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Except any free speech aimed at any politician while not in a designated "Free Speech Zone." This causes me such angst even discussing it. It has to be the mos

Except any free speech aimed at any politician while not in a designated "Free Speech Zone." This causes me such angst even discussing it. It has to be the most egregious affront to free speech in my lifetime - and the Supreme Court not only upheld the right to enforce them, but to only enforce them on people with ideas unfriendly to the politician in question. http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2014/05/27/supreme-court-bush-protest-speech/9172707/ http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2014/05/27/supre...

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
brownbat 12y ago
> Except any free speech aimed at any politician while not in a designated "Free Speech Zone." This was not the holding in Wood et. al. v. Moss et. al., which can be read in its entirety here: http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/13-115_gdil.pdf http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/13-115_gdil.pdf You can listen to the arguments here: http://www.oyez.org/cases/2010-2019/2013/2013_13_115 http://www.oyez.org/cases/2010-2019/2013/2013_13_115 It's not quite the easy political speech suppression case some newspapers made it out to be. There were a series of factors that complicated the decision--including questions of deference to officers making snap judgments, whether or not there is any right to bring a case in this instance, and the level of threat posed by the protestors. Any of the individual factors are arguable, but note that there are so many complications that it led to a unanimous decision. That's an unlikely occurrence without some strong reasoning driving the disparate members of the court. If you disagree with a unanimous court, then its worth closely reading and trying to understand how they all came to that conclusion. The foundation of the decision leans heavily upon a long history of fourth amendment findings and a preference for objective standards in law enforcement decisions, but that's incredibly difficult to summarize. My best recommendation for the curious is to read through the leading cases on fourth amendment law over the last century to build an appreciation for this style of jurisprudence over officers of the law. (I know that's an obnoxiously inefficient recommendation, I'm not smart enough / haven't thought hard enough to come up with a more efficient way to get a curious reader up to speed, and apologize for that...) If you want a "gotcha" moment that makes the case (probably too) simple, note that Wilker, arguing for the petitioner, at one point replies to Justice Breyer that his case is about agents that have 100% viewpoint motivations and 0% security motivations. Later, in response to a question from Justice Kagan, he admits that a reasonable security officer could have made these decisions motivated purely by security considerations alone. (Compare 33:30 with 37:30 in the oral arguments.) There are a dozen factors that led to the decision, but if you want to reduce to one moment where the petitioner most likely lost the case, that might be it.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

brownbat 12y ago

> Except any free speech aimed at any politician while not in a designated "Free Speech Zone." This was not the holding in Wood et. al. v. Moss et. al., which can be read in its entirety here: http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/13-115_gdil.pdf http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/13-115_gdil.pdf You can listen to the arguments here: http://www.oyez.org/cases/2010-2019/2013/2013_13_115 http://www.oyez.org/cases/2010-2019/2013/2013_13_115 It's not quite the easy political speech suppression case some newspapers made it out to be. There were a series of factors that complicated the decision--including questions of deference to officers making snap judgments, whether or not there is any right to bring a case in this instance, and the level of threat posed by the protestors. Any of the individual factors are arguable, but note that there are so many complications that it led to a unanimous decision. That's an unlikely occurrence without some strong reasoning driving the disparate members of the court. If you disagree with a unanimous court, then its worth closely reading and trying to understand how they all came to that conclusion. The foundation of the decision leans heavily upon a long history of fourth amendment findings and a preference for objective standards in law enforcement decisions, but that's incredibly difficult to summarize. My best recommendation for the curious is to read through the leading cases on fourth amendment law over the last century to build an appreciation for this style of jurisprudence over officers of the law. (I know that's an obnoxiously inefficient recommendation, I'm not smart enough / haven't thought hard enough to come up with a more efficient way to get a curious reader up to speed, and apologize for that...) If you want a "gotcha" moment that makes the case (probably too) simple, note that Wilker, arguing for the petitioner, at one point replies to Justice Breyer that his case is about agents that have 100% viewpoint motivations and 0% security motivations. Later, in response to a question from Justice Kagan, he admits that a reasonable security officer could have made these decisions motivated purely by security considerations alone. (Compare 33:30 with 37:30 in the oral arguments.) There are a dozen factors that led to the decision, but if you want to reduce to one moment where the petitioner most likely lost the case, that might be it.