Free Republic

Mention the 1st Amendment and an array of images come to mind: a printing press, a protest sign, a street-corner preacher, the fingers of a citizen journalist pecking out a bulletin for the blogosphere. Now there is another icon of free expression: the illustrated man (or woman). Last week the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled — correctly — that tattoos are a form of protected expression and that the city of Hermosa Beach may not impose a blanket ban on tattoo parlors. The decision arose from a challenge by a tattooist to the city's municipal code, which allows...

The Colorado State University student newspaper is under fire after publishing a two-word editorial statement about President Bush. The Rocky Mountain Collegian published the editorial on its Sept. 21 opinion page, saying "Taser this .. (expletive) BUSH." University officials released a statement explaining their concern for response to the editorial, and that it has no control over its student media. “While we understand (the editorial) is upsetting and offensive to many people, CSU is prohibited by law from censoring or regulating the content of its student media publications,” CSU said in a written statement. The newspaper’s editor-in-chief wrote a letter...

Men videotaped vandalizing sign Summit elections official catches culprits tearing down Bush-Cheney poster By Marilyn Miller and Andale Gross Beacon Journal staff writers Two men who tore down a Bush-Cheney sign and urinated on it were caught on videotape by Summit County Republican officials early Friday morning. The videotape shows the men sneaking into the yard of a West Market Street home and bending the sign to the ground. The men struggled to rip the sign out of the ground by shaking it and pulling it but couldn't get it off the posts, so they knocked it down. Sounds heard...

Posted on Sat, Oct. 09, 2004 Two men who tore down a Bush-Cheney sign and urinated on it were caught on videotape by Summit County Republican officials early Friday morning. Watch the video

GENEVA — Worried over U.S. domination, a group of developing nations wants to put control of the Internet into the hands of the United Nations, an issue that likely will overshadow a summit on information technology opening today. Key decisions on Internet issues, such as domain names and addresses, now reside in a private agency spun off from the U.S. government — and the United States wants to keep it that way. But if countries do not think their concerns are adequately heard by the Internet's key decision-makers, a U.N. official warned yesterday, they may create conflicting national policies and...