Free Speech in the Age of Terrorism
“>Newt Gingrich, one of my favorite conservatives, opened a controversy by saying
“Either before we lose a city, or, if we are truly stupid, after we lose a city, we will adopt rules of engagement that use every technology we can find to break up [terrorists'] capacity to use the Internet, to break up their capacity to use free speech [protections] and to go after people who want to kill us — to stop them from recruiting people before they get to reach out and convince young people to destroy their lives while destroying us.”“There has been little attention drawn to any of the many websites dedicated to training and recruiting terrorists, including a recent one that promises to train terrorists “to use the Internet for the sake of jihad.”
No mention of efforts by terrorist groups like Hezbollah to build “franchises” among leftist, anti-globalization groups worldwide, especially in Latin America.
Words as Weapons
The fact is not all speech is permitted under the Constitution. The 1st Amendment does not protect lewd and libelous speech, and it should not — and cannot in 2006 — be used as a shield for murderers…
We need a serious dialogue — not knee-jerk hysteria — about the 1st Amendment, what it protects and what it should not protect. Here are a few baseline principles to consider:
We should be allowed to close down websites that recruit suicide bombers and provide instructions to indiscriminately kill civilians by suicide or other means, or advocate killing people from the West or the destruction of Western civilization;
We should propose a Geneva-like convention for fighting terrorism that makes very clear that those who would fight outside the rules of law, those who would use weapons of mass destruction and those who would target civilians are in fact subject to a totally different set of rules that allow us to protect civilization by defeating barbarism before it gains so much strength that it is truly horrendous. A subset of this convention should define the international rules of engagement on what activities will not be protected by free speech claims; and
We need an expeditious review of current domestic law to see what changes can be made within the protections of the 1st Amendment to ensure that free speech protection claims are not used to protect the advocacy of terrorism, violent conduct or the killing of innocents.
Frankly I am not clear what I think about this. While I am fine with methods to intercept people with bad intent I am concerned if that person is interpreted as someone like me who objects to President Bush taking away Habeas Corpus.
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You can be opposed to taking away habeus corpus. It’s just, after the Newt-empowered take away your First Amendment rights, you won’t be able to say so.
Who needs the Constitution to protect us? Freedom permeates the groundwater here in America. The founding fathers just put all that lawyerspeak in the Constitution so that our elected officials could look tough by removing it. Washington, Jefferson, Adams et al…those guys were PR geniuses.
I am not a lawyer, but I think there is ample room in existing laws to do most of the things Gingrich mentions. For instance, RICO seems like it might be useful in some cases. But why the rush to weaken the First Amendment, Mr. Gingrich?
I have no problem with convening new Geneva Conventions for the sake of hammering out how international responses to terrorism might differ from the treatment laid out in the existing Conventions. But given our status in the world right now, I’m not so sure the U.S. could positively affect the debate in the same ways we might have a few years ago.
Actually, I believe that due to politics, more has been skewed and misrepresented about terrorism and what is really and threat and what is just hype.
What we need is for someone of intellegence and honesty to assess the situation and tell the truth. From that we can decide how much is too much.
I honestly think it is less and not as ‘evil’ as they make it out to be. Yes, Osama Bin did a dirty deed but, he is now ill in a cave and frankly, it takes alot of money to pull off a big thing like that.
We need alot more common sense and less imagining to deal with this.
Newt will never be president. #1 He’s named after a lizard. #2 There was that little corrupt bucks for books deal of his.
But what makes Newt different from most Cons, such as Katherine Harris, is that he actually thinks instead of throwing around the GOP’s hackneyed mantras.
That siad, rightwing-extremist Republicans have an absolutely awful record on the 1st Amendment. It’s quite obvious that they despise the 1st Amendment and the U.S. Constitution. In a nutshell they’re using the war on terrorism as a justification for fascism.
So many points. However just to play devil’s adovate. When the “terrorist” sites are banned because they do not subscribe to an ideology adopted by a state, does that not infringe upon the rights of an individual to inform themselves or make their own decisions?
Censorship is a very slippery slope. If there is power to censor some, what stops the powers that be from censoring other material that they would rather the public did not know about.
The Internet is a record of humanity and whether you like it or not, the jihad sites will always be there and there will always be ways for people to access them if they really want to. Turning off the sites does not make them go away. It is not addressing the actual issue of why opposition to the US is so strong.
“We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people. ” ~John F. Kennedy
Perhaps America has changed…
Tom Joad
http://humanopinion.org – creating a digital human record
Well Newt, the constitution isn’t like your ex-wife. You can’t throw it out any time you find suitable.
Frankly you all, even though I identify as left-of-center, I was uncomfortable reading your posts. “That siad, rightwing-extremist Republicans have an absolutely awful record on the 1st Amendment. It’s quite obvious that they despise the 1st Amendment and the U.S. Constitution. In a nutshell they’re using the war on terrorism as a justification for fascism.” This is an example of what I judge to be right-baiting — even though I substantially agree with it.
To get on with the Newt suggestions: Am I wrong in believing that the International Criminal Court was intended to give teeth to international criminal law? Clinton signed on at the end of his term (thus dodging any potential prosecution for his own adventures), and Bush withdrew as a signatory (don’t know if it’s legal, but who’d make it stick if the US breaks the law? Didn’t think so.). I think that the way to deal with terrorism is by arming Special Forces squads that work for an International Criminal Court, and requiring all countries to become signatories so it has enforcement powers. People will shout “world government” and “US sovereign rights”, and they’ll be correct: I would prefer to incorporate the US into a global federation that holds our values, rather than see us eclipsed by China and incorporated into their hegemonic system. Or an Islamic Caliphate, though I believe that to be substantially less likely. The short version of all this is, “we’ve got a global institution that could be used for exactly what Newt’s talking about — why not use that, instead of talking about a new Geneva Convention and suspending the Bill of Rights?” I think Newt’s answer, were he honest, would be, “American politicians and commanders would have to answer for civilian casualties in illegal wars just as Iranian politicians and commanders would. This is unacceptable.” Would anyone care to correct me, to clarify or defend Newt’s position?
response to: (NT White 12.4.2006 10:11pm)
You make some valid points. Newt’s ideas sound good, but what I find problematic is that Repubs like to pick and choose which “terrorists” and terrorists groups to go after. Newt referred to “people who want to kill us.” How about anti-abortion, white supremist, or militia groups who threaten physical harm to people? You rarely, if ever, hear Republicans refer to those people as terrorists, though they certainly are. The heart of most terrorism is thousands of Middle Class people around the world who fund it. If Republicans were really interested in fighting a genuine war on terror, they’d go after those who are funding terrorism. If you can’t fund terrorism, you can train potential terrorists. Until warmonger Republicans start walkin’ the walk – i.e. Newt didn’t even serve in the U.S. military) instead of starting wars for oil or PNAC, any anti-terrorism measures they propose should be perceived with skepticism. Let’s call a spade a spade. The war in Iraq is a war on a poor, Muslim country. Tony Blair even referred to it as a “Crusade.” That was no mistake on his part. F Newt. I’m glad he’s out of politics.
Yay, someone actually looking at the original speech rather than the simple “Attack on the First Amendment!” spiel.
Most of these suggestions are already common practice: incitement to violence has never been protected by the First. Since gang membership has been successfully prosecuted under the VCCA/VCRA, membership in a terrorist group is not protected by the “freedom of association” clause.
Of course the poster using the name Tom Joad misrepresents what the terrorist sites do. They do not simply represent opinions that our government might not like. They are used to plan the murders of innocent human beings or at the least to recruit people to commit those crimes. That isn’t simply expressing an opinion. It crosses a line that has been recognized for years as an exception to First Amendment rights.
It may well have been – but there are a few problems. In at least some cases, the judges appear to be more intent at advancing political causes than worrying about objective law, for example. Unfortunately, not every nation really buys into the idea that the law is some pristine ideal to which all should be subject. Thus, the ICC becomes just another club to bash one’s enemies.
Those would be criminals, and are under the jurisdiction of the United States, making them amenable to being addressed by police action – and the total number of people killed or wounded by all of those groups combined pales before those killed regularly by terrorist attacks. It is more than reasonable to focus on those who act outside of the jurisdiction of a nation willing to bring them under control, especially when they attack citizens of other nations.
The thing is … both of those things *are illegal*. That’s just smokescreen for what Newt really wants, which is control over the populace.
And you know this… how? Are you a mentalist? It seems to me that claims to be able to read minds are hardly conducive to what I understand to be the spirit of this site.
I guess laws against planning murders aren’t good enough anymore. It’s really a shame.