday, reported Politico.

The Internet community’s rally cry against anti-piracy legislation is triggering its intended effect, though the final outcome remains far from settled.

American lawmakers were flooded with calls Wednesday in response to an online blackout by technology companies, including Wikipedia, Moveon.org, Reddit and thousands of other sites protesting two related bills that would crack down on websites that use copyrighted materials and sell counterfeit goods. Some key lawmakers who’ve supported or co-sponsored the legislation are also backing off.

Many of the sites that went dark Wednesday explained the legislation and entreated users to call their representatives by listing their phone numbers and email addresses.

“It’s busy,” says Patrick Chiarelli, a staffer for Representative Jay Inslee, D-Wash. Staffers at other lawmakers’ offices also say their call volumes spiked.

The legislation — the Stop Online Piracy Act (a House bill commonly called SOPA) and the Protect IP Act in the Senate (called PIPA) ? allows U.S. attorneys general and copyright holders to crack down on websites that display or link to copyrighted intellectual property or counterfeit goods.

Read more at TheSpec

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Obama Administration Reportedly Plans to Create Internet ID for All Americans

Monday, January 9th, 2012

“No experiment can be more interesting than that we are trying, and which we trust will end in establishing the fact, that man may be governed by reason and truth. Our first objective should therefore be, to leave open to him all the avenues of truth. The most effectual hitherto found, is the freedom of the press. It is, therefore, the first shut up by those who fear the investigation of their actions.”–Thomas Jefferson

STANFORD, Calif.–President Obama is planning to hand the U.S. Commerce Department authority over a forthcoming cybersecurity effort to create an Internet ID for Americans, a White House official said here today

It’s “the absolute perfect spot in the U.S. government” to centralize efforts toward creating an “identity ecosystem” for the Internet, White House Cybersecurity Coordinator Howard Schmidt said.

That news, first reported by CNET, effectively pushes the department to the forefront of the issue, beating out other potential candidates, including the National Security Agency and the Department of Homeland Security. The move also is likely to please privacy and civil-liberties groups that have raised concerns in the past over the dual roles of police and intelligence agencies.

The announcement came at an event today at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, where U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke and Schmidt spoke.

The Obama administration is currently drafting what it’s calling the National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace, which Locke said will be released by the president in the next few months. (An early version was publicly released last summer.)

Read more at C|Net.com

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Tea Party Terrorists exposed in Waco

Sunday, December 25th, 2011

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First Circuit Court of Appeals Rules that Citizens Can Videotape Police

Thursday, September 1st, 2011

The filming of government officials while on duty is protected by the First Amendment, said the Court

The First Circuit Court of Appeals reached a crucial decision last Friday allowing the public to videotape police officers while they’re on the clock.

The decision comes after a string of incidents where individuals have videotaped police officers and were arrested. Police officers across the United States believed citizens didn’t have the right to videotape them as they conducted official duties, but issues like police brutality put the issue up for debate.

One instance where a citizen was arrested for videotaping an officer was when Khaliah Fitchette, a law-abiding teenager from New Jersey, boarded a bus in Newark. Two police officers boarded the bus as well to remove a drunken man. Fitchette began taping the police officers because of how they were handling the man, and a police officer instructed her to stop recording them. When Fitchette refused, she was arrested and placed in the back of a cop car for two hours while the officers took her phone to delete the video. Fitchette was then released, but she and her mother then filed suit against the Newark Police Department with the New Jersey chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

Another example involves Simon Glik, a passerby on the Boston Common. He used his cell phone to tape police officers when the Boston police were punching a man. Citizens surrounding the scene were saying, “You’re hurting him.” Glik never interfered with the police officers’ actions, but recorded the entire incident. The police officers ended up charging Glik with violating a wiretap statute that prohibits secret recording, even though the police officers admitted that they knew Glik was recording them. He was also charged with disturbing the peace and aiding the escape of a prisoner.

Read more at Daily Tech.

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Day 12: The First Amendment

Saturday, June 25th, 2011

From here out, we examine the unalienable Bill of Rights. We point out that the most important of these to consider is the Second and the Ninth Amendment, as they have the most impact on your personal liberties.



Amendment I

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.
Continue reading “Day 12: The First Amendment” »

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Death taxes a violation of the First Amendment?

Tuesday, April 12th, 2011

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Today the topic of allowing Muslims to practice Sharia Law inside the United States is a hot topic. I believe, though, that running over your daughter because you do not like her boyfriend and running over the arm of an eight-year old boy for stealing might be considered by reasonable people to be a violation of the Eighth Amendment. Of course, this administration might like the idea because you get to kill people who speak out against the government. Hmmm. That might violate a Bill of Right somewhere.

Some of the founding fathers thought that a Bill of Rights was kind of a waste of time. Not for the same reason as the present administration and Congress, however. The founding fathers—notably Alexander Hamilton and James Madison—thought a Bill of Rights ridiculous because everyone knew their rights. They had just finished a little conflict to enforce those rights. They were written in the Declaration of Independence, the State Constitutions of the time and in every school text book. People knew their rights. Surely they would not give them up for some conceived notion of safety. One might wonder what those who opposed the Bill of Rights would think today? After all, they finally took the trouble of writing them down and they still can’t get the federal government to stick to them.

The very first clause of the very First Amendment tells us, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;…” This is the Amendment that some federal judges are using to declare that Sharia Law is legal in the U.S. Forget the rest of the clauses of this Amendment and the rest of the Bill of Rights all together.

Druids sacrifice virgins to their gods. Look for that next.

They also neglect, of course, what religion that is based on. That religion is based on the Christian religion of the Bible. On the words of the Biblical God. We have to remember that the term founding fathers that we use does not refer to the people who founded this country. The people who founded this country were the Pilgrims. You know, funny hats, big buckles and pantaloons. Those guys. And they had a very definite purpose for the founding specified in the Mayflower Compact.

Kids, you may not have heard of that so look it up on that Internet thing of yours.

It is interesting, though, that these federal judges are so keen on suddenly resurrecting this Amendment after years of kicking God and his cohorts out of public schools so kids could get to the business of shooting one another.
Continue reading “Death taxes a violation of the First Amendment?” »

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Tony Windsor doesn’t get the message.

Wednesday, March 2nd, 2011

Apparently, those damn Tea Party members over in the United States are spreading vitriol all over Australia. Really? How did they get through TSA? Isn’t the Australian T.E.A. Party doing their jobs?

In fact, they are.

The Sydney Morning Herald reports, “Mr [Tony] Windsor [Minister of Parliament, or MP in Australia] said there were some ‘points of commonality’, to the debate over the rhetoric of the Tea Party movement in the United States.”

The Australian T.E.A. Party web site states that the TEA Party is, “A worldwide movement, united for Free Markets, Fiscal Responsibility, Constitutionally Limited Small Governments and Individual Freedom.”

So, yes, the TEA Party has a common goal. It is the supposed goal of the Republican Party in America, the PATRIOT act notwithstanding. But apparently, political science is way above his head. Or he is an elitist. The goal, Mr. Windsor, is freedom and liberty. Do you have a problem with that?

Windsor gives the U.S. TEA Party too much credit. Apparently, his own people can see that a tax based on a false science is tyranny. In the United States, it can only be considered valid with a generous twisting of the words of the Constitution of the United States of America. Since the “tax” is to be paid to the United Nations, it is totally unconstitutional.

In 1850, when France was fast moving to become the first Communist Empire, Claude Frédéric Bastiat wrote a treatise to his countryman, concerning the matter, called The Law. In this plea from this dying man, he wrote:

“And does not experience prove this? Look at the entire world. Which countries contain the most peaceful, the most moral, and the happiest people? Those people are found in the countries where the law least interferes with private affairs; where government is least felt; where the individual has the greatest scope, and free opinion the greatest influence; where administrative powers are fewest and simplest; where taxes are lightest and most nearly equal, and popular discontent the least excited and the least justifiable; where individuals and groups most actively assume their responsibilities, and, consequently, where the morals of admittedly imperfect human beings are constantly improving; where trade, assemblies, and associations are the least restricted; where labor, capital, and populations suffer the fewest forced displacements; where mankind most nearly follows its own natural inclinations; where the inventions of men are most nearly in harmony with the laws of God; in short, the happiest, most moral, and most peaceful people are those who most nearly follow this principle: Although mankind is not perfect, still, all hope rests upon the free and voluntary actions of persons within the limits of right; law or force is to be used for nothing except the administration of universal justice.”

He was a French TEA Party member spreading vitriol. The “vitriol” that he was spreading was that the only purpose of law was to maintain the right to protect oneself, their property and their liberty. That is, also, a collective right of the people (not the National Guard). There is no natural right for a person to attack the right of life, liberty or property of another person, according to this treatise. Therefore, there is no collective right, even legislatively, to attack the right of life, liberty or property. It is a central principle of the works of John Locke and a principle which was used in the writing of the Declaration of Independence. That is the point of the American TEA Party, even though—for the most part—it has been construed to mean Republican party. I’m pretty sure, from reading the Australian T.E.A. Party web site, it is central to their thinking.

According to the Sydney Herald article, Mr. Windsor said, “Just remember you could be responsible for driving someone that’s got a slight degree of mental illness to something that they wouldn’t normally do.”

You mean, like voting for a carbon tax based on false science?

I guess, since the NRA showed video of the Australian government melting down all the guns they stole from the citizens, they will now have to make a law keeping slingshots, pies and other dangerous weapons at least a thousand-yards from any politician.

This whole concept Bastiat calls legal plunder. The point is, Mr. Windsor, that the people of the United States are sick of this legal plunder. We are sick of being forced into communist unions to work instead of the free association of men. We are sick of giving paychecks to those who do not want to work or those who are here illegally. We are sick of the government taking away our RIGHT to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of happiness.

I think the message, Mr. Windsor, it that your people are too.

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Sunday Best: LAND OF THE FREE, HOME OF THE BRAVE?

Sunday, January 16th, 2011

“Let me live according to those Holy rules which Thou hast this day prescribed in Thy Holy Word. Direct me to the true object, Jesus Christ – the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Bless O’ Lord, all the people of this land. Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that National Morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.” (George Washington’s inaugural prayer before the country)

Isaiah 30:1
“Woe to the obstinate children,” declares the Lord, “to those who carry out plans that are not mine, forming an alliance, but not by my Spirit, heaping sin upon sin.”

Something happened in America, starting at the turn of the 20th century, and from there it began to escalate. The first thing that started to change our country was that the main established churches stopped believing that the Bible is the literal Word of God. Once that happened, all kinds of man’s ideas began to be read into the Scripture. It swept through the seminaries and the churches in those days, and reading God’s Word began to be based on experience of whether it really felt like God’s Word, instead of looking at it objectively. The essential belief held by most of our churches began to be abandoned and rewritten. Christianity, to these establishments, lost it’s impact and it’s power.

When it began to spread, our own people began to attack our Christian foundations and our Constitution because it’s based on Judeo Christian values. They also began to ridicule and attack those who believed the Bible is the inherent Word of God, and who believed our American History as written. This is what our founding fathers had to say:

“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate for the government of any other. (John Adams 1798)

Freedom and Liberty was based on the assumption that the majority of our people had a Christian worldview, and therefore they didn’t need the Federal Government to be looking over their shoulder to be sure they were honest and had integrity. So great Liberty could be given because the people could be trusted.

Stephen Bach’s Blog

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R.I. governor defends talk radio ban; says may be temporary

Thursday, January 13th, 2011

A day later, Trainor said the ban would apply only to state employees within the governor’s control, and would not apply in a public health emergency or snowstorm, for example. In fact, EMA spokesman Steve Kass, a former talk-show host, went on the “Buddy Cianci Show” Tuesday, with the administration’s approval, with “a public safety message about the impending storm.”

By Katherine Gregg and TOM MOONEY
Journal State House Bureau

PROVIDENCE — With his talk-radio avoidance policy making the national news and rating the second-highest placed headline on the Drudge Report at one point on Wednesday, Governor Chafee is defending his decision.

In an interview Wednesday, Chafee denied speculation that the policy had anything to do with the harsh criticism that some of the state’s conservative talk-show hosts had been flinging his way in the wake of his move to rescind his predecessor’s executive order on illegal immigration.

“We just want to focus on the job at hand, getting the economy rolling again, and we can’t be diverted with all the nonsense on talk radio,” he told a reporter at the state Emergency Management Agency headquarters after the latest briefing on the snowstorm.

Chafee spokesman Michael Trainor said the policy had been under discussion for some time. But it caught national attention after the shootings last week at a meet-the-constituents event at a shopping center in Arizona that left six dead and Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords critically injured. Some commentators suggested that the massacre was a symptom of the “climate of hate” stoked by conservative, right-wing radio programming.

The Providence Journal

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House Republican Introduces Bill to Block FCC’s Internet Grab

Saturday, January 8th, 2011

Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN-7) introduced legislation Wednesday to deny the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulatory oversight over the Internet, which the Tennessee Republican insisted was the “sole prerogative of Congress” to administer.

“I agree that the Internet faces a number of challenge, ” Blackburn said in a release. “Only Congress can address those challenges without compounding them. Until we do, the FCC and other federal bureaucracies should keep their hands off the ‘net.”

According to Rep. Blackburn’s office, the “Internet Freedom Act” has the support of more than 60 House members, including a majority of GOP’ers on the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

The text for H.R. 96, has not been received by the GPO web site, but the latest title is To prohibit the Federal Communications Commission from further regulating the Internet.

Representative Cliff Stearns (R-FL-6) has introduced H.R. 166, To prohibit the Federal Communications Commission from regulating information services or Internet access services absent a market failure, and for other purposes. The text for this legislation, also, has not yet been provided to the GPO for publication, so it is difficult to assess what “other purposes” the bill could be for.

Big Government

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Muslims discovered America.

Friday, December 24th, 2010

Muslims discovered America, some text books in America claim. In direct violation of the so-called separation of Church and State, some text books claim that Mohammad received the Koran from God as actual fact. They teach that Jesus was a Palestinian.

Universities receive donations from the government of Saudi Arabia for their Islamic study centers.
Continue reading “Muslims discovered America.” »

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FCC Votes 3-2 to Regulate Internet via Net Neutrality

Tuesday, December 21st, 2010

The FCC has voted 3-2 along political lines to extend the government’s reach and regulate the internet via net neutrality.

The vote to institute net neutrality rules marks the first time the government has stepped into the world of internet regulation. Proponent’s of the net neutrality rules say that the move allows the government to stop companies from controlling too much of the internet, while opponents view it as a scary example of government control and an impediment of private business.

“As we stand here now, the freedom and openness of the Internet are unprotected… . That will change once we vote to approve this strong and balanced order,” FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said at a commission meeting on Tuesday, according to The Hill.

The Blaze

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FCC poised to enact new broadband rules

Monday, December 20th, 2010

WASHINGTON — Capping a yearlong debate over the principle that broadband providers should have to treat all Web traffic equally, a federal agency is expected to enact the nation’s first rules today regulating high-speed Internet providers and setting guidelines for the emerging market of video over the Web.

For consumers, the agreement is designed to ensure vigorous competition in the market to send higher-quality movies and TV over the Internet. But it opens the door to high-volume Internet users having to pay more, which could boost the price of some of that video.

The Federal Communications Commission is set to approve so-called network neutrality rules despite opposition from both ends of the political spectrum. The suspense surrounding the vote was removed Monday when the swing vote on the five-member commission, Commissioner Michael Copps, announced that he will vote for the compromise plan crafted by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski.

A staunch net neutrality backer, Copps said in a statement that he would have drafted stiffer rules if it were up to him. But the proposal before the commission “could represent an important milestone in the ongoing struggle to safeguard the awesome opportunity-creating power of the open Internet,” he said. “While I cannot vote wholeheartedly to approve the item, I will not block it by voting against it.”

San Jose Mercury News

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A Democrat? From Massachusetts?

Sunday, December 19th, 2010

Democrat Representative of the 7th district of Massachusetts, Edward J. Markey, introduced the Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2009 to the Congress on July 31, 2009. It has twenty-seven cosponsors including two from his home state and several from California. There are no Arizona cosponsors.

Similar bills—two in the 110th Congress and one in the 109th—are all dead.

The last major action occurred September 8th of last year when it was referred to the Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade and Consumer Protection.

The bulk of the findings relate economic reasons for keeping the web open and do not address the very basic First Amendment right against censorship. It does seem to keep the Internet open for activities such as TEA party sites, political views and so forth.

With non-elected FCC officials attempting a power grab very shortly, it might be time to use the phone and Internet to contact your representatives from your districts in Arizona and tell them to get on the ball and revive this legislation and get it to the floor for a vote.

You might have more success contacting the incoming representative of the State.

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Feds Force Okla. Bank To Remove Crosses, Bible Verse

Friday, December 17th, 2010

Federal Examiners Say Religious Decoration Inappropriate

PERKINS, Okla. — A small-town bank in Oklahoma said the Federal Reserve won’t let it keep religious signs and symbols on display.

Federal Reserve examiners come every four years to make sure banks are complying with a long list of regulations. The examiners came to Perkins last week. And the team from Kansas City deemed a Bible verse of the day, crosses on the teller’s counter and buttons that say “Merry Christmas, God With Us.” were inappropriate. The Bible verse of the day on the bank’s Internet site also had to be taken down.

KOCO Oklahoma City

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