Free Speech

TO: All Television and Print MediaFM: The CommissionRE: Express Advocacy CommunicationsThis is to advise you that, pursuant to Section 406(b)(20)(A)(iii) of the Act, from this date until 60 days from the date hereof, any political communication which refers to any clearly identified candidate, or which a reasonable person would understand as advocating the election or defeat of any such candidate, is unlawful, and any telecast, broadcast or publication of such communication will subject the party in violation to the penalties specified in the Act.A mandate from the mullahs in Iran?

Ah, that ever nettlesome First Amendment, what with its stipulation that forbids the government from making any law that prohibits free speech. Just what are the limits of free speech, anyway?The debate will rage on virtually forever. Judges can't even agree. A gaggle of idiots in Boulder, Colo., known as Paladin Press published a book called "Hit Man: A Technical Manual for Independent Contractors." The book is what it says: a treatise on how to efficiently commit homicide.One Lawrence T. Horn then hired one James E. Perry to murder Horn's ex-wife, his 8-year-old quadriplegic son and the boy's nurse.

FREE SPEECH is a cherished touchstone of American constitutional rights, but it does not come without a price. A recent Supreme Court decision, along with a subsequent order from the high court, could bring deep disappointment to community activists who have worked diligently to improve their neighborhoods by limiting the profusion of unsightly billboards advertising liquor, tobacco and other harmful products.Earlier this month, the court threw out a Rhode Island law that prohibited liquor dealers from advertising prices, ruling that government cannot seek to protect citizens from harmful but legal habits at the expense of the free speech rights of businesses.

SAN FRANCISCO - Thirty years ago a student protest at the University of California over free speech sparked a worldwide chain reaction of youthful rebellion against authority. Is a new generation of free-speech agitators emerging now in cyberspace?Ever since the Telecommunications Act was signed into law, many denizens of cyberspace have taken to the Internet to protest its censorship provisions. But whereas the free-speech militants of the '60s staged campus rallies, classroom boycotts and street demonstrations aimed at bringing life at universities to a halt, today's protesters have largely eschewed public action (apart from a rally at San Francisco's South Park in December)

On its final day of the 1995 term, the Supreme Court upheld the right of free speech as guaranteed by the First Amendment in two cases. At least one of them may well come back to haunt it.That was the 5-4 decision in which the court ruled that the University of Virginia had to fund a Christian campus publication if it funded any other such student activities. The decision sent a chill up the spine of those who believe in strict separation of church and state, which is also required by the First Amendment's Establishment Clause.

LAST WEEK, just over the Howard Street bridge, heading away from downtown, I crossed a camel's path.Stopped at a traffic light on my way to a business meeting, I glanced up and saw the camel rising above the brick building tops in vibrant, unnatural hues, stretching, it semed, far into the sky.I thought he saw me too; he winked at me and grinned as if there were an understanding between us -- camel and man, man and camel.But his wink and grin were not meant for me alone.I am a local advertising professional, and the camel is the symbol for Camel cigarettes.

Howard Stern deserves right to free speechI write as a loyal fan, concerned citizen and as a free-lance research paralegal in support of Howard Stern's right to free speech.I recently took the day off and visited the Federal Communications Commission in Washington to see and read what the public has written about Mr. Stern and what law the FCC is relying on to levy fines on Mr. Stern and his parent company.The tone of Mr. Stern's detractors is most alarming. The letters do not give a persuasive argument against Mr. Stern's right of free speech.

Is there a right so silly that the American Civil Liberties Union won't defend it?Apparently not. U.S. District Court Judge Frederic N. Smalkin ruled last month that Baltimore's ordinance against aggressive panhandling violated the Constitution. It unfairly singled out the homeless, the good judge reasoned. Local ACLU lawyers reacted as if the ruling were the second coming of the First Amendment free-speech guarantee.Before Judge Smalkin and civil libertarians get too ecstatic, perhaps someone should point out what the law did. It actually protected panhandlers -- from themselves, mainly.

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court, acting in the celebrated case of a black professor who made a scathing speech against Jews, raised the possibility yesterday that public colleges and universities will have more authority to curb "hate speech" by faculty members.In a brief order issued after studying the case for seven weeks, the court wiped out a legal victory that the professor had won in lower courts and ordered a new review of City College of New York's move to punish him.The justices cited one of their own rulings, issued in May in a case involving the punishment of a hospital nurse for griping about job conditions.

Congratulations to Hillary Rodham Clinton for giving a neede lecture on free speech to Sheldon Hackney, the president of the University of Pennsylvania who is her husband's choice to direct the National Endowment for the Humanities. Dr. Hackney is embroiled in racial controversies that have hit his Ivy League institution in part because it has attempted to foist an elaborate speech limitation code on its students and faculty."We must always uphold the idea of our colleges as incubators of ideas and havens for free speech and free thought," the First Lady declared at a Penn commencement this week.

There's been a plethora of rudeness on display in the news recently, and frankly, it makes me want to scream: "Why can't you people just sit down and shut up!?" But I won't do that, because that is precisely the sort of outburst that ought to be smothered in the interest of decorum. Look, I'm all for free speech and self-expression, but I think it's about time we brought that old skeleton out of the family closet: Uncle Repression. And let's not stop there - let's release all his banished relatives, including the Restraint Cousins and the Inhibition Sisters.

COLLEGE PARK - More than 100 students cheered swashbuckling and sex-crazed pirates in a pornographic film that screened at the University of Maryland on Monday night - a film that, at various points in the past week, state lawmakers and the university tried to suppress. University administrators, who canceled a planned showing of Pirates II: Stagnetti's Revenge last week after lawmakers threatened to withhold funding, reversed their position Monday and allowed the screening as long as it included an educational component.

DENVER - Free speech at the Democratic National Convention this week is where you find it. Near Market Street, maybe, not far from the Pepsi Center, where delegates hear party pronouncements in well-scripted speeches. Here, a nicely dressed man reads aloud feverishly from the Bible, as if the end were near. No one seems to be listening. On the opposite corner stands a woman calling herself Nuclia Waste, representing a magazine called 5,280. (A mile-high periodical - get it?) She draws a few curiosity seekers.

America has plenty of flaws - just look at how it elects a president. But for something to feel good about, consider this: When you learn that a magazine is on trial for, among other things, injuring the "dignity, feelings and self-respect" of a certain group of people, you can be sure such a thing isn't happening in the U.S. We often hear that America's stature is in decline, but it still seems as if the whole world drinks Coke, watches Lost and yearns...

State Sen. Andy Harris might not be peppering Maryland's 1st District with campaign signs yet, but the Republican congressional hopeful plans to take advantage of a court ruling that eliminates time limits for candidates' displays on private property. The Harris signs that sprang up along U.S. 50 on the Eastern Shore during the Memorial Day weekend will probably stay up a while longer with no threat of fines because a U.S. district judge has struck down local laws that restrict the amount of time that campaign literature can be displayed, Harris said.

Westboro verdict is likely to stand With due respect to the constitutional scholars quoted in "Reversal likely in protest verdict" (Nov. 2), I think the verdict in the Snyder family's suit against the Westboro Baptist Church is likely to withstand a First Amendment free speech challenge, although the $10.9 million damage award may be reduced. Unlike many of the Supreme Court's free speech precedents, the Snyder case does not involve a public figure, a criminal prosecution or prior restraint on speech by the government.

WASHINGTON -- Among Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Andrew Meyer and Lawrence Summers, the world has been treated recently to a carnival of free expression as our most treasured right was exercised on university campuses. Or wasn't. Depending. Free speech isn't quite free, as it turns out. Nor is its exercise evenly enjoyed. Here's the breakdown: In New York on Monday, the president of Iran - a liar who denies the Holocaust, sponsors terror and abuses human rights - spoke at Columbia University.

It's probably fair to say that if school authorities in Juneau, Alaska, had kept cooler heads, the odd case of a high school student who was suspended for holding an irreverent banner on a public sidewalk might not have developed into a major free speech case before the U.S. Supreme Court. In oral argument Monday, some of the justices raised troubling questions suggesting a willingness to narrow student free speech rights. This should not be a hard case that makes bad law. In 2002, Joseph Frederick, an 18-year-old senior, and other students at Juneau-Douglas High School had been excused from class to watch the Olympic torch relay as it moved through the city.

Boy, talk about learning something new every day. The URL for the Web site is www.savejustin. org. The "Justin" in this case is one Justin Park, who with two ads inviting students to a "Halloween in the Hood" party set off the biggest dispute on the Johns Hopkins University campus in years. University officials recently suspended Park until the spring semester of 2008 for posting the ads, which some claim were racially offensive. (Park referred to Baltimore as an "hiv pit" and used terms like "hoochie hoops" and "bling."

A campus debate over race relations is evolving into one on free speech as a group of Johns Hopkins University students protested yesterday what they believe is the school's excessive punishment of a student for posting a "Halloween in the Hood" party invitation online. The students, who have launched a Web site and petition drive in support of suspended junior Justin H. Park, say the university is caving in to public pressure to protect its image, rather than protecting one of its own. "This is a violation of the school's moral obligation for free speech on campus," said Lars Trautman, a junior who joined more than 30 students waving signs at a rally yesterday.