Dear AG, Conspiring Against Free Speech Is A Crime

by Glenn Harlan Reynolds.    Breaking the law to shut up climate change dissenters. Federal law  makes it a felony “for two or more persons to agree together to injure, threaten, or intimidate a person in any state, territory or district in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him/her by the Constitution or the laws of   ... MORE

Europe Sacrifices Free Speech For Political Correctness

by Dr. Michael Hurd.     Europe has gone crazy. Yes, there are the terrorist attacks. But it’s the political correctness and censorship, too. Governments in Europe are literally sacrificing their citizens for the sake of not offending Islam. Here’s an example. Anti-Islam firebrand Geert Wilders went on trial last Friday for allegedly inciting hatred against the  ... MORE

More People Recognizing Copyright's 'Free Speech Problem'

by Mike Masnick.  For many years now, we've written about the fact that copyright law and the First Amendment are actually in quite a lot of conflict. After all, copyright is regularly used to stifle speech, and the First Amendment isn't supposed to allow for the barring of speech. Over the years, legal experts have been increasingly starting to realize    ... MORE

Jack Hellner: Prosecuting Free Speech

Speak up now or forever hold your peace.     The U.S. attorney general and the Democrat attorneys general in several states are indicating that they are considering legal action against people who believe that current climate change is natural and cyclical, as it has been throughout billions of years, instead of caused by humans.  Is it any wonder  ... MORE

Rattled Students Demand Protection From Chalk Message

by Robby Soave. As anyone who has spent five seconds at a college can attest, sidewalks covered in chalk messages are a pretty common fixture of the campus scene. But Emory University students had their delicate worldview shaken by the sudden appearance of one specific chalk message, "Trump 2016," all over campus. The students were so ... MORE

VIDEO: Steven Pinker - Free Speech, Reason & Knowledge

Trump Is Not Responsible For Violence Against Him

by Michael Hurd.  The anti-free speech, anti-American protesters are. Donald Trump was forced to cancel a rally in Chicago due to threats of violence. Apparently, even the police were afraid. Black Lives Matter, a group which openly supports violence to attain its goals of socialism, cheers the shutdown. They tweeted such comments as, “Way   ... MORE

Andrew Napolitano: The Heckler's Veto

The government must protect unpopular speech.  On Feb. 7, 1946, Arthur Terminiello, a Roman Catholic priest who was a fierce opponent of communism and believed that President Harry Truman was too comfortable with it, gave an incendiary speech in a Chicago hall that his sponsors had rented. The hall held about 800 people, but nearly   ... MORE

Richard W. Rahn: Tyranny And Free Speech

Censorship has become a hallmark of the Obama era.  Do you support free speech? How about free speech for climate change skeptics? For homophobes? For racists? For sexists? For white males? For even Donald Trump? Those who defend free speech, as did the American Founding Fathers, understand it is not about defending speech you agree  ... MORE

Lefty Protesters Drive People Into Arms Of Donald Trump

by Robby Soave.   Trump's useful idiots. Donald Trump's supporters aren't fazed by his decision to cancel an appearance at a Chicago rally over the weekend—in fact, they are more likely to vote for him to be the Republican nominee because of it. That's according to a new poll of likely Republican voters conducted by Monmouth University.         ... MORE

Trump And His Protesters Both Hate Free Speech

by Michael Graham. No love for the First Amendment. When it comes to Donald Trump’s “Go to Auschwitz!” thugs versus MoveOn.Org’s “Shut them down” rioters, I go for the full Kissinger: “It’s a pity they both can’t lose.” (Kissinger was talking about Iran and Iraq. Close enough) But they aren’t losing. If fact, the sucker-punching Trumpies and    ... MORE

John W. Whitehead: Just Shut Up And Vote - The Futility Of Representative Government In an Age Of Robber Barons

Fighting back with common ground.  Despite the fact that we’ve been burned before, most Americans continue to allow themselves to be bamboozled into casting their votes for one candidate or another, believing that this time they mean what they say, this time they really care about the citizenry, this time will be different. Of course,   ... MORE

Disconnect Between Public Comments & Private Thoughts

by Jay Jamison.   Trump is like jury nullification. Once a criminal case is handed to the jury, the outcome is no longer under the control of the authorities and professionals who conducted the trial. Jury nullification is a term that describes a verdict that runs counter to the law, the evidence or even the instructions of the presiding judge. During a trial,   ... MORE

Protesting Donald Trump Is Now A Federal Crime

by Anthony L. Fisher.     The state of free speech in America. The Orwellian-named "free speech zones" on college campus and political rallies are nothing new to regular readers of Reason, and suppressing political dissent with the brute force of government has been a feature of the American system since shortly after 9/11/01, when the     ... MORE

Free Speech Is Very Threatened On Campus

by Conor Friedersdorf.     At a recent Intelligence Squared debate, an audience filled an auditorium at Yale University to weigh the timely proposition, “Free speech is threatened on campus.” The debate concerned higher education generally, not just the host institution. And at the event’s conclusion, having heard arguments on both sides   ... MORE

Robby Soave: PC Hysteria Claims Another Professor

Students demand an end to academic freedom.  The movement to purge all offensive speech from American college campuses has claimed another scalp. Andrea Quenette, an assistant communications professor, was chased out of her own classroom—not because she was a bad teacher, but because her students said she wasn’t agreeing with them  ... MORE

Daniel Payne: Say Hello To Twitter’s Tweet Police

No wonder Twitter stock is tanking.  Twitter yesterday announced it is forming a “Trust and Safety Council,” an effort to “ensure that people feel safe expressing themselves on Twitter.” The council features “safety advocates, academics, and researchers,” “grassroots advocacy organizations” and “community groups,” all of them        ... MORE

Is The ACLU Going Soft On The First Amendment?

by Damon Root.    That's the troubling question raised by University of Washington law professor Ronald Collins, who notes that the ACLU just began its annual fundraising campaign and released an accompanying "National ACLU Workplan," which, in the organization's own words, "lays out [the ACLU's] plans for the year ahead [and] always addresses  ... MORE

John W. Whitehead: Dangerous Speech - Would The Founders Be Considered Domestic Extremists Today?

The only therapy is the truth.     Not only has free speech become a four-letter word—profane, obscene, uncouth, not to be uttered in so-called public places—but in more and more cases, the government deems free speech to be downright dangerous and in some instances illegal. The U.S. government has become particularly intolerant    ... MORE

The Regrettable Decline Of Higher Learning

by Victor Davis Hanson.   Political correctness has taken a toll. What do campus microaggressions, safe spaces, trigger warnings, speech codes, and censorship have to do with higher learning? American universities want it both ways. They expect unquestioned subsidized support from the public, but also to operate in a way impossible for anyone else.  ... MORE