Over the past several months, numerous and unprecedented attacks on the First Amendment have endangered the most cherished American right, freedom of speech. From United Nations conferences to the White House, to the floor of the U.S. Senate, from court rooms to City Halls, and of course the bureaucracies on the federal, state and local levels that (with questionable constitutionality) seek to regulate political campaigns, the right to open and unfettered expression has become jeopardized as never before in the American experience.
There have been various dimensions to this unprecedented assault.
Internationalization of control of the internet, brought about by President Obama’s inexplicable decision to relinquish U.S. control, has allowed totalitarian governments to come within striking distance of regulating free speech on the web. The U.N.’s International Telecommunications Union met in Turkey in September, and continued to receive unrelenting pressure from oppressive regimes to enact censorship rules. The organization will meet again in Brazil in November of 2015.
The Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) analyzed aspects of the internet governance debate. Their report noted that starting in 2003, Russia, China, and the Arab states advanced “an explicit rule-making agenda” for a more “state-controlled and monetary version of the internet.” According to Freedom House, “Broad surveillance, new laws controlling web content, and growing arrests of social-media users drove a worldwide decline in internet freedom in the past year.” The study also found that “While blocking and filtering remain the preferred methods of censorship in many countries, governments are increasingly looking at who is saying what online, and finding ways to punish them…In some countries, a user can get arrested for simply posting on Facebook or for “liking” a friend’s comment that is critical of the authorities…”
Within the U.S., attempts to bring any comments which could affect political campaigns (which, on a practical basis, involves almost all discussion of current issues) under the control of federal, state and local election commissions has been the Trojan Horse which advocates of limitations on free speech have used to abridge First Amendment rights. A Washington Free Beacon article by Ken Vogel reported that President Obama, in an address to wealthy donors in 2012, asserted that he would be “in a very strong position” to amend the Constitution regarding campaign laws during his second term. Tying in free speech laws to campaign regulations has been a key avenue of attack for anti-First Amendment advocates.
The President’s comment was particularly ominous in light of the revelation that the Internal Revenue service targeted groups that opposed him. It is not coincidental that Lois Lerner, the chief figure in that scandal, previously worked for the Federal Election Commission and engaged in similar outrages there.
In some jurisdictions, such as New York, regulations have been enacted placing publications of any sort which could affect a campaign under the jurisdiction by the State Board of Elections. In Wisconsin, the Government Accountability Board harasses non-leftist groups that seek to disseminate their views.
Within the U.S. Senate, Tom Udall (D-New Mexico) and Charles Schumer (D-New York), proposed a measure that would limit free speech protections as they pertain to campaign donations. The proposed legislation gained 43 Senate supporters—all Democrats. At a Senate Rules Committee hearing earlier this year, Schumer stated that “”The First Amendment is sacred, but the First Amendment is not absolute. By making it absolute, you make it less sacred to most Americans.” The Republican minority was able to block the measure
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The FCC is increasingly seen as a potential tool by leftist advocacy groups to silence less radical opponents. Recently, the Wall Street Journal reported that law professor John Banzhaf III requested the FCC to deny a broadcast license to a radio station that didn’t comply with his attempt to eliminate the public use of the team name Washington Redskins.
Under White House direction, federal agencies have engaged in unprecedented actions to limit free speech. The three Democrat members of The Federal Elections Commission recently sought to bring many internet posts under the control of that bureaucracy. The move was blocked by the three Republican members.
Clearly, President Obama has a particularly disdainful attitude towards the First Amendment. The Washington Post recently published a “compendium” of press opinions on President Obama’s treatment of the media. Many of the worries expressed were all the more notable because they came from sources that were, in the past, generally supportive of the current White House. Among the more remarkable comments in the compendium: Former NY Times executive editor Jill Abramson: “It is the most secretive White House that I have ever been involved in covering.” NY Times reporter James Risen: “I think Obama hates the press.” USA Today Washington Bureau Chief Susan Page called the Obama Administration “more secretive and more dangerous to the press than any other in history.”
Beyond Washington, localities and political pressure groups have grown increasingly intolerant of dissent. The recent attempt by Houston’s openly lesbian mayor Annise Parker to subpoena the sermons of any clergy preaching against her controversial measures (which would mandate, among other moves, allowing males who feel they are actually females to use women’s bathrooms) is a notorious example, violative of both the free speech and religious mandates of the First Amendment.
National Review describes efforts by environmental extremists to “literally imprison people for holding unpopular views about global warming.”
All of these attempts clearly defy the very specific mandate of the First Amendment, which specifically states that Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
For generations, Americans safely assumed that their freedom of speech were sacrosanct. That confidence can no longer be justified.