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Head of Columbia's First Amendment Institute Backs Censoring Conservatives
frontpagemag ^ | May 28, 2020 | Daniel Greenfield

Posted on 05/30/2020 2:59:17 PM PDT by MarvinStinson

The reaction by old-time liberal civil liberties institutions to Big Tech monopolies censoring conservatives has been, "Faster, Please."

That's because they've become lefty facades with zero interests in their own founding missions.

Here's the Knight First Amendment Institute.

“This order is an effort to intimidate technology companies from using tools that are indispensable to protecting the integrity of public discourse online,” Jameel Jaffer, executive director at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, said in a statement. Parts of Trump’s proposed order “raise additional constitutional concerns, since they seem to contemplate that the government will investigate and punish internet service providers for decisions that are protected by the First Amendment.”

The First Amendment protects free speech. It doesn't protect the decision of platforms to selectively censor content while maintaining monopolies on access. There's no First Amendment right for AT&T to interrupt phone calls by conservatives.

The First Amendment is meant to protect free public discourse. A handful of companies monopolizing the public marketplace and then reshaping it in line with their own politics poses a primal threat and should face anti-trust action.

But more significantly, Jaffer's argument about "protecting the integrity of public discourse online" is the oppose of the First Amendment.

It's a censorship argument.

Jameel Jaffer is an ACLU vet who became famous for litigating over Gitmo Islamist terrorists, assorted actions against Islamic terrorists, and filing a petition for a visa for Tariq Ramadan, the Islamist rapist. He celebrated Ramadan with Obama at the White House.

This is what lefty First Amendment advocacy looks like now.


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: censoring; columbia; conservatives; freespeech; technotyranny

1 posted on 05/30/2020 2:59:17 PM PDT by MarvinStinson
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To: MarvinStinson

Jameel Jaffer
Adjunct Professor of Law and Journalism

Jameel Jaffer is the executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University.

Prior to joining the Knight Institute, he was deputy legal director at the American Civil Liberties Union and director of the ACLU’s Center for Democracy, where he oversaw the ACLU’s work relating to free speech, privacy, technology, national security, and international human rights.


2 posted on 05/30/2020 3:05:03 PM PDT by MarvinStinson
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To: MarvinStinson

Ted Olson is on the Board of the Knight Institute.
Ted?
Ted?
…you there buddy?


3 posted on 05/30/2020 3:06:39 PM PDT by Ouchthatonehurt
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To: MarvinStinson

protecting the integrity of public discourse”

LOL


4 posted on 05/30/2020 3:09:08 PM PDT by stuckincali
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To: MarvinStinson

“Jaffer grew up in Canada, and is a graduate of Upper Canada College, a private school in Toronto.[4] Jaffer received his bachelor’s degree from Williams College in 1994, his master’s degree from the University of Cambridge in 1996, and his Juris Doctor degree from Harvard Law School in 1999, where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review.[5] After graduating from Harvard, Jaffer served as a law clerk to the Rt. Hon. Beverley McLachlin, the then-Chief Justice of Canada.[3]”


5 posted on 05/30/2020 3:10:27 PM PDT by Paladin2
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To: MarvinStinson

he needs packing off back to Canada from whence he came...

https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2013/01/15/how_a_lawyer_from_canada_became_a_leading_critic_of_us_national_security_policies.html


6 posted on 05/30/2020 3:10:59 PM PDT by mo ("If you understand, no explanation is needed; if you don't understand, no explanation is possible")
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To: MarvinStinson

All you need to know about free-speech is to look at the most dynamic free and widespread media in the world and that is radio

Liberals and leftists have never and can never make it in the TRU Arena of ideas - talk radio

They have tried and tried and tried but after Rush Limbaugh debuted the modern format 1989 here we sit some 30 years later and there are zero I mean zero national liberal talk shows

Alan combs used to be the only one I found even stomach a while back in the day

There are thousands of conservative shows and at least twenty majors

Rush. Levin. Hannity. Gallagher. Batchelor. Many more

So naturally they want to shut us down

No sir. ! MORE SPEECH


7 posted on 05/30/2020 3:11:34 PM PDT by Truthoverpower (The guv-mint you get is the Trump winning express ! Yea haw ! Trump pence II!)
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To: MarvinStinson
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Unless needed to protect the integrity of public discourse. This is self evident.
8 posted on 05/30/2020 3:19:11 PM PDT by yuleeyahoo (The nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master and deserves one. Hamilton)
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To: MarvinStinson
“This order is an effort to intimidate technology companies from using tools that are indispensable to protecting the integrity of public discourse online,” Jameel Jaffer, executive director at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, said in a statement.

Fire Jameel Jaffer or close the school and send everyone home.

The purpose of the First Amendment is to let people say things you may not want to hear. Shutting them up is censorship in violation of the First Amendment.

Pretending that you are providing a neutral platform while controlling the discourse destroys the integrity of public discourse. That is what is going on with Twitter and Facebook is it not?

9 posted on 05/30/2020 3:39:59 PM PDT by olezip
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To: yuleeyahoo
Unless needed to protect the integrity of public discourse. This is self evident.

Having the government censor speech you don't like is in the First Penumbra, just before the G-d given right for abortions, and to have the government pay for them.

Mark

10 posted on 05/30/2020 5:25:50 PM PDT by MarkL (Do I really look like a guy with a plan?)
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