ACLU sues Knox, Nashville school systems over blocking access to Web sites about gay/lesbian issues : Local News : Knoxville News Sentinel. Photo by Michael Patrick // Buy this photo Fulton High librarian Karyn Storts-Brinks is a plaintiff in the lawsuit by the ACLU against Knox County and Nashville’s school systems, accusing them of unconstitutionally blocking student access to educational LGBT sites. Knox County and Nashville's school systems were sued Tuesday by the American Civil Liberties Union, which accuses the systems of unconstitutionally blocking student access to educational Web sites about lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues. The suit was filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Middle Tennessee on behalf of Fulton High School freshman Bryanna Shelton, Fulton librarian Karyn Storts-Brinks and Nashville high school students Keila Franks and Emily Logan.
A Knox County schools' spokesman declined comment. The ACLU said in April it would file suit if the school systems didn't unblock the sites. Storts-Brinks is the adviser of Fulton's Gay-Straight Alliance. 1st Amendment in History. The First Amendment "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. " -- Amendment One, Bill of Rights, United States Constitution The History of the First Amendment Thomas Jefferson once claimed, “A democracy cannot be both ignorant and free.”
The new American settlers brought with them a desire for democracy and openness. The Bill of Rights consists of the first ten amendments, which contain procedural and substantive guarantees of individual liberties and limits upon government control and intervention. Only two Supreme Court justices, Justice Hugo Black and Justice William O. Freedom of speech and expression is not a luxury of democracy, but it should be recognized as a necessity. Development Wartime censorship has been used to protect national security interests. Blogger Sued For Defamation Can't Invoke Shield Law, Says N.J. Judge. WikiLeaks Nearly Immune to Takedown, Says Researcher - PCWorld. News December 8, 2010 07:12 AM ET Computerworld - Massive network attacks and other punitive actions taken against WikiLeaks over the past few days only appear to have made the site and its contents far more resilient to takedown attempts, a security researcher said.
In the 10 days since WikiLeaks began releasing classified cables from the U.S Department of State, wikileaks.org was hit with massive denial of service attacks, the termination of its its domain hosting service, the loss of Amazon.com as a host, and the loss of PayPal, MasterCard and Visa Europe services. Yet, in what's becoming an interesting case study in Internet resilience, WikiLeaks not only continues to serve up its controversial content, it appears to have bolstered its ability to do so, said James Cowie, chief technology officer at Renesys, an Internet monitoring firm. Before WikiLeaks started releasing the classified State Department cables, its content was hosted by two Swedish ISPs and another based in France.
Noonan v. Staples: “The most dangerous libel decision in decades” A long-established principle of libel law — truth is an absolute defense — has been called into question by a decision handed down last week by a federal appeals court in Boston. The court ruled in the case of Noonan v. Staples that truth published with “actual malice” gleaned from the context of the statement can give rise to a libel lawsuit. The case threatens to muzzle both news and entertainment media, and could be particularly dangerous to independent bloggers and small startup news organizations — neither of which is likely to have the legal resources a traditional established news organization has to battle libel suits. The case rose not from anything published in news media, but from a mass e-mail sent by Staples to about 1500 employees informing them, within the context of a reminder about policy compliance, that Alan S.
It is with sincere regret that I must inform you of the termination of Alan Noonan’s employment with Staples. In a 1998 case, Shaari v. Supreme Court backs FCC: fleeting f-bombs can be punished - Ars Technica. The Supreme Court ruled today on its first indecency case in 30 years. In a 5-4 decision (PDF), the justices supported the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) sanctions against Fox for a pair of live Billboard Music Award broadcasts containing some, err, "colorful metaphors.
" The ruling supports the FCC's ability not only to ban floods of offensive words, but also to sanction broadcasters for "fleeting expletives" uttered at live events. What fleeting expletives were involved in this case? The court itself is too squeamish to actually use the words upon which it is ruling hinges (Justice Scalia, who wrote the majority opinion, refers to them as the "S-Word" and the "F-Word"), but neither Cher nor Nicole Richie showed the same sensitivity during their respective time at the mic in 2002 and 2003.
The FCC has long regulated dirty words on broadcast networks, especially during hours when children are likely to be listening. The most famous case to date was 1978's FCC v. Congressional Democrats prepare another assault on the First Amendment. US court rejects FCC broadcast decency limit. Oops! Apologies but the page you requested either doesn't exist or isn't available right now. Please check the URL for proper spelling and capitalization. If you're having trouble locating a destination on Yahoo! , try visiting the Yahoo! Homepage or look through a list of Yahoo! 's online services . Please try Yahoo Help Central if you need more assistance. Today on Yahoo! 1 - 6 of 36 prev next. Federal case may redefine child porn | CNET News.com. First Amendment Trumps Sharia in Dearborn. Citizens United Decision: ‘A Rejection Of The Common Sense Of The American People’
By Ian Millhiser on January 21, 2010 at 3:34 pm "Citizens United Decision: ‘A Rejection Of The Common Sense Of The American People’" In what could prove to be the most consequential Supreme Court decision in decades, all five of the Court’s conservatives joined together today to invalidate a sixty-three year-old ban on corporate money in federal elections. In the process, the Court overruled a twenty year-old precedent permitting such bans on corporate electioneering; and it ignored the protests of the four more moderate justices in dissent. As Justice John Paul Stevens wrote for the dissenters: Today’s decision is backwards in many senses. The majority, for its part, claimed that corporate political spending must be protected to prevent “taking the right to speak from some and giving it to others,” but they are simply wrong to claim that this is a case about free speech. Is It A First Amendment Violation For Public Universities To Tell Athletes They Can't Tweet?
Eric P. Robinson, from the Citizen Media Law Project has a fascinating post analyzing whether or not it's a First Amendment violation when public universities put in place policies forbidding athletes from Tweeting or using Facebook: It turns out that a number of public and private universities -- including Boise State, Indiana University, New Mexico State, Texas Tech, the University of Miami (private), and the University of North Carolina -- have followed the lead of the National Football League, which imposes limits on players' use of social media. The NFL prohibits players from using social media during games (and has attempted to extend this to others at the game). But the schools have gone further: Boise State banned players from using any social media during the season, while New Mexico State barred Twitter during the season. Meanwhile, the University of Miami, UNC, and Texas Tech all required football players to cancel their Twitter accounts entirely.
Freedom of Expression: The First Amendment. Freedom of Expression ACLU Briefing Paper Number 10 "Congress shall make no law...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. " -- The First Amendment The inhabitants of the North American colonies did not have a legal right to express opposition to the British government that ruled them. Nonetheless, throughout the late 1700s, these early Americans did voice their discontent with the Crown. For example, they strongly denounced the British parliament's enactment of a series of taxes to pay off a large national debt that England had incurred in its Seven Years War with France. The early Americans also frequently criticized the much-despised local representatives of the Crown.
The colonies' most celebrated seditious libel prosecution was that of John Peter Zenger in 1735. What were the philosophical underpinnings of the First Amendment's guarantees? Google+ Why Howard Stern's Woes Are Your Woes, Too. Former Wall Street Goldman Sachs executive Nomi Prins is back with a thoroughly documented historical account of how DC and financial barons are locked at the hip. Accessible and compelling: Buy directly from Truthout by clicking here. First Freedom Homepage. "In this Land of equal liberty it is our boast, that a man's religious tenets will not forfeit the protection of the Laws, nor deprive him of the right of attaining and holding the highest Offices that are known in the United States.
" --George Washington Religious freedom is one of the United States’ founding principles, protected by the First Amendment and other federal laws. The right against religious discrimination is likewise one of our basic civil rights. When Congress enacted the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 at the height of the civil rights movement, in addition to barring discrimination based on race, national origin, and sex in a wide range of areas, it also barred discrimination based on religion. The Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice enforces a wide range of laws protecting religious liberty: Religious Freedom in Focus is a periodic email update about the Civil Rights Division's religious liberty and religious discrimination cases.
Delete Censorship.org. Upside Down Flag Has Vet in Fight for 1st Amendment Rights | CommonDreams.org. WAUSAU, Wis. - An American flag flown upside down as a protest in a northern Wisconsin village was seized by police before a Fourth of July parade and the businessman who flew it - an Iraq war veteran - claims the officers trespassed and stole his property.
This photo provided by Susan Willems taken July 5, 2009 shows an American flag being flown upside down, a day after it was removed by local police, in Crivitz, Wis. The flag being flown upside down as a protest in a small northern Wisconsin village was seized by police before a Fourth of July parade. The businessman flying the flag claims police trespassed and stole his property. (AP Photo/Susan Willems) A day after the parade, police returned the flag and the man's protest - over a liquor license - continued. The American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin is considering legal action against the village of Crivitz for violating Vito Congine Jr.'s' First Amendment rights, Executive Director Chris Ahmuty said. © 2009 Associated Press. No Law: Intellectual Property in the Image of an Absolute First Amendment.
"Overall, I strongly recommend the book. It was a complex and intellectually stimulating read. It clearly describes the field of intellectual property today...The book should be required reading for anyone interested in the area of copyright law and would find a home in any course focused on constitutional law, intellectual property or public policy. "—The Law and Politics Book Review "No Law has everything that makes a book valuable.
It is clearly written, makes an original argument based on exhaustive research and challenges conventional thinking. Moreover, it offers a possible solution to a pressing social question. " "I was provoked and engaged by this book! "This will be one of the most important books about intellectual property published this decade. The original text of the Constitution grants Congress the power to create a regime of intellectual property protection. David Lange is Melvin G. The First Amendment Upside Down. Why We Must...) First Amendment Law (U. S. Constitution: The First Amendment) Judge: Student's Facebook rants about teacher are protected speech - Broward. The Free Expression Policy Project. A Clear and Present Danger to Free Speech. Future of the First Amendment - Key Findings. Home > Key Findings For quick access to key findings click on the key findings 1-12 listed below.
Key Findings- (1)(2)(3)(4)(5)(6)(7)(8)(9)(10)(11)(12) Executive Summary and Key Findings The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation's High School Initiative seeks to encourage students to use the news media, including student journalism, and to better understand and appreciate the First Amendment. High school students' attitudes about the First Amendment are important because each generation of citizens helps define what freedom means in our society. How will America 's high school students affect this balance? The study suggests that First Amendment values can be taught - that the more students are exposed to news media and to the First Amendment, the greater their understanding of the rights of American citizens. Administrators say student learning about the First Amendment is a priority, but not a high priority. Banned Book & Censorship Resources. The Banned Book pages have been retired. They were begun in the mid-1990s when the Web was young and search engines not very reliable.
At the time, there seemed to be a place for human-selected and organized indexing. Regrettably, the pages proved to be too time-consuming to keep up to date, and have been left to link-rot for some years now. While the site continues to get visitors, particularly around Banned Books Week in September, far too many of the links no longer work. I simply don't have the time or energy to revamp them. Please consider visiting sites maintained by the American Library Association and other organizations opposed to book banning and censorship.
Home Page Other instructional and research guides The address of this page is. The First Amendment First Aid Kit. Supreme Court rolls back campaign spending limits - washingtonpost.com. Teach the First Amendment. Flag Burning and Free Speech. What Is the First Amendment For? - Opinionator Blog. Top News - ACLU sues over blocked web sites. The Roberts Court’s Free Speech Problem. The Censorship Pages -- Information on Censorship of the Written Word. U.S. Constitution: First Amendment. A Victory for Recording in Public! J-IDEAS, News and Resources for the First Amendment and Constitution Day. About Banned & Challenged Books. First Amendment Handbook. First Amendment Schools: Resources for Students, Teachers, Administrators and the Community. Firstamendmentcenter.org: Welcome to the First Amendment Center Online.
Photography is Not a Crime — It’s a First Amendment Right.