Open speech is under attack around the world. Canada’s Rebel News founder Ezra Levant warns what might happen if we lose free speech in America. Politicians in Canada plan to punish "hate speech" with life in prison. In England and Scotland, you already can get arrested for “hateful” posts. J.K. Rowling fights back – breaking Scotland’s law on purpose, daring police to arrest her. In Australia and Brazil, politicians tried to censor Twitter accounts. But Elon Musk refused. It’s good that both defend free speech.Here’s our FULL interview with Ezra Levant on censorship vs. free speech.
The free speech absolutist and co-founder of The Intercept, Glenn Greenwald, dives deep into Israel, Latin America, and the necessity of decentralized media in the age of U.S. security state overreach.
We Americans take free speech for granted.But if you look around the world, you see why we shouldn't. In Britain, you can get arrested for saying things online that police find “offensive."In Scotland, misgendering someone can land you in jail for seven years.Canada may soon pass a law that would punish “advocating genocide” with life in prison.Now in the U.S., the House of Representatives voted for a bill that would make chants like “from the river to the sea” illegal at universities.These are bad ideas.Free speech is valuable.
Things you’re saying, things you’ve already said, things an administrative judge thinks you might say, all barred, with neighbors deputized as enforcers? Good times. Leave it to Trudeau, a frequent trailblazer in new forms of illiberalism in the digital age, to come up with this quantum leap downward on the rights front. C-63 is a Frankenstein’s Monster combining the worst censorship ideas already deployed by supposed ally government-in-laws like Europe’s Digital Services Act, Australia’s updated Australian Communications and Media Authority Act (ACMA), and Scotland’s Hate Crime and Public Order Act, which saw 7,152 complaints in its first week when the law took effect last month.
Canada's Online Harms Act is packed with futuristic horrors, but with a few notable exceptions, politicians and media have tried to keep the worst parts hidden
Is free speech under attack in higher education? Have we forgotten why it matters? What are the consequences of stifling open dialogue and debate? In this exclusive Director's Cut segment of the groundbreaking series Free To Speak, host Nadine Strossen delves into the alarming trend of speech suppression on college campuses. Through eye-opening interviews and powerful personal accounts, Strossen and a diverse array of experts expose the erosion of our most fundamental right and its chilling effect on public discourse. This excerpt challenges viewers to confront the urgent need to foster a culture of open debate and intellectual resilience in the face of controversy.
The Department of Justice indicted the creators of Samourai Wallet, an application that helps people spend their bitcoins anonymously.
the time to stand against censorship, suppression, and surveillance is now
it’s dictator 101: you encourage and up the pressure until some atrocity occurs and/or life becomes intolerable and then you swoop in to grab power and fix it.you don’t need to go full “reichstag fire.” (but it’s always an option)this game is as old as time and never gets any less dirty.they do it because it works. they do it by relentless increment. they disorient, they frighten, then they take. when you wake up and push back, they give a little back, slide into the background, and wait for you to calm down. but you never get back 90% of what was usurped and it just normalizes such takings for next time. and there is always a next time.they are gearing up to do it again. the signs are all there.and the way to stop it is to call it out now.
The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals delivered a major win for free speech and police reform by awarding a Louisiana man $205,000 in compensatory and punitive damages for an unlawful 2020 raid.
"If the problem with campus speech codes is the selectivity with which universities penalize various forms of bigotry," wrote James Kirchick recently in The New York Times, "the solution is not to expand the university's power to punish expression. It's to abolish speech codes entirely."Kirchick was writing about widespread outrage at the nuanced and hypocritical defense of speech offered by the presidents of Harvard, MIT, and the University of Pennsylvania at a congressional hearing about antisemitic and anti-Zionist campus reactions to the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel.Although Kirchick, the author of Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington and The End of Europe: Dictators, Demagogues, and the Coming Dark Age, is an ardent defender of Israel, he is also a self-described free-speech absolutist who is disgusted by calls to restrict expression, whether on or off-campus.Reason's Nick Gillespie spoke to Kirchick about how identity politics has overwhelmed the left's traditional defense of free speech, why so many younger journalists seem lukewarm at best to the First Amendment, and how to muster the courage to speak up for first principles in uncomfortable and hostile situations.
