Censorship

The announcement of charges June 5 against a federal contractor for allegedly leaking a top secret National Security Agency document to a news website is giving journalists flashbacks to leaker prosecutions under President Barack Obama. The charges, tweeted New York Times reporter Scott Shane, followed “the precedent of Obama, whose administration set the record for leak prosecutions.” Adam Goldman, a Times colleague who had his phone records secretly seized during a 2012 leak investigation, asked whether President Donald Trump would top the number of leak prosecutions set during the previous administration.

[Commentary] Today, I’m launching TrumpiLeaks, a site that will enable courageous whistleblowers to privately communicate with me and my team. Patriotic Americans in government, law enforcement or the private sector with knowledge of crimes, breaches of public trust and misconduct committed by Donald J. Trump and his associates are needed to blow the whistle in the name of protecting the United States of America from tyranny. I know this is risky. I knew we may get in trouble. But too much is at stake to play it safe. And along with the Founding Fathers, I’ve got your back.

[Michael Moore is an Oscar and Emmy award-winning director]

Free Press and Free Press Action Fund sent a letter to the Federal Communications Commission’s general counsel calling on the agency to address its crackdowns against First Amendment freedoms during recent FCC meetings. “We write to express grave concerns about recent actions that call into serious question the Federal Communications Commission’s commitment to fostering free expression,” reads the letter authored by Free Press and Free Press Action Fund Deputy Director and Senior Counsel Jessica J. González and Policy Director Matt Wood. “In particular, the actions of FCC security and other FCC staff have chilled free speech and public participation in FCC decision-making processes that are supposed to be open to the public, and they have violated the due-process rights of Free Press and Free Press Action Fund staff and members.”

The letter details a series of incidents in which the federal agency and members of its security staff have silenced dissenting voices, manhandled a reporter and barred members of the public from attending the agency’s monthly open meeting without due process. During one incident, on the morning of March 23, 2017, two Free Press Action Fund members, Joe DeGeorge and David Combs, attempted to attend the FCC’s open meeting wearing plain white T-shirts that read “Protect Net Neutrality” in black letters. FCC security personnel informed the two that they would not be allowed to enter the public meeting room unless they removed the T-shirts or flipped them inside out to conceal their message.

British Prime Minister Theresa May is calling for tighter internet regulation in the wake of a deadly terror attack in and around London Bridge. The British PM said in a statement that technology serves as a breeding ground for terrorism and extremism. “We cannot allow this ideology the safe space it needs to breed,” May said. “Yet that is precisely what the internet and big companies that provide internet-based services provide. We need to do everything we can at home to reduce the risks of extremism online.”

May called on democratic governments to “reach international agreements that regulate cyberspace to prevent the spread of extremist and terrorism planning.” A UK parliamentary report from May alleges that social media companies have prioritized profit margins at the expense of the public’s safety by giving home to illegal content.

As his city mourns two men who were killed after confronting a man screaming anti-Muslim slurs, Mayor Ted Wheeler (D) is calling on federal officials to block what he called “alt-right demonstrations” from happening in downtown Portland (OR). His concern is that the two rallies, both scheduled in June, will escalate an already volatile situation in Portland by peddling “a message of hatred and of bigotry.” Although the organizers of the rallies have a constitutional right to speak, “hate speech is not protected by the First Amendment,” said Mayor Wheeler. But history and precedent are not on Wheeler's side. The Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that hate speech, no matter how bigoted or offensive, is free speech.