The Brett Kimberlin Saga:

Follow this link to my BLOCKBUSTER STORY of how Brett Kimberlin, a convicted terrorist and perjurer, attempted to frame me for a crime, and then got me arrested for blogging when I exposed that misconduct to the world. That sounds like an incredible claim, but I provide primary documents and video evidence proving that he did this. And if you are moved by this story to provide a little help to myself and other victims of Mr. Kimberlin’s intimidation, such as Robert Stacy McCain, you can donate at the PayPal buttons on the right. And I thank everyone who has done so, and will do so.

Thursday, September 27, 2012

The New York Metro Transit Authority Capitulates to the Vandals And Votes to Suppress Freedom of Expression (Update "Innocence of Muslims" Director Arrested!)

 Update: See the end of the post for a fresh deep thought from Ms. Eltahawy.

Update (II): And Freedom of Expression is on the retreat on the Federal level, too.  They have arrested Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, allegedly the creator of "The Innocence of Muslims," for potential violation of probation conditions by allegedly using a computer.  This is not to say Nakoula is right to have violated his probation, but again, who are we kidding?  When the DOJ decided to start investigating him, did they have the slightest evidence of criminal conduct?  Unlikely.  Nor does anyone seriously believe that this arrest is really about some violation.  No, it is because of the content of his speech, and it is un-American.

This picture on the right means Obama needs to be thrown out on his ass.  It should not happen in America.

Pardon my language, but sometimes coarseness is justified.  We now resume the original post, as is.

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Offending message: This anti-jihad poster is currently in 10 stations across Manhattan after a court victory by conservative commentator Pamela GellerI have been covering, mostly through the lens of Mona Eltahwy’s idiocy (see here and here) the free speech confrontation whipping up in New York’s subway system.  As noted previously, Pamela Geller and the American Freedom Defense Initiative won a court ruling stating that they had the right to place the poster on the right in New York's subway system.

As I have noted, nothing in that language says “all muslims are savages” or “jihadists.”  What it really seems to say is that one should support Israel against their enemies, and that those enemies are savages and jihadists, a reasonable (albeit simplistic) interpretation of the situation and I don’t see how this says anything about any Americans.

So after seeing this organized campaign of violence, the New York Metro Transity Authority voted to... surrender.  Via the New York Times:

M.T.A. Amends Rules After Pro-Israel Ads Draw Controversy

By MATT FLEGENHEIMER

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority approved new guidelines for advertisements on Thursday, prohibiting those that it “reasonably foresees would imminently incite or provoke violence or other immediate breach of the peace.”

The 8-to-0 vote by the authority’s board came three days after pro-Israel ads characterizing Islamist opponents of the Jewish state as being “savage” began appearing in subway stations, setting off vandalism, denunciations of the authority and calls for the ads’ removal.

The authority had initially rejected the ads, citing their “demeaning” language. The group responsible for the ads, the American Freedom Defense Initiative, sued, and in July won a federal court ruling on First Amendment grounds.

“We’ve gotten to a point where we needed to take action today,” Joseph J. Lhota, the authority’s chairman, said at a news conference on Thursday.

The authority said it believed the new guidelines adhered to the court’s ruling and would withstand any potential First Amendment challenge. Under the new policy, the authority will continue to allow so-called viewpoint ads, but each will be required to include a disclaimer noting that the ad does not imply the authority’s endorsement of its views.

This article hasn’t said that the pro-Israel ads will be taken down, but you know it is almost certainly the next shoe to drop.  Pamela Geller spoke against this as, unsurprisingly, occupy types tried to shout her down:

“Have the courage of your convictions,” she said, “even if the judge imposed it.”

The problem is they probably only have the courage of their non-court-imposed convictions.  Of course you suspect that this was just for show.  One suspects that they wanted to come up with any excuse they could to justify the suppression and Ms. Eltahwy and her fellow vandals provided it.  “Ah gee, too bad, we are now going to have to suppress this message we disagree with and never wanted to air in the first place.”  It’s lovely that the city where the United Nations resides will suppress ideas it disagrees with, teaching all of those countries pushing for the criminalization of blasphemy that Americans are not as devoted to free speech as we say we are.

The problem, of course, is that the rule as represented is not constitutional.  Regular readers know that I am somewhat a subject-matter expert of the line between free speech and incitement.  I was before my run-in with convicted terrorist Brett Kimberlin and have only sharpened my knowledge since then.  But it was ironically in a post criticizing Obama where I wrote out the whole analysis, when dealing whether the President’s desecration of our flag was protected speech (it was), so let me quote myself at length:

But what if, pray tell, someone was to get so offended that they were to get violent about it?  Well, the Supreme Court has something to say about that.  In Texas v. Johnson, they confronted whether one had a right to burn the American flag and everyone by now knows they held one did have this right.

Now of course when we talk about the fear of violence in relation to speech, there is unsaid an important divide between violence being advocated by speech, and violence by those who disagree with your speech.  As regular readers know, Brett Kimberlin has accused me of the former, arguing that merely by pointing out that he has engaged in reprehensible conduct—pointing out that he is the Speedway Bomber, pointing out that he has attempted to frame me for a crime, pointing out that he has abused our court system in an effort to suppress freedom of speech—while not only advocating against private violence but even taking active steps to make such violence less likely to occur, that nonetheless I have whipped up a mob against him.  The courts first failed to, and then finally did, apply the correct legal standard enunciated in Brandenburg v. Ohio:

the constitutional guarantees of free speech and free press do not permit a State to forbid or proscribe advocacy of the use of force or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.

And that plainly doesn’t apply here, because the display of this "Obama flag" cannot be read as advocating violence just as I never did.  No, the fear of violence is that someone disagreeing with the speaker would be so offended by this image that they might be engaged in violence.

And that is where the opinion in Texas v. Johnson comes in:

Texas claims that its interest in preventing breaches of the peace justifies Johnson’s conviction for flag desecration. However, no disturbance of the peace actually occurred or threatened to occur because of Johnson’s burning of the flag. Although the State stresses the disruptive behavior of the protestors during their march toward City Hall, Brief for Petitioner 34-36, it admits that “no actual breach of the peace occurred at the time of the flagburning or in response to the flagburning.” Id., at 34. The State’s emphasis on the protestors’ disorderly actions prior to arriving at City Hall is not only somewhat surprising given that no charges were brought on the basis of this conduct, but it also fails to show that a disturbance of the peace was a likely reaction to Johnson’s conduct. The only evidence offered by the State at trial to show the reaction to Johnson’s actions was the testimony of several persons who had been seriously offended by the flag burning. Id., at 6-7.

The State’s position, therefore, amounts to a claim that an audience that takes serious offense at particular expression is necessarily likely to disturb the peace and that the expression may be prohibited on this basis. Our precedents do not countenance such a presumption. On the contrary, they recognize that a principal “function of free speech under our system of government is to invite dispute. It may indeed best serve its high purpose when it induces a condition of unrest, creates dissatisfaction with conditions as they are, or even stirs people to anger.” Terminiello v. Chicago, 337 U. S. 1, 4 (1949). See also Coxv.Louisiana, 379 U. S. 536, 551 (1965); Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School Dist. 393 U. S., at 508-509; Coates v.Cincinnati, 402 U. S. 611, 615 (1971); Hustler Magazine, Inc. v.Falwell, 485 U. S. 46, 55-56 (1988). It would be odd indeed to concludeboththat “if it is the speaker’s opinion that gives offense, that consequence is a reason for according it constitutional protection,” FCCv. Pacifica Foundation, 438 U. S. 726, 745 (1978) (opinion of STEVENS, J.), and that the government may ban the expression of certain disagreeable ideas on the unsupported presumption that their very disagreeableness will provoke violence.

The court goes on to say that suppression of speech to prevent breaches of the peace must meet the Brandenburg standard, which of course is never met without the key ingredient of advocating lawlessness.

Let’s remember the key language from the article above:

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority approved new guidelines for advertisements on Thursday, prohibiting those that it “reasonably foresees would imminently incite or provoke violence or other immediate breach of the peace.”

That is not even close to the standard required in Brandenburg.  Indeed, it is hard to imagine anything written down having this effect.

But of course even celebrities are clueless on this point.  You might have seen Aasif Mandvi coming to Ms. Eltahwy’s side in my first post on her.  Well, he has responded.  First he seemed to think her conduct was protected by the First Amendment:


Then he asked me when did I stop beating my dog, more or less:


Oh noes!  I am being attacked by the pizza guy in Spiderman 2!


And I am just teasing, there.  In fact, I enjoy his work, but that doesn’t mean he knows anything about anything else.  Indeed, this is not the first time that a Daily Show guy has failed to understand the meaning of Freedom of Expression.  Not the first by a long shot.  Mind-blowingly clueless.

In this next one, I presume he had by typo written “rationale” when he meant “rational.”  I say that to clarify, not to criticize.  Far be it for a dyslexic like me to have a problem with a typo here and there:


For his claim that it was incitement:


He replied:


Now besides giving him a mini-lecture on Brandenburg, I also made this point:


And I had two responses to his “what if it were about Jews, black people or gay people?” (paraphrasing) comment:



And he responded:


Hey, if a vet sees a flag being burned and decides to pummel the guy burning it, I would understand it, too.  But what I wouldn’t do is condone it, and I wouldn’t lament the vet being arrested, except maybe lamenting that he or she didn’t have better self-control.

And I also turned it around:


Oddly, he never answered.

Also if someone is accusing you of being savage, as Ms. Eltahawy plainly interpreted these posters (although that is a dubious interpretation), is the best way to rebut it by breaking the law?  Isn't the best rebuttal to peacefully take it, maybe sigh a little, and maybe quietly object?  I know, logic is hard.

As for the New York Metro Transit Authority, if you review the decision that allowed these posters to come up, you will see that the court only enjoined the no disparagement rule that previously applied.  He didn't order them the posters to come up.  He just ordered the MTA to stop applying rules that kept them down. So technically the MTA can probably apply these new rules forthwith and maybe even start taking down the poster.

But Geller and her allies in the American Freedom Defense Initiative have an option, too: they can seek emergency relief in the same court that already ruled in their favor.  They are probably already writing the motion now and are just waiting for the next shoe to drop...


Update: Oh, this is too precious.  She has a deep thought about this action by the MTA. It’s not suppression of speech, because it is suppression of advertising!


Do you think maybe I had a snarky reply?


Sheesh, her lack of self-awareness on the issue of Freedom of Expression is reaching Daily Show proportions.

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My wife and I have lost our jobs due to the harassment of convicted terrorist Brett Kimberlin, including an attempt to get us killed and to frame me for a crime carrying a sentence of up to ten years.  I know that claim sounds fantastic, but if you read starting here, you will see absolute proof of these claims using documentary and video evidence.  If you would like to help in the fight to hold Mr. Kimberlin accountable, please hit the Blogger’s Defense Team button on the right.  And thank you.

Follow me at Twitter @aaronworthing, mostly for snark and site updates.  And you can purchase my book (or borrow it for free if you have Amazon Prime), Archangel: A Novel of Alternate, Recent History here.  And you can read a little more about my novel, here.

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Disclaimer:

I have accused some people, particularly Brett Kimberlin, of reprehensible conduct.  In some cases, the conduct is even criminal.  In all cases, the only justice I want is through the appropriate legal process—such as the criminal justice system.  I do not want to see vigilante violence against any person or any threat of such violence.  This kind of conduct is not only morally wrong, but it is counter-productive.

In the particular case of Brett Kimberlin, I do not want you to even contact him.  Do not call him.  Do not write him a letter.  Do not write him an email.  Do not text-message him.  Do not engage in any kind of directed communication.  I say this in part because under Maryland law, that can quickly become harassment and I don’t want that to happen to him.

And for that matter, don’t go on his property.  Don’t sneak around and try to photograph him.  Frankly try not to even be within his field of vision.  Your behavior could quickly cross the line into harassment in that way too (not to mention trespass and other concerns).

And do not contact his organizations, either.  And most of all, leave his family alone.

The only exception to all that is that if you are reporting on this, there is of course nothing wrong with contacting him for things like his official response to any stories you might report.  And even then if he tells you to stop contacting him, obey that request.  That this is a key element in making out a harassment claim under Maryland law—that a person asks you to stop and you refuse.

And let me say something else.  In my heart of hearts, I don’t believe that any person supporting me has done any of the above.  But if any of you have, stop it, and if you haven’t don’t start.
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1 comment:

  1. AnonymousSeptember 27, 2012 at 11:45 PM

    I have to disagree with you on the arrest of Nakoula. While there are some questions about it, there are valid explanations and precedence. The questions will not be able to be answered until more information is avaialble unfortunately. See Ken at Popehat for a good review:
    http://www.popehat.com/2012/09/27/nakoula-arrested-update-on-innocence-of-muslims-filmmaker/

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