Federal Judge: Profanely Insulting An Entire Town On A Speeding Ticket Is Protected Speech

from the f#*@-yeah dept

Do you remember Willian Barboza? No? He was the un-creative but quite profane young man who, upon being pulled over for speeding the laughably-named Liberty, New York, mailed in his ticket and fine with these wonderful words of wisdom scrawled across the top.

Fine, so Barboza isn't exactly Robert Frost. Still, his admittedly vulgar etchings probably weren't reason enough for the city to refuse his payment and subsequently charge him with harrassment under a horribly unconstitutional law. The city went that route anyway, though, and the matter went before a court, where the judge dismissed the charges against Barboza, as his profanity upon the ticket was obviously protected speech. I had thought that was the end of the story. I was wrong.

Shortly after that, Barboza, with the help of the New York Civil Liberties Union and attorney Stephen Bergstein, filed a lawsuit against the town of Liberty, assistant district attorney Robert Zangla and the two officers who arrested Barboza. The suit alleged that the arrest had violated Barboza's First Amendment right to free speech.

Barboza's attorneys argued that officials in Liberty had seriously misinterpreted New York's aggravated harassment statute. The statute says it's against the law for a person to "harass, annoy, threaten or alarm” someone "by telephone, by telegraph, or by mail, or by transmitting or delivering any other form of written communication." But Seibel said Thursday that what Barboza wrote, "though crude and offensive to some, did not convey an imminent threat and was made in the context of complaining about government activity," and therefore did not violate the statute.

And, frankly, it's hard to argue with his attorneys. The wonderful thing about free speech is that the speech is free even if the listener doesn't like it. The city's attempt to twist a harrassment law into the kind of pretzel that allows it to silence the criticism of government or law enforcement was deplorable and not befitting a town that takes the name of Liberty. As a person who relies on language some might find salty in order to make or emphasize a point, it would be a travesty to have to wonder whether simple expression might result in arrest and jail time. I, frankly, can't think of anything more un-American.

The judge hearing Barboza and the NYCLU's case agreed with them completely.

Judge Cathy Seibel said that prosecutors and police in Liberty, New York, violated Willian Barboza's civil rights when they arrested and prosecuted him for writing "Fuck your shitty town bitches" on a ticket he received in 2012. The judge stated that Zangla is liable for damages because he violated Barboza’s clearly established constitutional rights, but that the two police officers are not liable because Zangla instructed them to make the arrest. Seibel also ruled that Liberty will have to stand trial for failing to train police officers regarding the First Amendment.

Perhaps we should be getting the primary schools Zangla went to involved as well, because First Amendment protection is elementary school civics class stuff. Regardless, it's a win for all of us salty-mouthed bastards.

Filed Under: first amendment, free speech, liberty, new york, speeding ticket, willian barboza

UK Crime Agency Boss: 'Yes, The Public Must Give Up Its Liberty If It Wants Security'

from the deserve-neither dept

Last week, the UK Home Secretary pitched the current UK government's plan to ramp up anti-terror laws to further stamp out privacy and free speech rights in the UK. This week, Keith Bristow, director general of the National Crime Agency, doubled down by arguing that he needs to teach the public that of course they need to give up liberty if they want security. He argues that "public consent" is necessary, but that legislation is "public consent" and thus he needs to help convince the public (or, really, Parliament) to cough up some liberty.

He said: “If we seek to operate outside of what the public consent to, that, for me, by definition, is not policing by consent … the consent is expressed through legislation.”

He added that it was necessary to win “the public consent to losing some freedoms in return for greater safety and security”.

And while the famed Ben Franklin quote on "safety" v. "liberty" is mostly used out of context, that doesn't lessen the importance of the premise behind it. Giving up liberty for the sake of presumed (without evidence) security is a very dangerous game, often used by those who just wish for more control and power, not any actual concerns with safety and security.

Filed Under: anti-terror, keith bristow, liberty, national crime agency, privacy, security, surveillance, uk

Wouldn't It Be Something If We Had A President Who Believed In Liberty?

from the to-dream-a-little-dream dept

Dan Gillmor has an absolutely fantastic "wishful thinking" speech he'd love to see from a future Presidential candidate, one in which liberty takes a front seat, rather than is seen as something that needs to be chipped away. Go read the whole thing, but here's a snippet to suck you in:

When people say, "You have nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide," ask them if it's fine to install cameras in their homes, not just in the living room but the bedroom and bathroom. Ask them if they'd mind wearing a microphone and video camera every day, so others can check on what they've said and done.

You are guilty of something. I guarantee it. Lawmakers have created countless new crimes and punishments, and allowed law enforcement to extend old laws in dangerous ways. Have you ever told anything short of the absolute truth when filling out an online form to use some service? We can charge you with a felony for that. And, by the way, we don't need to convict you at trial. If you are a target, we can ruin you financially if you try to defend yourself. This is what we expect in banana republics and police states, not here. And as the surveillance state expands, it will create more targets among people like you.

Our political leaders have made a calculation in recent years. They believe you are too frightened, too cowardly, to face the truth – and that you think liberty is much less important than temporary safety.

We are human. Terrorism unleashes our deepest fears, and our most lethal fury, even though the risk for any one of us is vanishingly low. We must challenge the fear mongers, and ourselves.

Part of the problem we have today is that very few elected officials care about liberty. They care about power, and they believe, incorrectly, that their job involves ditching liberty in an attempt to retain power (which they falsely argue is about "protecting Americans" despite little evidence that the power grab protects anyone but their own interests). It would be an amazing step forward if there were a President who remembered why liberty was such an important issue to our founding fathers.

Filed Under: civil liberties, liberty, politics, president

Trading Lives For Freedom Is The American Way

from the the-balance-sheet dept

As the national discussion about the NSA's secret domestic spying program rolls along, revelation has given way to a vast splintering of argument. By that I mean, the shock of the discovery has since devolved into various discussions about whether the program was needed, what checks and balances oversee it, and how effective it has been. Case in point, the NSA sent Keith Alexander to the Hill with claims that fifty terrorist plots have been thwarted by the program, arguing that keeping Americans safe and alive is all the justification needed for such an endeavor. As some have noted, this is a clear attempt to shift the argument from one of principal to an actuarial one.

Alexander and other witnesses before the House Intelligence Committee made sure to highlight key details of these foiled attacks. Understandably so: The more we focus on the program's successes, the less harshly we might be inclined to judge its alleged excesses. But what exactly is the tradeoff being made here, and how do these revelations address concerns about the potential for NSA over-spying?

That is indeed the question, is it not? Particularly in light of President Obama's assertion that any over-spying in question would be deemed illegal by the government. The same government, mind you, that is committing the illegal acts themselves under the purview of a secretive agency, discussed in secretive committees, and codified by a secretive court. That's the kind of oversight one might call Stalin-esque. As the National Journal rightly continues:

That any abuse of the system would be treated after the fact as a crime doesn't do anything to assuage Americans worrying that the crime is possible in the first place. It's also not outrageous to say, as my colleague Conor Friedersdorf does, that the tradeoff we've made between liberty and security is out of balance, and that maybe we've let our fear of terrorism get the better of us.

Except that statement is lacking. We're still functioning on a balance sheet, where the concern is how much freedom we're abdicating for security, rather than if we're abdicating any at all. It's a losing argument that leaves the tyrannical door open to feature creep, secrecy without oversight, and a patient stalking of public apathy. The fact of the matter is that the basic concepts of freedom cannot be done half way. This isn't a call for anarchy. We do have certain fundamental rights codified by one of the most ingenious documents ever devised and any creep against them is an afront to what generations long past did for us today.

I would argue that what's needed, instead of the wishy washy arguments for the balance sheet, is for a more frank, stark, and even frightening position to be taken. One of the most under-quoted lines from Thomas Jefferson is:

"Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the rights of the individual."

Were there a more apt counter-example of Jefferson's concept of liberty than the NSA's domestic spying program, it would involve actual weaponry. His words come from a time when our leaders were brave. They say, essentially, that no quarter will be given to the shaving of liberty under guise of legal justification. I would add to Jefferson's quotation only that the limits of justification should also be ignored.

So, with that, I would suggest the more extreme position we should all be taking is simply that we're willing to accept fear, injury, and even death at the hands of enemies in exchange for the return of our freedom. While I happen to think the threat of international terrorism is real but overblown, I would be willing to accept that same trade were it not overblown. I'm willing to state for the record that it is not only my life I'm willing to trade for freedom from intrusive government, but on principal I would have to accept the loss of safety to my family's lives, my friend's lives, and all of yours as well. "Give me liberty of give me death", as Patrick Henry famously said, but it apparently needs to be repeated. This isn't some silly call to armed revolution, of course, only a willingness, nay, an eagerness to prefer dangerous liberty over safety in the arms of government intrusion.

Filed Under: american principles, civil liberties, freedom, liberty, security

Washington Post: Yes, We Need To Give Up Liberty For Security

from the oh-really-now? dept

By now you've probably seen the paraphrase of a Ben Franklin quote that those who give up liberty for security, deserve neither (he said similar things a few different ways, but the standard actual quote is: "Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.") Whatever the actual quote is, there is quite a lot of truth to it. Giving up liberty for the sake of security rarely works out as planned. Either way, it appears that the editorial board of the Washington Post is either wholly unfamiliar with the quote, or believes it to be untrue. It has come out with an editorial arguing in favor of extending the FISA Amendments Act (and against an ACLU/EFF challenge to the law, to be heard today at the Supreme Court, even with the crazy weather) saying that it is perfectly fine to "give up liberty" for security:

Discomfort with the government’s capacity, technical or legal, to collect and retain massive amounts of personal information is understandable. But the 2008 FISA amendments sought a compromise between two essential goals: preserving American liberty and robustly defending Americans’ lives and property. We favored the law and believe that it should be extended.

That's somewhat ridiculous. After all, as we've noted over and over again, almost no one seems to understand what's actually in the FISA Amendments Act, in part because there's a secret interpretation of it that only the government knows. This means that many, many people, including those in Congress, are clearly misrepresenting what's in the law. The fact that the NSA refuses to say how often it has used this secret interpretation to spy on Americans should be a pretty big warning sign -- especially as politicians who are either clueless or ignorant claim that it can't be used to spy on Americans.

And really, this is the root of the "don't give up liberty for security" quote. Once you do that, you're cooked, because it's a situation that only expands in one direction. Those who seek to hold back liberty will always make use of scare stories and FUD to seek to be able to spy further. You would think that the editorial board of the Washington Post, which has been covering this kind of mess for quite some time, would actually have some sort of ability to look back at history. Apparently its historical knowledge is close to nil.

Filed Under: fisa, fisa amendments act, liberty, security, spying, surveillance
Companies: washington post

DailyDirt: Space Tourism Is Almost Here

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

The Space Shuttle program is retired, but we still have the Soyuz (and maybe a mysterious secret mini-shuttle) to get people into space. On top of that, though, the private space industry is starting to kick in with more and more ambitious plans to offer rides into space -- or at least to the edge of space. Here are just a few more examples of these private efforts.

• Travel agents are already booking seats on Virgin Galactic -- for $200,000 (including a $20,000 upfront deposit). Over 450 passengers have already bought tickets. [url]
• Mars One is aiming for human settlement on our neighboring planet around 2023. It'll be a one-way trip, so plan accordingly. [url]
• The Hermes spacecraft received some Kickstarter funding to build its next test rocket. It's still far from developing a rocket system ready for humans, but it's still cool to see more engineers trying to re-invent space travel. [url]
• Alliant Techsystems (aka ATK), which manufactured the Space Shuttle's booster rockets, is developing a rocket system it calls Liberty. This Liberty rocket system is designed to hold 7 passengers and reach destinations like the International Space Station. [url]
• To discover more links on space exploration, check out what's floating around in StumbleUpon universe. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can also recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

Filed Under: hermes, liberty, mars, mars one, rockets, shuttle, space, spacecraft, tourism
Companies: alliant techsystems, atk, kickstarter, nasa, virgin galactic

More Surveillance Can Make Us Less Safe

from the this-isn't-so-hard dept

In the wake of the September 11 attacks, we had a post detailing why greater surveillance wouldn't have helped prevent the attacks. The data was all there, it just wasn't put together. And yet, in the time since then, the government has, in fact, continually focused on gathering more surveillance (warrantless wiretaps, anyone?), rather than on making better use of the data that is there. Back in 2002, in another post, we discussed how collecting more surveillance data in data retention schemes also made it harder to find the useful data and harder to connect the dots on the data that you had.

With the attempted terror attack on Christmas, it appears that this focus on doing more surveillance rather than better security was a major part in "failing to connect the dots" that allowed the plot to get as far as it did. The EFF points us to a report noting that the reason why Abdulmutallab was allowed on an airplane into the US in the first place -- despite widespread warnings, was that there was a backlog in processing all the data:

Abdulmutallab never made it onto a no-fly list because there are simply too many reports of suspicious individuals being submitted on a daily basis, which causes the system to be "clogged" -- overloaded -- with information having nothing to do with Terrorism. As a result, actually relevant information ends up obscured or ignored.

At what point do people realize that collecting more data doesn't make us more secure, and actually can do the opposite. As is pointed out at the Salon link above, the idea that you even can sacrifice liberty for security is wrong. The famous saying may say that you "deserve neither," but increasingly people are realizing that sacrificing liberty doesn't necessarily get you more security anyway.

Filed Under: data, data retention, liberty, safety, security