Tag: free speech

Government overreach for internet records

Government overreach for internet records

Remember the protest at President Trump’s inauguration. There were hundreds of thousands in Washington and about a million when you consider all the marches in other cities, according to estimates in the Washington Post. Around 200 of those hundreds of thousands in Washington were indicted on rioting charges. Most of the rest were peaceful protesters.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) is demanding that DreamHost turn over records on website associated with those protests, its owner and the 1.3 million visitors to the site.
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Taxpayer-subsidized politics

Taxpayer-subsidized politics

Taxpayer-subsidized politics may be coming to a church near you. Why do I say that?

Paragraph (3) of section 501(c) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 contains this:

(3) Corporations, and any community chest, fund, or foundation, organized and operated exclusively for religious, charitable, scientific, testing for public safety, literary, or educational purposes, or to foster national or international amateur sports competition (but only if no part of its activities involve the provision of athletic facilities or equipment), or for the prevention of cruelty to children or animals, no part of the net earnings of which inures to the benefit of any private shareholder or individual, no substantial part of the activities of which is carrying on propaganda, or otherwise attempting, to influence legislation (except as otherwise provided in subsection (h)), and which does not participate in, or intervene in (including the publishing or distributing of statements), any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for public office.

Simply put means that tax-exempt organizations (including churches) cannot carry out propaganda or political campaigning. This seems entirely reasonable to me.

But a bill has been introduced in the House (HR 153) which deletes the part above in bold. This seems to say that churches (and other cited tax-exempt organizations still cannot engage propaganda to influence legislation but are allowed to intervene in political campaigns. Seems rather confusing to me.

Also does it mean that if someone wants to support a candidate for office (or trash an opponent) that someone can now get a tax deduction by funneling the contribution through a like minded church or minister instead of a Super-PAC?

Doesn’t seem like such a good idea to me. What do you think?

Comme

Free Speech and Fear

Free Speech and Fear

Last night I watched some excellent reporting by Anderson Cooper on the detention of David Miranda (Glenn Greenwald’s spouse). Greenwald believes this incident was meant to intimidate him and all journalists.

This weekend I had also read a good story in the NY Times called How Laura Poitras Helped Snowden Spill His Secrets. There was also an online feature called Behind the Cover Story: Peter Maass on How He Got the Very Secret Laura Poitras to Open Up. Both are interesting reading and not unrelated to this discussion free speech and fear.

Laura Poitras is a documentary film maker and some of her films on Iraq and surveillance have irritated US authorities to the point that she is on a watch list and subject to to extensive security screening and sometime detention. All of this and more can be found in How Laura Poitras Helped Snowden Spill His Secrets (see link above).

I suppose now that Poitras is known to have gotten Edward Snowden (and his NSA secrets) to Glenn Greenwald, she is even more unpopular the US government.

Both the Miranda and Poitras stories raise the question of whether this apparent retaliation is meant to introduce an element of fear of the consequences of free speech that will make Americans less willing to speak freely if they happen to disagree with our government.

Chick-fil-a and free speech

Chick-fil-a and free speech

I like my Chick-fil-a lunches. I like the food, I like some of the the ads because they are clever and so different, I respect the Chick-fil-a company and believe the owners do have a right to an opinion and should be able to express that opinion without repercussions from the goverment.

We all have a right to an opinion and should be allowed to express it. It is called “free speech” and is one of our rights as Americans. I disagree with the anti-gay marriage stance of company president Dan Cathy but he has every right to his opinion and neither he nor the company should not be punished for expressing it by any government entity.

Others are also have the same rights to an opinion and are free to patronize or not patronize Chick-fil-a but the government should not violate anyone’s right to express an opinion.