Does the First Amendment apply to bloggers?
Posted by Thomas Gordon on May 28, 2013
Senator Dick Durbin recently asked “What is Freedom of the Press?”
Seriously??
Has this guy taken the time to read the US Constitution?
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people to peaceably assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
What part of “press” doesn’t Democrat Senator Dick Durbin get?
Back when the Founding Fathers wrote the Declaration, they understood that press included pamphleteers, who were the tweeters, Facebooker’s and bloggers of the day.
Yet Dick Durbin, who’s been in office more than 15 years hasn’t quite figured it out yet.
Pathetic
Do you still believe in the First Amendment and that it applies to all?
OC Political 
the Pot Stirrer said
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
Seems pretty simple and straightforward to me. And, yes, I think it applies to us bloggers these days. We are guaranteed the opportunity to show the world how smart – or how stupid – we are every day of the week… sometimes many times each day.
Henry Gattis said
This is peculiar! I logged on here to comment about this VERY subject on a different thread, having to do with the Voice Of OC(EA).
It appears that your colleagues at http://www.voiceofoc.org have a VERY different idea about Freedom. They have begun the long parroted history on OC Blogs of deleting comments and banning posters whose opinions are in contrast to their message.
Nowhere is this practice more apparent then on the Santa Ana threads there. The Voice of OC(EA) who shamelessly backs the Santa Ana “Springsters”, a group of young, latino, union backed politicans. Anyone who posts there in dissention is either banned or has comments removed. On Tuesday evening there was a thread of 50+ comments critical of the coverage of a city budget meeting hosted by, the blog (yeah I know…), Latino health Access and two councilmembers. The follow up article had NOTHING to do with the budget and reads like a puff piece for the affected parties. When this was pointed out, a dialogue ensued and we saw Democracy at work. Until Wednesday morning, when editor Norberto Santana and columnist Adam Ehlmark deleted the comments reducing the thread to 11 comments.
Further, continuing the “blog wars” of earlier this decade, Liberal OC blogger and his Republican ally Dr. Art Lomeli repeatedly attack posters accusing everyone of being Art Pedroza, another OC Blogger. It all seemed too much, before long a poster dragged Pedroza’s children into the fray and all of a sudden Lomeli and Chmiliewinski FREAKED OUT, appearing to not want to take what they repeatedly dish out.
In the end the losers are the people of Santa Ana, of which neither Chmiliewinski or Lomeli are (which is the STRANGEST part), The Voice of OC(EA) and the First amendment. Of course the winner is former Liberal OC blogger Joe Hill, Community activist Henry Gattis, politicans willing to stand up to the give away to public employees, and of course their new website: http://www.voiclessofoc.org .
GOD BLESS AMERICA
the Pot Stirrer said
After all that pomp and puffery, it was disappointing to find the link you provided to be a dead link. Then again…
OC Insider #29 (aka Greg Diamond) said
Oh, the law dealing with freedom of the press under the First Amendment is easy and straightforward, huh? That must be why there are never any court cases filed regarding it.
“What is Freedom of the Press?” is a very good question — one that the Supreme Court itself has to answer every once in a while. Making fun of someone for asking it is like making fun of someone for writing “3 + x = 10” — when everyone knows that “x” is a letter rather than a number! You can do it, but it just betrays your ignorance.
the Pot Stirrer said
What? I can’t deal with math problems after midnight…
OC Insider #29 (aka Greg Diamond) said
You were supposed to read that comment in the morning. I had assumed that all good little boys and girls were already in bed at that hour.
the Pot Stirrer said
And yet you posted your comment at 12:04. Us older fellas stop functioning after midnight…
Henry gattis said
I saw the link is down. Must be pressure???
The site I logged on to had a great a great take off on the VOC logo, some tasteful shots at the “editor” and some pointed questions about it’s policies.
It described a “News Site” that will focus on News, Politics and Sports that are largely ignored today. Had a nice take on Laguna Beach politics.
I hope it comes up soon.
Henry Gattis said
I don’t know what’s up at the VLOC but at the VOC(EA) it looks like business as usual: Banning posters who ask legitimate questions about policy. But promoting people like this one:
CamilleCoWorker posted at 2:42 pm on Sat, Jun 1, 2013.
CamilleCoWorkerPosts: 1
And some can’t leave because they live in a home that is finically underwater. My friend Camille’s husband has it bad. He can’t hold a job, they filed bankruptcy and he lost a lawsuits for 1,000s of dollars. She cries daily at work and feels trapped in SanTanna. He’s put on a lot of weight and his friends are losers. She is so unhappy
Clearly this “SOCKPUPPET” as Dan C. likes to call them is welcome, letting anonymous posters attack others family members. But ask a question about who pays for Michele Martinez job at rare obscure Non-profit with ONE employee (her), or ask if it’s reasonable to have a councilmember, Roman Reyna tout his commitment youth, only to discover he has a temp job as a truant officer with the county and barely graduated high school himself and YOU ARE HISTORY BROTHER!.
I hope Joe Hill and the others behind the alternative Blog get it up and going. It would be healthy to have a little balance in the discussion for a change.