Free speech roundup

  • Boilermaker union president resorts to litigation against satirical site [Levy; another case on demands for disclosure of anonymous commenters] More on ghastly NY bill to strip protection from anonymous online speech [David Kravets/Wired, Daily Caller, my take]
  • Defending people like Aaron Worthing and Patterico shouldn’t be a left-right matter [Popehat, Tapscott/Examiner, earlier] Maryland and indeed all states need stronger statutory protection against vexatious litigants [Ace of Spades] And as a longtime Charles Schwab customer I was at first distressed to find the Schwab Charitable Fund on this list, but since the fund is billed as “donor-advised” I take it some Schwab customer rather than the company itself got to choose the beneficiary;
  • “Indonesia Prosecution for Posting ‘God Doesn’t Exist’ on Facebook” [Volokh] Curious to see an argument for Euro-style hate speech laws appearing on the Liberty and Law site [David Conway]
  • “Cyberbullying and Bullying Used As Pretexts for Censorship” [Bader]
  • “EEOC: Wearing Confederate Flag T-Shirts May Be ‘Hostile Work Environment Harassment'” [Volokh, more, Bader]
  • Video on new freedom of assembly book [FedSoc]
  • Maybe Citizens United turned out so badly for the speech-suppressive side because a government lawyer was imprudently candid before the Court [Jacob Sullum, earlier on Toobin New Yorker piece]

7 Comments

  • Schwab could decline to make the donation, they have full legal control over the assets of the their Foundation. No doubt they would exercise that discretion is a donor wanted to make a gift to NAMBLA. But Schwab and Fidelity and the other big charitable foundations accepting donor-advised funds will almost always follow the donor’s advice, lest they stop getting donations.

  • While Hans Bader’s commentary is usually excellent, his opinion on the the causes of the Civil War is contrary to hundreds of historians (including Shelby Foote).

    That being said, the actual issue, (EEOC: Wearing Confederate Flag T-Shirts May Be ‘Hostile Work Environment Harassment’) has me wondering what this will mean for government run or contracted shops on various Civil War Battlefields continue to sell merchandise emblazoned with the Confederate Battle Flag (which is not the same as the “Confederate flag.”) Will an employee now be able to say “the items offend me, so they cannot be sold?”

    Will a re-enactor dressed in Confederate garb, or sitting under a Confederate flag be banned from National Historical Parks because someone is “offended” by the sight of the Confederate Battle Flag?

    It is not that I support slavery or racism, but the Confederacy is a part of American history, and the idea the history of its existence, the history of its people, and the history of its “heritage” can be legislated out of existence is greatly troubling.

  • […] you should know it’s not every day Radley Balko calls for tougher law enforcement. Earlier here and […]

  • […] an abuse of the legal system by many legal commentators including a prominent law professor and the world’s oldest law blog, unsurprisingly resulted in a large number of blog posts and a Washington Examiner editorial […]

  • @gitarcarver:
    Hans Bader is right that secession was about slavery. You don’t have to take his or my word for it. Read the official explanations by seceding States themselves, starting with South Carolina:
    http://sunsite.utk.edu/civil-war/reasons.html

  • […] Chris Evans nastygram to Lipstick Alley: Has Hollywood already forgotten about the Streisand effect? [Paul Alan Levy] Also at Public Citizen, the dispute over a boilermaker union official’s effort to unmask an online critic has now been settled (earlier); […]

  • […] comments from Maryland lawyer Bruce Godfrey, Patterico, Popehat, and many others; earlier here, here, and here. And Ken at Popehat, in a perhaps not unrelated development, puts out a call for a pro […]