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Free speech

Posted at 3:44 PM on August 11, 2008 by Bob Collins (5 Comments)
Filed under: The political conventions

There is free speech, and then there is free speech.

Minnesotans have gotten a steady dose of free speech tutorials in the last few months from would-be protesters at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul.

Today, for example, two groups are suing the city of St. Paul, not because they don't have the right to free speech, but they haven't been given close enough access to be heard by their intended targets -- the delegates.

It's an interesting claim -- that you not only have the right to speak freely, you have the right to be heard when you do speak.

Then there are actual cases of people not being allowed to speak. That's playing out today in Boston, where a trio of MIT students discovered a significant security flaw in the Boston mass-transit system's fare-card program. They had planned to release their findings at DEFCON 16, a hackers convention today. The MBTA -- the transit system in the city where some say freedom was born -- sued the group and was granted an injunction, preventing the three from speaking... anywhere.

"The court's order is an illegal prior restraint on legitimate academic research in violation of the First Amendment," said Electronic Frontier Foundation Civil Liberties Director Jennifer Granick.

It's an argument that probably has more legs to it than the St. Paul case. But no worries, Minnesota, your name comes up all the time when free speech cases are debated. For it was Mr. Jay Near and Howard Guilford who published The Saturday Press, and wrote on September 24, 1927 that "a Jewish gangster was in control of gambling, bootlegging, and racketeering in Minneapolis" and that law enforcement agencies were looking the other way.

The attempts to silence -- literally -- the press (in this case) made it to the Supreme Court where the idea that muzzling free speech is censorship was further codified.

For his trouble, Mr. Guilford was shot dead.

Comments (5)

This entire thing has gotten stupid. St Paul has done everything they can to keep the peace but allow these people to march and speak their mind. Their freedom of speech has not been squelched.
It will be bad enough to navigate Downtown with the thousands of delegates roaming around, the locals don't need protesters holding up the works either.
Have they forgotten that hundreds of broadcast media, reporters, and bloggers will be in town covering the event? It's not like their march won't be covered.

I'm sorry to say that anyone who is going to try protest about the war is wasting their voice. I won't stop them from doing it, I'll (like St Paul) will let them speak but no RNC delegate is likely to change their view and the delegates to this convention won't be doing anything more than listening to their favorite son accept a candidacy he already locked in.

Wake me up on September 5 when all this hell is over.

Posted by Scott B | August 11, 2008 5:17 PM

our goverment have taken all of our rights away and we as a people have allowed it, and a large part of the media seem to ignore it.
today in the USA anyone can be arrested and kept as long as the gov wishes they dont have to tell you why, they dont have to tell anyone they have you,they can torture you till you admit to whatever they want. if you don believe this read the fisa bill.
the only "right" left is the pursuit of happiness.
free speach zones are not what our founding fathers meant when they wrote the constitution,and the bill of rights was not to be ignored by the potus or our represenatives in dc

Posted by mike s | August 11, 2008 6:30 PM

I don't think that's gone unreported, Mike. But the other thing here is the protesters are doing exactly what they need to do to get publicity for their cause. Court cases and news conferences in slow news periods about free speech are a basic chapter in Convention Protests 101.

The disjointed news conference they had a few weeks ago shows that, doesn't it?

By your theory, the protesters should also have the right to go into the Xcel, shouldn't they?

But that's not really the point of the protest, to change the mind of the delegate. The point of the protest is to get as much publicity as possible to counter the publicity the delegates will get.

A way to do that is lots of news conferences and lots of court cases.

The most important participant in that process isn't the delegate; it's the person with the camera and microphone.

We all know that and my eyes are getting tired from all the winking that's been necessary up to now.

Posted by Bob Collins | August 11, 2008 6:43 PM

/the only "right" left is the pursuit of happiness./

oh but wait!!!! we have the right to bear arms don't we?
are they going to allow the conceal and carry law to prevail at the convention? you never know when some kook is gonna be packin a heater. but with that great law of conceal and carry hopefully there will be a hero in the crowd that is also packin heat. and then there can be a real live wild west in the mid western north. don't ya know.

Posted by shane | August 11, 2008 10:31 PM

I am grateful that we have great reporters like that super slueth and savy question asker/journalist Misty Rowan.

Posted by GOPGRRL | August 11, 2008 10:35 PM

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