When Ethics Fails, The Law Steps In, And Often Makes An Ass Of Itself…

Greg-Abbott

There is no excuse for this:

Abbott tweet

Well, let me clarify that a bit. Anger, frustration, outrage at the open attack on democracy and a level playing field in the marketplace of ideas are all legitimate reasons for someone to default to “there ought to be a law!,” but there is no excuse for elected officials like Abbott and Texas legislators displaying such ignorance of the Bill of Rights.

Stipulated: what Big Tech and the social media platforms are doing right now, deliberately and brazenly attempting to slam their fists down on the scales of democracy to make it as difficult as possible to communicate opinions, news and other expression that our rising woke dictators find inconvenient, is a genuine threat to the nation’s values and existence. However, those same values will be weakened if laws mandating companies to be fair and ethical undermine the First Amendment. As the giddy AUC and my Trump Deranged Facebook friends immediately reply to any criticism of the growing censorship of conservatives and especially President Trump, a private company has a nearly absolute right to decide who has access to its free services. As the social justice crusaders don’t say, but prove every time they make this kneejerk observation, they are thrilled to see their fellow citizens muzzled this way, since it advances their own interests. Big Tech and the social media companies have the right, but it is not right for them to abuse it this way when they have so much control over public debate and information.

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Incompetence Saturday Continues: Those News Stories About President Trump Claiming That Protesters Have No Right To Protest or Violated His Rights Are Fake News

Over 29,000 views, every one making the viewer more ignorant…

This is also cross-filed under “Bias makes you stupid,” a file (and tag) now stuffed to overflowing by the anti-Trump-obsessed, members of “the resistance,” and journalists—but I repeat myself—who are meticulously destroying their credibility and trustworthiness with every manufactured outrage. (For an amusing related video, look here.)

Over at Popehat, First Amendment specialist lawyer/blogger Ken White dutifully defends the President from incompetent and biased reporting, not for the first time, regarding Nwanguma v. Trump, the case pending in federal court in Kentucky where plaintiffs, protesters at a March 1, 2016 Trump rally in Louisville, claim that Trump incited his fans to assault them. Writes Ken, in a statement that echos what has been written on Ethics Alarms many, many times:

“It is not necessary to make things up to paint him as censorious and uninformed about free speech values. Yet here we are again.”

He goes on…

Previously I lawsplained that no, a federal judge didn’t rule that Trump had incited violence, and no, it’s very misleading to say that one of the allegedly violent rally-goers sued Trump for inciting him to violence.

Now, says Ken ruefully, we are seeing stories like this one in Politico, headlined,

Trump lawyer: ‘No right’ to protest at rallies

(The similar headline over my post comes from Charles Johnson, the blogger who exposed Dan Rather’s attempt to use a forged letter in a CBS News report, essentially ending Rather’s career as a legitimate journalist)

This, Ken explains, is untrue. This, Jack explains, is also fake news. Continue reading

More Photography Ethics: A Federal Court Rules That There Is No Right To Photograph Police

photographing_police

U.S. District Judge Mark Kearney has ruled that citizens don’t have a First Amendment right to take cellphone videos and photos of police unless they are challenging or criticizing the police conduct.

This opinion makes no sense, and is dead wrong.

Richard Fields, a Temple University student, took a cellphone photo of about 20 police officers standing outside a house party because, he testified, he thought it would be an interesting picture. Amanda Geraci, who says she is “a trained legal observer,” whatever that is, tried to video an arrest during a an anti-fracking  protest.

Fields had his cellphone seized and was cuffed, as an officer searched his cellphone before returning it and cited him for obstructing the highway and public passages while taking the photo.  Geraci said an officer physically restrained her to prevent her from recording the arrest. The two both sued for alleged First and Fourth Amendment violations, and their cases were consolidated before the court, as the same Constitutional issues were involved.

Judge Kearney argued that Fields and Geraci would have to show their behavior was “expressive conduct” to support a First Amendment claim. Neither plaintiff met that burden, because neither told the police why they wanted to capture the images, Kearney wrote. “The conduct must be direct and expressive; we cannot be left guessing as to the ‘expression’ intended by the conduct.”

“Applying this standard, we conclude Fields and Geraci cannot meet the burden of demonstrating their taking, or attempting to take, pictures with no further comments or conduct is ‘sufficiently imbued with elements of communication’ to be deemed expressive conduct. Neither Fields nor Geraci direct us to facts showing at the time they took or wanted to take pictures, they asserted anything to anyone. There is also no evidence any of the officers understood them as communicating any idea or message.”

What astounding nonsense! Would Kearney argue that an oil painting was similarly ambiguous as “expressive” without the painter saying, “I am painting the picture so that I have a painting that I can show others”? Continue reading