The New York Analysis of Policy and Government takes a two-part look at how the attacks on free speech have changed.
The threat to free speech within the United States is no longer limited to college campuses or a few isolated individuals or organizations. It is now a multi-faceted campaign at all levels of American civic life, advocated by major political figures and media powerhouses, ardently pushed by massive street protests, and well financed by billionaires.
Ari Lieberman, writing for Frontpage correctly notes that “The Left’s assault on free speech is an alarming trend that represents a grave danger to democratic values and principles. They employ code words like ‘safe spaces’ and ‘First Amendment opportunism’ to hide behind the fact that they are tearing apart the very fabric of the United States Constitution.”
Many thought that the serious assaults on the First Amendment would cease or at least diminish following the conclusion of the Obama Administration. It is reasonable to speculate that the lack of any judicial punishment in response to the former president’s assaults on the nation’s most fundamental freedom has encouraged anti-free speech partisans.
Patrick Maines, writing in The Hill last year, noted: “No administration in memory has more thoroughly undermined freedom of speech and of the press than that of President Obama. From the White House itself, as well as the independent and executive branch agencies, have come a steady stream of policies, initiatives, and pronunciamentos that have threatened or compromised both of these constitutional rights.”
Examples cited by Maines and others are numerous. The transformation of the IRS into a partisan attack dog against the Tea Party—for which no one has seen the inside of a jail cell– may be the most prominent, but it is just one of many.
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Ignored by much of the media was the outrageous legal attack against a video producer who was falsely blamed for the Benghazi attack, despite the clear knowledge by Obama, Clinton and others that it was totally irrelevant to the premeditated assault.
Amazingly, Senator Charles Schumer, (D-NY) who actually introduced legislation to limit the First Amendment, not only continues in office, but has become the most powerful Democrat in Washington.
Media voices not subservient to the Obama White House had their hands full contending with the Federal Communications Commission’s moves to control the internet, and its attempt to place federal monitors in newsrooms across the nation. As Real Clear Politics reported, “Obama and his senior staff singled out for condemnation Fox News, the lone television network that did not serve up the fawning coverage the president and his team had come to expect.”
Part of the populist response to those outrages was the surprising victory of Donald Trump. But the anti-free speech crowd, no longer able to access the powers of the federal government to attack free speech, have skillfully adopted alternative tactics, with considerable success. The ACLJ reports “As a raft of leftist news media outlets, commentators and administrators renounce their support for the First Amendment in order to censor free speech…the escalating war on freedom of speech and the Constitution threatens everyone. Craven assaults on the Constitution and our civil liberties by media and university elites, as well as government bureaucrats, cannot go unanswered. Conservatives, Jewish students, pro-Israel organizations and pro-life supporters face bullying assaults from left-wing elites in the media, on university campuses, or from politically motivated government bureaucrats… it is manifest that the war on free speech has heated up.”
The Report concludes Monday.