Category archive: First Amendment

A Secret Admirer

Guest Post By Don Ross Recently, our small business received a snail mail letter with no name or return address. Inside the envelope was a scanned image of an advertisement which we placed in the local newspaper. All of our ads include the following statement at the bottom: As pro-life business owners who believe in [...]

Charles Schumer’s Call for Government Censorship

By Chuck Rogér At a recent Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Democrat Senator Charles Schumer badgered witnesses from Apple and Google to comply with his demand to censor cellphone software that the Senator considers objectionable because those apps warn users of DUI checkpoints. Schumer’s official demand is that “Apple, Android, Blackberry, and others… remove smart-phone apps that [...]

FCC Commissioner Wants to Control the Content of Broadcast Media

Originally in American Thinker, December 7, 2010. The First Amendment forbids Congress from infringing on Americans’ right to free speech. But the Federal Communications Commission is not Congress. And Michael Copps, one of four FCC commissioners reporting to Chairman Julius Genachowski, seems intent on ignoring that pesky part of the First Amendment about “abridging the [...]

Obama’s sneaky thuggery and the internet

Almost six months ago, American Thinker published two articles (HERE and HERE) that I wrote about Obama’s desire to stifle conservative talk radio. But The Chosen One’s interest in controlling information flow isn’t limited to talk radio. Wendy McElroy, at The Freeman Online, reports, “The Obama administration is seeking domestic and worldwide control of the [...]

U.S. Supreme Court justice considers outlawing speech against radical Islam

Americans’ right to express opinions is protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. But what if someone shouts “Fire!” in a public place when in fact there is no fire? And what if people get injured and killed in the resulting stampede? In 1919′s Schenck v. United States, the Supreme Court ruled, [...]

Originally in American Thinker, May 27, 2010. Should Americans be concerned about a Federal Communications Commission official having once suggested that if government doesn’t help minorities reduprint\fcc-covert-print.htmce white ownership of broadcast media, then only violence would assure the protection of minorities’ civil rights?1In the little-noticed 2007 publication “The Erosion of Civil Rights,” Mark Lloyd attempted [...]

Imagine bloggers being prohibited by law from publishing opinions or analysis on political issues during a time period close to elections. Can’t happen in America? If the Democrat proponents of the “DISCLOSE Act” prevail, then the Soviet style scenario is precisely what will come to pass. According to testimony given before the Committee on House [...]

Barack Obama’s FCC Information Police

Originally in American Thinker, May 17, 2010. The President warns us that Americans must beware of “the craziest claims” and “arguments” in which “information becomes a distraction” that puts “pressures” on “our democracy.” What was behind Barack Obama’s recent remarks to the graduating class of Hampton University? What “information” must Americans fear? FCC Chief Diversity [...]

Controlling the internet to protect us from evil profit seekers

Ed Morrissey points out a curious facet of the House version of financial reform. The bill… …contains provisions that would put the Federal Trade Commission in position to start issuing rules on Internet transactions that would not only slow down business growth but also have no relevance at all to the financial collapse that prompted [...]

The Democrats will soon have critics at the disadvantage at which all totalitarians long to have the pesky peons. Renowned economist Thomas Sowell asks a worrisome question. With politicians now having access to our most confidential records and having the power of granting or withholding medical care needed to sustain ourselves or our loved ones, [...]

‘Educator’ arrogance

We have a new definition of “nuisance,” courtesy of the Congress, Arizona school district. Holding employees accountable to their employer constitutes a “nuisance.” Specifically, the district’s attorney claims that four district parents’ requests for records which are supposed to be in the public domain anyway, and also those parent’s requests for investigations into the clandestine [...]

Wicked sawbones cuts off feet while czar enters belly of FCC

President Barack Obama accuses greedy doctors of maiming diabetics. Democrats label people Nazis and un-American for rejecting government health care. Meanwhile, King Hopey-Changey moves against free speech. Recently, attorney Mark Lloyd was appointed Federal Communications Commission Chief “Diversity” Officer. Lloyd’s new boss, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, says that his agency “must ensure that the communications field… [...]

“Visionary leaders” have arisen at tumultuous times in nations’ histories, each leader sensing opportunity in the crisis of the day. Many of these leaders blamed capitalists for creating class conflict. The leaders then strengthened conflict in order to fuel demand for change. To achieve that change, the visionary ones deemphasized the individual and promoted the “common [...]