Aspen Post has recently experienced outside pressure to remove certain bloggers’ voices from its webpages. The editor of Aspen Post has thus far been able to fend off the aggressive tactics of those who would censor this site, and steadfastly defended the First Amendment rights of AP bloggers. Following is an excerpt from the website of Electronic Frontier Foundation concerning bloggers’ rights. If you’re a blogger or blog editor who is uncertain of your legal rights or concerned about protecting free speech, you may find the information and resources useful. Check out the link of extensive FAQs at the end of the piece.
Note: this information was last updated April 20, 2006
Electronic Frontier Foundation: Legal Guide for Bloggers
Whether you’re a newly minted blogger or a relative old-timer, you’ve been seeing more and more stories pop up every day about bloggers getting in trouble for what they post. Like all journalists and publishers, bloggers sometimes publish information that other people don’t want published. You might, for example, publish something that someone considers defamatory, republish an AP news story that’s under copyright, or write a lengthy piece detailing the alleged crimes of a candidate for public office.
The difference between you and the reporter at your local newspaper is that in many cases, you may not have the benefit of training or resources to help you determine whether what you’re doing is legal. And on top of that, sometimes knowing the law doesn’t help – in many cases it was written for traditional journalists, and the courts haven’t yet decided how it applies to bloggers.
But here’s the important part: None of this should stop you from blogging. Freedom of speech is the foundation of a functioning democracy, and Internet bullies shouldn’t use the law to stifle legitimate free expression. That’s why EFF created this guide, compiling a number of FAQs designed to help you understand your rights and, if necessary, defend your freedom.
To be clear, this guide isn’t a substitute for, nor does it constitute, legal advice. Only an attorney who knows the details of your particular situation can provide the kind of advice you need if you’re being threatened with a lawsuit. The goal here is to give you a basic roadmap to the legal issues you may confront as a blogger, to let you know you have rights, and to encourage you to blog freely with the knowledge that your legitimate speech is protected.Please note that this guide applies to people living in the US. We don’t have the expertise or resources to speak to other countries’ legal traditions, but we’d like to work with those who do.
FAQs concerning legal rights of bloggers: http://w2.eff.org/bloggers/lg/questions.php
Nobodys surprised at lengths the Zionists will go to silence the truth. Now you know or soon will, how Sue Grey and others all across this country have been treated week after week, year after year. You may even get death threats like Sue and her family has had to put up with.
I have to applaud your courage, however, my bet is that they will win and you will be silenced so you might want to have a second job lined out. This is not my wish, but there is no length some will go to keep the truth from the public.
I hope you reconsider your stance on “Hate Laws.” There just another attempt by a very, very small elite minority that have to maintain complete control over Freedom of Speech and Thoughts. These laws as well as Internet 2 that is coming, is this country’s real enemy.
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On October 16, 2004 President Bush signed into law the Global Anti-Semitism Review Act. It establishes a special department within the U.S. State Department to monitor global anti-Semitism, reporting annually to Congress.
This is more “Hate Crimes” legislation, orchestrated by the international Jewish religious, educational, and fraternal organization, B’nai B’rith, and its Anti-Defamation League. The new “Department of Global Anti-Semitism” is designed to make critics of Israel not only into “anti-Semites” but ultimately into “domestic terrorists.”
“Report on Global Anti-Semitism” and “Global Anti-Semitism Report”
1. Any assertion “that the Jewish community controls government, the media, international business and the financial world” is anti-Semitic.
2. “Strong anti-Israel sentiment” is anti-Semitic.
3. “Virulent criticism” of Israel’s leaders, past or present, is anti-Semitic. According to the State Department, anti-Semitism occurs when a swastika is portrayed in a cartoon decrying the behavior of a past or present Zionist leader. Thus, a cartoon that includes a swastika to criticize Ariel Sharon’s brutal 2002 invasion of the West Bank, raining “hell-fire” missiles on hapless Palestinian men, women and children, is anti-Semitic. Similarly, when the word “Zionazi” is used to describe Sharon’s saturation bombing in Lebanon in 1982 (killing 17,500 innocent refugees), it is also “anti-Semitic.”
4. Criticism of the Jewish religion or its religious leaders or literature (especially the Talmud and Kabbalah) is anti-Semitic.
5. Criticism of the U.S. government and Congress for being under undue influence by the Jewish-Zionist community (including AIPAC) is anti-Semitic.
6. Criticism of the Jewish-Zionist community for promoting globalism (the “New World Order”) is anti-Semitic.
7. Blaming Jewish leaders and their followers for inciting the Roman crucifixion of Christ is anti-Semitic.
8. Diminishing the “six million” figure of Holocaust victims is anti-Semitic.
9. Calling Israel a “racist” state is anti-Semitic.
10. Asserting that there exists a “Zionist Conspiracy” is anti-Semitic.
11. Claiming that Jews and their leaders created the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia is anti-Semitic.
12. Making “derogatory statements about Jewish persons” is anti-Semitic.
13. Denying spiritually disobedient Jews the biblical right to re-occupy Palestine is anti-Semitic.
14. Alleging that Mossad was behind the 9/11 attack is anti-Semitic.
ANTI-SEMITISM IS A “HATE CRIME”
In the Global Anti-Semitism Report, State Department spokespersons Ambassador Edward O’Donnell and the head of the office of global anti-Semitism, Ambassador Michael B. Kozak, defend the State Department’s definitions. O’Donnell’s statement that he wants to “end all anti-Semitism and other hate crimes” reveals that he considers anti-Semitism a hate crime. Presumably, he would like such a “crime” to be punished.
These State Department reports repeatedly equate “strong, anti-Israel sentiment” and criticism of matters Jewish with “hate.” They give no recognition to the possibility that such criticism might be sincerely motivated not by hate but by moral indignation or even love for the Jewish people.
The Report on Global Anti-Semitism repeatedly calls for passage, both nationally and internationally, of “hate crime” legislation. These laws, the brainchild of B’nai B’rith/ADL, also have as their ultimate goal making it a “hate crime” to criticize Jews, matters Jewish, or the state of Israel.
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“Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech…”
– US Constitution, First Amendment (1791)
“Freedom of speech means that you shall not do something to people either for the views they express, or the words they speak or write.”
– Hugo Black, US Supreme Court Justice, “One Man’s Stand for Freedom” (1963)
“The truth hurts.”
– Proverb
Free speech is a funny kind of concept. Used to be, free speech was anything that didn’t physically hurt others. Don’t yell “Fire!” in a packed theatre, for example, unless there really is a fire, of course. Truth always won out then.
Then laws developed about libel and slander, where words could hurt one’s ability to make a living or move freely in the world. Again, truth always won out – if you called someone a whore and could prove they had sex indiscriminately, you went free. Now we see speech laws morphing into bans on “hate speech.” Problem is, the further into the rhetorical woods we go, the murkier the visibility becomes. And truth no longer provides a defense.
Today we focus on one’s intent with the current breed of American hate crime laws. For example, blacks who say “nigger” are just funnin’ around with their homies. Whites who say “nigger” are racist bigot ugly people and put in jail. I have a client out of jail right now, pending his appeal for that very “crime.” See my essay, “Attorney for the Damned ” for an overview of his “crime” (http://www.conspiracypenpal.com/columns/damned.htm). What’s more, today’s hate crime laws protect only certain groups of people: blacks, jews, homosexuals, women, certain minorities – after all, it is still ok to tell the most reprehensible jokes about lawyers (I’m one), rednecks (I’m one) and whites (I’m one), but when was the last time you heard a Rastus and Liza joke?
Like today’s hate crime laws, tomorrow’s hate speech laws also will protect only certain groups of people, jews in particular.
Tomorrow already is here in Canada, Germany, England, Italy and so many other Western countries. It almost is here in America. It soon will be, if the ADL has its way. And, just as the truth of one’s comments no longer matters, mere intent no longer is the core issue. Hate speech laws focus upon the effect one’s comments have, regardless of one’s intent.
ENDING FREE SPEECH RADIO with hate Laws
If Hate Laws persist, FCC restrictions will soon descend on American talk show hosts, with lists of banned topics. Hosts will be fined or imprisoned and stations will lose their broadcast licenses, just as in Canada, if they violate these restrictions.
In Canada, “CHOI FM,” Quebec City’s most popular talk show station, was dissolved by the Canadian government. Its 33 employees were put out of work. Its offense? One of its talk show hosts criticized African dictators whose children were educated in Canadian universities. This was considered a “hate crime” against blacks.