Search

Categories

Total Results

No Record Found

View All Results
DONATE

Freedom of Speech/Press News

Free speech: Flag-burning inspires violent reactions and inane statements

donal brown May 16, 2011

When a graduate student from Louisiana State University tried to burn an American flag to protest the arrest of another student for stealing and burning a flag from the war memorial, he was greeted with obscenities, thrown bottles and water balloons and needed a police escort to leave the area. The university administration choose to ignore the violence in their official statement, “This is what a flagship university, and Free Speech Alley, is all about

Read More »

Free speech: Peabody Energy objects to parody

donal brown May 16, 2011

Peabody Energy was not amused by a website that offered a free inhaler to any family within 200 miles of a coal plant and wrote a letter demanding that its name be removed from the website. EFF attorney Carynne McSherry pointed out the weakness in Peabody’s position, “The legal analysis is not hard: the trademark fair use doctrine and the First Amendment both protect the use of Peabody’s trademarks as a necessary part of political

Read More »

Wisconsin high school students demand recognition of gay club

donal brown May 16, 2011

High school students in Wisconsin are suing in federal court under the First Amendment and the Equal Access Act after school authorities voted to deny recognition to the gay-straight alliance as an official school club. The alliance has been in existence for more than 10 years. The students’ complaint read, “Those requests [for club status] were denied by administrators citing a variety of reasons, including WBSD [West Bend High School Gay Straight Alliance] not wanting

Read More »

Compromise in the works to save Stolen Valor Act

donal brown May 16, 2011

In an attempt to save the Stolen Valor Act and preserve the First Amendment, a Nevada congressman has introduced a law to require that for there to be a violation of the act, someone would have to lie about their military service for personal gain. First Amendment Center President Ken Paulson argues that the change would center prosecution on fraudulent acts rather than put the government in the position of regulating speech and running afoul

Read More »

Will mainstream media match Wikileaks’ technology for receiving leaked documents anonymously and securely? Not likely.

Peter Scheer May 13, 2011

BY PETER SCHEER—Ever since Wikileaks became a household word, traditional news media have had every reason to try to replicate its technology for receiving leaked documents, via the internet, on an anonymous and secure basis. Traditional media may be at war with Julian Assange and disagree fundamentally with his methods in vetting and disseminating classified documents, but they can still see the appeal of a technical mechanism to frustrate eavesdropping on journalists and sources. If

Read More »