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Los Angeles Times Op-Ed: 'Innocence of Muslims' doesn't meet free-speech test
Los Angeles Times ^ | 09/18/2012 | Sarah Chayes

Posted on 09/18/2012 6:37:04 AM PDT by SeekAndFind

U.S. 1st Amendment rights distinguish between speech that is simply offensive and speech deliberately tailored to put lives and property at immediate risk.

In one of the most famous 1st Amendment cases in U.S. history, Schenck vs. United States, Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. established that the right to free speech in the United States is not unlimited. "The most stringent protection," he wrote on behalf of a unanimous court, "would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic."

Holmes' test — that words are not protected if their nature and circumstances create a "clear and present danger" of harm — has since been tightened. But even under the more restrictive current standard, "Innocence of Muslims," the film whose video trailer indirectly led to the death of U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens among others, is not, arguably, free speech protected under the U.S. Constitution and the values it enshrines.

According to initial media investigations, the clip whose most egregious lines were apparently dubbed in after it was shot, was first posted to YouTube in July by someone with the user name "Sam Bacile." The Associated Press reported tracing a cellphone number given as Bacile's to the address of a Californian of Egyptian Coptic origin named Nakoula Basseley Nakoula. Nakoula has identified himself as coordinating logistics on the production but denies being Bacile.

According to the Wall Street Journal, when the video failed to attract much attention, another Coptic Christian, known for his anti-Islamic activism, sent a link to reporters in the U.S., Egypt and elsewhere on Sept. 6. His email message promoted a Sept. 11 event by anti-Islamic pastor Terry Jones and included a link to the trailer.

(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Front Page News; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: 911ii; christopherstevens; enemedia; firstamendment; freespeech; islam; latimes; muslims; ruling; schenck; wagthevideo
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To: Rummyfan

I’ll bet she wears “sensible shoes” (thank you Michael Savage).


41 posted on 09/18/2012 7:03:48 AM PDT by JohnnyP
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To: SeekAndFind

There is quite a difference between the real danger posed by a fire in a crowded theater and the irrational, emotional reaction of irrational people thousands of miles away to nothing but words or images.

If speech in the US must be limited by how irrational nutcases in any part of the world might react, then we are allowing the most irrational people on earth to determine what our freedoms should be.


42 posted on 09/18/2012 7:03:51 AM PDT by Will88
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To: utahagen
“Or does the First Amendment depend entirely on non violent listeners?”

Exactly! I can imagine a situation now, where someone shouts "filet mignon" at a vegan convention and the resulting stampede and rioting results in any words referencing meat products to now be hate speech and not protected by the 1st Amendment.

We are either right on the edge or over the edge where foolishness is becoming the law and subjugation is being mistaken for peace.
43 posted on 09/18/2012 7:05:31 AM PDT by ScubieNuc (When there is no justice in the laws, justice is left to the outlaws.)
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According to this asswipe, murder and terrorism are justifiable methods for repressing Constitutional Liberties.

Not only will the Marxist regime conceal terrorism under the veil of a possible false flag, good chance they’ll consider signing onto International law that prohibits the denigration of Islam.


44 posted on 09/18/2012 7:06:45 AM PDT by Gene Eric (Demoralization is a weapon of the enemy. Don't get it, don't spread it!)
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To: SeekAndFind
Didn't know there was such a thing as a "free speech test"... would that be akin to, "if liberals don't like what you say but will fight to the death your right to say it" test?
45 posted on 09/18/2012 7:07:08 AM PDT by dps.inspect (rage against the Obama machine...)
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To: Will88

Might just as well let Rageboy be our censor....

46 posted on 09/18/2012 7:08:19 AM PDT by Rummyfan (Iraq: it's not about Iraq anymore, it's about the USA!)
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To: SeekAndFind

Free speech test? Hey, if you don’t like free speech, go to a nice Muslim country or go to Cuba. Just don’t decide to come back!


47 posted on 09/18/2012 7:08:48 AM PDT by NRA1995 (I'll cling to my religion, cigars and guns till they're pried from my cold dead fingers!)
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To: Rummyfan

Those eyebrows are, well, manly I guess...


48 posted on 09/18/2012 7:09:45 AM PDT by dps.inspect (rage against the Obama machine...)
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To: Rummyfan
Another photo:

Nice smirk, huh?

I remember her mother from the 1970s (Antonia Handler Chayes). She was an Undersecretary of Defense for Carter. She pushed the rail-mobile MX system in Utah, to much opposition.

It's a weird family, but one commenter on another site got it rite: the woman is an egomaniac.

Her only real job in life was being an NPR reporter, and that probably says all we need to know, but she has written some good commentary about the prevalence of massively corrupt "mafia governments" throughout the so-called developing world.

All in all a strange mix of neo-Bolshevist politics and warped sensibilities about the use of power.

That she thinks she can chatter-speak the First Amendment out of existence where it isn't convenient for her shows her to be just another Leftist thugette in the end.

49 posted on 09/18/2012 7:11:26 AM PDT by Regulator
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To: SeekAndFind

This author is a jackass. To sum up the logic, free speech is there to protect the violent, but not the non-violent.

Islam is a pestilence upon the world, as are their bedmates, the Socialists


50 posted on 09/18/2012 7:11:56 AM PDT by MarineBrat (Better dead than red!)
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To: SeekAndFind

Typical chickensh*t liberal, doesn’t leave an e-mail address. Sounds like she’d be happy in a Muslim country where she could be publicly flogged for saying the wrong thing.


51 posted on 09/18/2012 7:12:49 AM PDT by NRA1995 (I'll cling to my religion, cigars and guns till they're pried from my cold dead fingers!)
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To: SeekAndFind

Sarah Chayes, former NPR correspondent

52 posted on 09/18/2012 7:16:51 AM PDT by kcvl
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Sarah Chayes is the daughter of law professor and Kennedy administration member Abram Chayes and his wife Antonia Handler Chayes. She graduated from Phillips Academy, Andover, in 1980, and Harvard University in 1984, with a degree in history. She later served in the Peace Corps in Morocco, returning to Harvard to earn a master’s degree in history and Middle Eastern studies, specializing in the medieval Islamic period. She has lived in Kandahar, Afghanistan since 2002, and can speak the Pashto language.

Chayes wrote an op-ed published in the International Herald Tribune July 10, 2007 arguing that NATO was not to blame for the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan. “When things go wrong, it is typical to blame the equipment, or the help. In the case of the unraveling situation in Afghanistan, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has become the favorite whipping boy of American officials. In fact, after watching rotation after military rotation cycle through here since late 2001, I see NATO as an improvement over its American predecessors.”


53 posted on 09/18/2012 7:20:15 AM PDT by kcvl
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To: SeekAndFind

Don’t recall the “Test” part of the First Amendment.


54 posted on 09/18/2012 7:21:14 AM PDT by Uncle Miltie (You didn't build that. The private sector is doing fine. We tried our plan and it worked.)
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To: SeekAndFind

Oh please there are much more offensive things out on Youtube that could rile Muslims up.

Like Ann Barnhardt reading and burning a Koran that she had bookmarked, with raw bacon.


55 posted on 09/18/2012 7:25:58 AM PDT by NeoCaveman ("If I had a son he'd look like B.O.'s lunch" - Rin Tin Tin)
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To: SeekAndFind
Interesting precedent they are setting here.

Think outside the box, and we can use this against them.

Play the game, don't get gamed.

56 posted on 09/18/2012 7:25:58 AM PDT by redgolum ("God is dead" -- Nietzsche. "Nietzsche is dead" -- God.)
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Sarah Chayes is a senior associate in the South Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment. Formerly special adviser to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, she is an expert in South Asia policy, kleptocracy and anti-corruption, and civil-military relations. She is working on correlations between acute public corruption and the rise of militant extremism.

A former reporter, she covered the fall of the Taliban for National Public Radio

In 2009, she was tapped to serve as special adviser to Generals David McKiernan and Stanley McChrystal, commanders of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).

In 2010, Chayes became special adviser to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, contributing to strategic policy on Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the Arab Spring.

http://carnegieendowment.org/experts/index.cfm?fa=expert_view&expert_id=712

Carnegie Endowment

Board of Trustees

Kofi A. Annan, Former Secretary-General of the United Nations

Bill Bradley, Managing Director, Allen & Company

William H. Donaldson, Chairman of Donaldson Enterprises and 27th Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission

Raymond McGuire, Head, Global Banking, Citi

Richard Giordano
Chairman
Chairman of the Board, Retired, BG Group Plc

Stephen R. Lewis, Jr.
Vice Chairman

President Emeritus and Professor of Economics Emeritus at Carleton College


57 posted on 09/18/2012 7:27:00 AM PDT by kcvl
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Sarah Chayes is a senior associate in the South Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment. Formerly special adviser to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, she is an expert in South Asia policy, kleptocracy and anti-corruption, and civil-military relations. She is working on correlations between acute public corruption and the rise of militant extremism.

A former reporter, she covered the fall of the Taliban for National Public Radio

In 2009, she was tapped to serve as special adviser to Generals David McKiernan and Stanley McChrystal, commanders of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).

In 2010, Chayes became special adviser to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, contributing to strategic policy on Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the Arab Spring.

http://carnegieendowment.org/experts/index.cfm?fa=expert_view&expert_id=712

Carnegie Endowment

Board of Trustees

Kofi A. Annan, Former Secretary-General of the United Nations

Bill Bradley, Managing Director, Allen & Company

William H. Donaldson, Chairman of Donaldson Enterprises and 27th Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission

Raymond McGuire, Head, Global Banking, Citi

Richard Giordano
Chairman
Chairman of the Board, Retired, BG Group Plc

Stephen R. Lewis, Jr.
Vice Chairman

President Emeritus and Professor of Economics Emeritus at Carleton College


58 posted on 09/18/2012 7:27:03 AM PDT by kcvl
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To: SeekAndFind

So the LA Times is openly taking the position that everyone should know Muslims are subhuman garbage who are incapable of reason and they will go into a homicidal rage if you challenge their assinine religion? Is that what I’m reading?

Does that mean they also believe America should limit immigration from Muslim countries?


59 posted on 09/18/2012 7:27:05 AM PDT by The Toll
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To: SeekAndFind
This is the DUMBEST attempt at reasoning I've ever read!

We better get something straight right now in this country, Speech Is Free no matter who speaks or what is said! If you try to take this inalienable right away from me I will defend myself!

The left has been allowed TOO MUCH POWER to define words into HATE speech and will find out soon enough if they keep going down this road these dumbasses are not going to like what happens at all!

60 posted on 09/18/2012 7:28:04 AM PDT by sirchtruth (Freedom is not free.)
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