First Amendment

Anti-Islamic Subway Ad Scuffle: Time To Pick Sides

It took just over 24 hours for several subway ads featuring an offensive, anti-Islamic message were vandalized, which, somehow, has led to a debate about the First Amendment, as apparent in the comment section of our story abut the vandals posted yesterday.The entire debate is a bit of an enigma/com ... More >>

Ads Calling Islamic Jihadists "Savages" Hit NYC Subways. Related: "Making Graffiti" Only A Misdemeanor In New York

Just in time for day one of the meeting of the United Nations' General Assembly -- when people from across the world will be in the Big Apple to see how civilized and accepting New Yorkers are -- an ad campaign is going up in the New York City subway system that calls Muslim jihadists "savages."We w ... More >>

Obama's NDAA Law Allowing Indefinite Military Detention of Citizens Ruled Unconstitutional

The Obama administration's efforts to enshrine sweeping 9/11-era rollbacks of civil liberties and constitutional rights as federal law hit a serious roadblock yesterday, as a federal judge struck down clauses of the National Defense Authorization Act as unconstitutional. The offending section of th ... More >>

Anonymous Online Speech: Soon To Be Banned by Albany?

The Voice's Steven Thrasher just brought this to our attention. Legislation is pending in Albany that would make illegal anonymous online commenting, City & State tweeted this morning. Looks like Wired was among the first to report on the measure. The bill's backers, according to the mag, want ... More >>

Here's Why Thomas F. O'Mara and Dean Murray Want To Ban Anonymous Online Speech

Earlier today, the Voice brought you news of pending legislation in Albany that would make New York-based websites, such as blogs and newspapers, "remove any comments posted on his or her website by an anonymous poster unless such anonymous poster agrees to attach his or her name to the post." For ... More >>

Rush Limbaugh Loses More Than 30 Advertisers Over "Slut" Remark

Rush Limbaugh famously used his syndicated radio show to call Georgetown U student Sandra Fluke, who's in favor of Obama's birth control policy, a "slut" and a "prostitute." Rush profusely apologized, but the advertisers aren't buying it and they're dropping like discontented little corporate flies ... More >>

Gasland Filmmaker Joshua Fox Arrested at Fracking Hearing, by Order of House Republicans

In an unprecedented move, House Republicans had a filmmaker arrested yesterday after he showed up to a public congressional hearing. The House Subcommittee on Energy and Environment was meeting to discuss the controversial topic of hydraulic fracturing, colloquially known as "fracking." When Joshua ... More >>

Mayor Michael "No One is a Bigger Defender of the First Amendment Than I Am" Bloomberg on Why He Raided Zuccotti Park

​We woke up to a text message this morning from a friend of ours that has been sleeping at Zuccotti Park over the past couple week which read, "Cops using sound weapons on us. good thing I bought ear plugs." Here's Mayor Michael ("No one is a bigger defender of the First Amendment than I am")B ... More >>

Information Wants to Be Free, Etc., in Barbershop Punk

Korilla BBQ Booted From The Great Food Truck Race for Cheating

​Oh, Korilla, say it ain't so! The Korean BBQ truck, whose chosun bowls we are so very fond of, has been kicked off of The Great Food Truck Race for cheating.

Where Are Wikileaks' Media Friends?

​Where are the First Amendment's establishment warriors as government-spooked businesses try to shut down Wikileaks? Hackers with computers, not hacks with press passes, have been the first line of resistance. More to come. Michael Lacey Executive Editor, Village Voice Media

Saving Free Speech and Jesus

Religious and conservative groups support the 'Bong Hits 4 Jesus' banner under fire at the Supreme Court

Letters

Joe Frederick, First Amendment Idol

Will the Supreme Court hold high the banner 'Bong Hits 4 Jesus,' or crush free speech?

Afraid of Freedom?

Backtracking on warrantless surveillance, president still scorns privacy rights.

The Enemy Within

Journalists, under fire today by the Bush White House, have been the enemy before

Putting God in His Place

New Jersey student-warrior for the Constitution gets a death threat

Mugging the Minutemen

Forcibly silenced, an invited speaker at Columbia has not been invited back.

Learning Why We're Americans

Schools fail the future when they don't teach individual liberties in the Constitution

To Gays: Don't Mourn, Organize!

8 to 0 Supreme Court decision doesn't end the fight against 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell'

Hey, FCC: OK?

What First Amendment? What Public Information? And What's News in Brooklyn?

Whose Academic Freedom?

Do Columbia professors abuse free inquiry when they intimidate disagreeing students?

Theater

When Reading the 'Wrong' Books May Lead to a Sentence

Letters

Supreme Court's Gag Rule on Us

'The Powerful Have Only Gotten More Powerful'

First Amendment Treats for the Rich

The Media Blew This One Big-Time

The War on a Rack

Publishers Say They're Being Harassed by NYC

Things We Lost in the Fire

While the Ruins of the World Trade Center Smoldered, the Bush Administration Launched an Assault on the Constitution

Porn Again

The Supreme Court Has Overturned a Ban on Virtual Child Pornography. Hot?

Judge Ross vs. Free Speech

Disorderly Conduct by Whom?

Eyeing What You Read

FBI in Libraries and Bookstores

The Return of Censorship

War Means Never Having to Tell the Truth

Chilling Free Speech on Campuses

Sensitivity Above All?

Supremes Secretly Stiff the Press

We Could Be Heroes

The Deceiving of Black Students

Are They Africans or Americans?

Sex Out of the City?

The ‘Times’ Reenters the Porn War

Philadelphia

Supreme Court vs. Harold Levy

An Association Is a ‘Voice’

Should the Boy Scouts Be Pariahs?

Must the NAACP Include Racists?

Down By Law

When Movie Moguls Wage War to Protect Copyright, the First Amendment Ends Up on the Cutting Room Floor

Racism and Free Speech

Does a Rocker Lurk in You?

Frederick Wiseman's Fair Game

Subjectively Speaking

The Scorned Law Professor

'Freedom to Speak Is Not Freedom to Kill'

Can a Book Murder?

Sue the Messenger, Part One

Rash of Lawsuits Shows No One Trusts the Media

A True Threat Is Not Free Speech

Targeted Doctor Wears a Bulletproof Vest

Language Barrier

On the Net, Talk Is Cheap but It Isn't Free

How Free Can Speech Be?

The Names of Murdered Doctors Are Crossed Out

Keep Your Eye on Malik Shabazz

'Khallid Muhammad Makes the Jews Pee in Their Pants at Night'