Free Speech Movement, it should not be a Crime nor a Danger to Speak Out and Provide Transparency, Expose Actions of Attorneys, and "Report" the Real News. National Bloggers Club, Federal Violation of Title 18 U.S.C. Section 241 and Bloggers Rights.

"After providing brief pro bono legal services to a liberal blogger who refused to whitewash Kimberlin's past, conservative blogger and lawyer Aaron Walker lost his job. His employer was terrified by the thought of Kimberlin bombing his office and also fired Walker's wife, who had worked for the same firm.

Walker is embroiled in Kafkaesque, free speech-squelching litigation with serial lawsuit-filer Kimberlin in Maryland. Last week, an inept judge who admitted abject ignorance about the Internet -- and appalling apathy toward key free-speech Supreme Court cases -- essentially gagged Walker from exercising his First Amendment rights and blogging about Kimberlin. Kimberlin pulled off a snow job in court, bizarrely claiming an online effort to support Walker and expose Kimberlin's past amounted to a criminal terror campaign. Renowned constitutional law professor Eugene Volokh of UCLA is providing pro bono help to appeal the order.

National Bloggers Club President Ali Akbar was targeted for spearheading charity efforts for Kimberlin targets; stalkers publicized his mother's home, and Texas authorities are investigating. Another conservative blogger who had the audacity to report on Walker's plight, Robert Stacy McCain, was forced to move out of his home after Kimberlin phoned his wife's employer and intimidated his family."

Source of National Bloggers Club / Constitutional Law Professor Eugene Volokh Post
http://www.delmarvanow.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120611/OPINION01/206110319/Michelle-Malkin-Who-will-protect-our-freedom-blog-?odyssey=nav%7Chead


Free Speech Movement - Support Bloggers who EXPOSE the "Real News".

I will NOT Whitewash Kevin D. Padrick's Past. The Truth Speaks for Itself. ~ Investigative Blogger Crystal L. Cox.

Another Quote From the Article Above

"As former Justice Department official J. Christian Adams points out, it is a Federal Violation of Title 18 U.S.C. Section 241 to conspire to deprive someone of his "free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States"

This is not what the FBI seems to think. As the Montana FBI has known for years of threats to me and has done nothing. Judge Marco Hernandez knew that I was being threatened by the Plaintiff in Obsidian V. Cox and that the Plaintiff's Attorney David Aman of Tonkon Torp was conspiring with a man who threatened to kill me. Judge Marco Hernandez even claimed to be calling an FBI investigation over David Aman, Tonkon Torp Attorney, conspiring with a man in Montana to intimidate and harass me and then not only did it seem that Judge Hernandez did not call an FBI investigation but also charged me $5000 for a deposition in MT I did not attend out of fear of my life.

I plan to file Criminal Charges against David S. Aman and Judge Marco Hernandez, if there is an attorney or a DOJ Investigator wishing to represent me on this please email me at SavvyBroker@Yahoo.com 

I also plan to Sue Tonkon Torp and David S. Aman for harassment, defamation, duress and life endangerment ... if you would like to represent me on contingency for this matter, please email me at SavvyBroker@Yahoo.com 

Google First Amendment Report - Google Search Results and the First Amendment and Anti-Trust Laws.

Some Articles Regarding Google as a Publisher. See if you use Blogger, you don't own the content, Google does and they can pull the content any time. So as a blogger, essentially Google is your Editor and your Publisher.

"Search Engines Owed Same Free Speech Protections As CNN, Claims Google Report

Google's dropped the argument that it's neutral and has embraced the claim to free speech."

"In a new report commissioned by Google that examines the scope of free speech that should be permitted to search engines, UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh, who authored the report, says that search engines should be regarded as media companies, akin to how CNN and the New York Times are media companies. In that respect, the report asserts that search engines like Google and Bing have a protected right to pick and choose what appears in their search rankings."

"Search engine results are a form of opinion, says the report, in which companies offer information they think is most relevant to users.

In practice, this would mean Google has the right to punt sites like Yelp, which has complained that Google is a monopolist, to the search equivalent of Siberia if it decided that was best for users (Yelp now comes up second in a search for “restaurant review”).

Source of Above Quotes and Full Article
http://www.webpronews.com/search-engines-owed-same-free-speech-protections-as-cnn-claims-google-report-2012-05

                                   "Professor Makes the Case That Google Is a Publisher"

"There are good reasons for Google to want to be considered a mere connector; like other Internet companies, it can beg off responsibility for what is transmitted by its users. That is the useful stance when it comes to rebutting claims of copyright infringement or libel.

But when the issue is anticompetitive behavior — a charge made by rivals and some businesses — Google has lately been emphasizing that it sees itself as a publisher, and it is appealing for different kinds of protections, in the realm of free speech.

How Google has decided to say this is almost as interesting as what is being said. The company hired Eugene Volokh, an influential conservative blogger and a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, to write a paper last month. In it, he argues that Google search results are protected speech.

Mr. Volokh freely acknowledges that the paper, posted on his blog and shared widely on the Internet, is not academic scholarship but a piece of advocacy, written in his capacity as an academic affiliate at a Los Angeles law firm, Mayer Brown. It is something that would typically be prepared if Google were facing a trial on these issues.

There is no such court case at the moment that Mr. Volokh is pointing toward with his paper, but Google has become a target over how it runs its search engine. Competitors and some companies say Google’s search algorithms favor services owned by Google, a charge Google denies, but one that has drawn the attention of regulators in Europe and the United States."

Source of Above Quote
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/21/business/media/eugene-volokh-ucla-professor-makes-a-case-for-google-as-publisher.html?_r=1


"Professor Eugene Volokh makes the case that Google is a publisher"
"Is Google search an intermediary like the phone company - simply connecting people with the information they seek? Or is Google search a publisher, like a newspaper, which provides only the information that it sees fit and is protected by the First Amendment?"
Source of Above Quotes and Full Article
http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2012-05-21/news/31801147_1_google-search-search-results-eric-e-schmidt


"The findings - commissioned by Google and produced by law professor Eugene Volokh - essentially suggest that those complaining about Google favoring its own products in search results do not have a valid argument.

Google has denied such favoritism, but "even if it is assumed that Google engages or plans to engage in such prioritizing, that prioritizing would constitute the legitimate exercise of Google's First Amendment right to decide how to present information in its speech to its users," Volokh wrote in the report.

Volokh likened search results from Google and others to newspapers or magazines, which make editorial decisions about which content to cover or place in prominent positions. Though on a much larger scale, Google also has this right and government regulations that might require the search giant to show certain results would be a violation of its First Amendment right to free speech, the report said.

"Search engines are free to include and highlight their own listings of (for example) local review pages even though Yelp might prefer that the search engines instead rank Yelp's information higher.""

Source of Above Quote
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2404247,00.asp

"Google Preps for Possible FTC Fight"

"Amid signs the Federal Trade Commission is ratcheting up its investigation of Google Inc., the search giant is returning fire by stepping up a public relations campaign to make the case that its activities don't violate antitrust law.

The company provided financial backing for two papers released this week in which third-party lawyers and economists laid out a legal defense of Google's business practices and blasted possible action by the FTC. The essays—one published on a popular legal blog, the other posted on a social-science research site—provide a likely preview of the company's legal strategy should the agency choose to ..."

Source of Above Quotes and Full Article
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304543904577396483337361246.html


"Just as the New York Times can decide “All the News That’s Fit to Print,” search engines have a free speech right to choose who or what to put in their search rankings.

That’s the conclusion of a prominent First Amendment scholar commissioned by Google to make the case that the government can’t tell search engines how to design their results.

A Free Speech Right?

According to the report authored by UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh: “Google, Microsoft’s Bing, Yahoo! Search and other search engine companies are rightly seen as media enterprises, much as the New York Times Company or CNN are media enterprises” and deserve the same protections. It adds that search engines have the same freedom to choose a set of links as do news aggregators like the Drudge Report or the Huffington Post.

Search engine results are a form of opinion, says the report, in which companies offer information they think is most relevant to users."

Source of Above Quotes and Full Article
http://paidcontent.org/2012/05/09/search-engines-have-same-speech-rights-as-new-york-times-says-google-report/

"Do Google and other search engines have a constitutional right to control their own search results?
The answer is yes, at least in the opinion of UCLA law professor and First Amendment scholar Eugene Volokh."

Source of Above Quote and Full Article
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57430717-93/google-report-says-search-results-protected-by-first-amendment/

"Search Engine Results Protected by First Amendment"

"Although Google has been the subject of multiple antitrust investigations related to how they arrange search results and rank Web sites, a new 27-page report suggests that Google should be offered the same First Amendment rights as a newspaper. The report, which was commissioned by Google, makes a strong case that search engines are protected by the First Amendment and that the government cannot attempt to control the search results in any way."

To Read Full Report Click Below

http://www.scribd.com/doc/93009737/Volokh-First-Amendment-Paper-Copy

Eugene Volokh Article on Freedom of the Press As An Industry, or For the Press as a Technology? From The Framing to Today.

"“[T]he freedom . . . of the press” specially protects the press as an industry, which is to say newspapers, television stations, and the like - so have argued some judges and scholars, such as the Citizens United v. FEC dissenters and Justices Stewart, Powell, and Douglas.

This argument is made in many contexts: election-related speech, libel law, the journalist’s privilege, access to government property, and more.

Some lower courts have indeed concluded that some First Amendment constitutional protections apply only to the institutional press, and not to book authors, political advertisers, writers of letters to the editor, professors who post material on their websites, or people who
are interviewed by newspaper reporters.

Sometimes, this argument is used to support weaker protection for non-institutional-press speakers than is already given to institutional-press speakers. At other times, it is used to support greater protection for institutional-press speakers than they already get. The argument in the latter set of cases is that the greater protection can be limited to institutionalpress speakers, and so will undermine rival government interests less than if the greater protection were extended to all speakers."

..

"Of course, the Supreme Court has never limited itself to analyzing constitutional provisions based solely on historical sources. Justices remain free to decide for themselves what they think best serves the values they deem protected by constitutional provisions.

The goal of this Article is simply to say that an argument for a press-as-industry interpretation of the Free Press Clause must rely on something other than original meaning, text, purpose, tradition, or precedent."

Source of Quote and Full Eugene Volokh Article on Freedom of the Press
http://www2.law.ucla.edu/volokh/press.pdf

Eugene Volokh, Mayer Brown and Benjamin Souede (Angeli Law Group LLC file a Motion for a New Trial in Obsidian V. Cox, Free Speech Case out of Portland Oregon.

Free Speech, Shield Laws, Retraction Laws, Bankruptcy Courts, Bloggers Rights, Tonkon Torp Law Firm, Obsidian Finance Group, David Brown, Kevin Padrick, Patty Whittington, Ewan Rose, Kevin D. Padrick, Oregon Attorney General, Judge Marco Hernandez, Oregon Civil Lawsuit, Summit 1031 Bankruptcy, US Bankruptcy Trustee.

"Motion for New Trial in Obsidian Finance Group, LLC v. Cox
Eugene Volokh • January 5, 2012 2:08 am

Our local counsel Benjamin Souede (Angeli Law Group LLC) and I have just filed a motion for new trial in Obsidian Finance Group, LLC v. Cox.

As you may recall, the Nov. 30 opinion in that case concluded, among other things, that only members of the institutional media are entitled to certain First Amendment libel law protections.

The motion for new trial argues that the First Amendment applies equally to all who speak to the public, whether or not they belong to the institutional media. Here is Part I.A of our memorandum in support of the motion:

Even if plaintiffs were not public figures, defendant was still entitled to the protections of Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc.

The Supreme Court has held that the First Amendment applies equally to the institutional press and to others who speak to the public: “We have consistently rejected the proposition that the institutional press has any constitutional privilege beyond that of other speakers.”

Citizens United v. FEC, 130 S. Ct. 876, 905 (2010) (internal quotation marks omitted). In support of this holding, the Court favorably quoted five Justices’ opinions in a libel case — Dun &; Bradstreet, Inc. v. Greenmoss Builders, Inc., 472 U.S. 749, 784 (1985) (Brennan, J., joined by Marshall, Blackmun, and Stevens, JJ., dissenting), and id. at 773 (White, J., concurring in judgment) — which expressly concluded that “in the context of defamation law, the rights of the institutional media are no greater and no less than those enjoyed by other individuals or organizations engaged in the same activities,” id. at 784 (a view expressly approved by Justice White, id. at 773).

And the Court in Citizens United went on to specifically mention that its “‘reject[ion]’” of any greater protection for the institutional press over other speakers stemmed partly from the realities of the Internet age: “With the advent of the Internet and the decline of print and broadcast media, moreover, the line between the media and others who wish to comment on political and social issues becomes far more blurred.” 130 S. Ct. at 905–06.

Indeed, the principle that the institutional press and others who speak to the public have the same First Amendment rights has been applied by the Court in case after case since the 1930s. See, e.g., Lovell v. City of Griffin, 303 U.S. 444, 452 (1938) (stating that the freedom of the press “embraces pamphlets and leaflets” as well as “newspapers and periodicals,” and indeed “comprehends every sort of publication which affords a vehicle of information and opinion”);

New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 265–66 (1964) (applying the same First Amendment protection to the newspaper defendant and to the non-media defendants who placed an advertisement in the newspaper); Garrison v. Louisiana, 379 U.S. 64 (1964) (applying the rule of New York Times Co. v. Sullivan to a speaker who was not a member of the institutional press);

Henry v. Collins, 380 U.S. 356, 357–58 (1965) (same, where the speaker was an arrestee who conveyed statements to the sheriff and to wire services alleging that his arrest stemmed from a “diabolical plot,” Henry v. Collins, 158 So.2d 28, 31 (Miss. 1963));

First Nat’l Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, 435 U.S. 765, 782 n.18 (1978) (rejecting the “suggestion that communication by corporate members of the institutional press is entitled to greater constitutional protection than the same communication by [non-institutional-press businesses]”); Cohen v. Cowles Media Co., 501 U.S. 663, 669–70 (1991) (concluding that the press gets no special immunity from laws that apply to others, including laws — such as copyright law — that target communication);

Bartnicki v. Vopper, 532 U.S. 514, 525 & n.8 (2001) (concluding that, in deciding whether defendants could be held liable under statutes banning the redistribution of illegally intercepted telephone conversations, “we draw no distinction between the media respondents and [the non-institutional-media respondent],” and citing New York Times and First Nat’l Bank of Boston as support for that conclusion).

All the federal circuits that have considered the question have likewise held that the First Amendment defamation rules apply equally to the institutional press and to others who speak to the public. Flamm v. Am. Ass’n of Univ. Women, 201 F.3d 144, 149 (2d Cir. 2000); Avins v. White, 627 F.2d 637, 649 (3d Cir. 1980); Snyder v. Phelps, 580 F.3d 206, 219 n.13 (4th Cir. 2009), aff’d, 131 S. Ct. 1207 (2011); In re IBP Confidential Bus. Documents Litig., 797 F.2d 632, 642 (8th Cir. 1986); Garcia v. Bd. of Educ., 777 F.2d 1403, 1410 (10th Cir. 1985); Davis v. Schuchat, 510 F.2d 731, 734 n.3 (D.C. Cir. 1975). As the Second Circuit put it in Flamm, “a distinction drawn according to whether the defendant is a member of the media or not is untenable,” even in private-figure cases. 201 F.3d at 149.

And while the Ninth Circuit has not specifically discussed the question, it has indeed cited Gertz even where a non-institutional-press speaker was involved. See Newcombe v. Adolf Coors Co., 157 F.3d 686, 694 n.4 (9th Cir. 1998) (citing Gertz for the proposition that a “private person who is allegedly defamed” must show “that the defamation was due to the negligence of the defendant,” in a case where the defendant was not a media organization).

Moreover, the Ninth Circuit’s reasoning with regard to the First Amendment newsgatherer’s privilege is instructive for First Amendment cases more generally. In Shoen v. Shoen, 5 F.3d 1289 (9th Cir. 1993), the Ninth Circuit confronted the question whether the newsgatherer’s privilege applies only to the institutional press or also extends to book authors.

Plaintiffs argued that a person who was writing a book “has no standing to invoke the journalist’s privilege because book authors are not members of the institutionalized print or broadcast media.” Id. at 1293.

But the Ninth Circuit expressly rejected that view. It found “persuasive” “the Second Circuit’s reasoning” that “it makes no difference whether ‘[t]he intended manner of dissemination [was] by newspaper, magazine, book, public or private broadcast medium, [or] handbill’ because ‘“[t]he press in its historic connotation comprehends every sort of publication which affords a vehicle of information and opinion.”’” Id. (alterations in original) (quoting von Bulow v. von Bulow, 811 F.2d 136, 144 (2d Cir. 1987), which in turn quoted Lovell v. City of Griffin, 303 U.S. 444, 452 (1938)).

And the Ninth Circuit concluded that “[h]ence, the critical question for deciding whether a person may invoke the journalist’s privilege is whether she is gathering news for dissemination to the public,” id., not whether she is working for the institutional media.

The same reasoning applies to the First Amendment defamation law rules, which are even more clearly secured by First Amendment precedents than are the First Amendment journalist privilege rules. See, e.g., McKevitt v. Pallasch, 339 F.3d 530, 531–32 (7th Cir. 2003) (taking the view that the Supreme Court’s First Amendment precedents do not in fact recognize a newsgatherer’s privilege).

Anyone who — like defendant — is disseminating material to the public is fully protected by the First Amendment precedents, whether or not she is a “member[] of the institutionalized print or broadcast media.”

Moreover, the Supreme Court cases cited above did not turn on whether the defendants were trained as journalists, were affiliated with news entities, engaged in fact-checking or editing, disclosed conflicts of interest, kept careful notes, promised confidentiality, went beyond just assembling others’ writings, or tried to get both sides of a story.

But see Obsidian Finance Group, LLC v. Cox, 2011 WL 5999334, *5 (D. Or. Nov. 30, 2011) (concluding that the defendant was not protected by Gertz because “[d]efendant fails to bring forth any evidence suggestive of her status as a journalist,” and that, “[f]or example, there is no evidence of (1) any education in journalism; (2) any credentials or proof of any affiliation with any recognized news entity; (3) proof of adherence to journalistic standards such as editing, fact-checking, or disclosures of conflicts of interest; (4) keeping notes of conversations and interviews conducted; (5) mutual understanding or agreement of confidentiality between the defendant and his/her sources; (6) creation of an independent product rather than assembling writings and postings of others;

or (7) contacting ‘the other side’ to get both sides of a story”). The First Amendment fully protects the partisan polemicists in Citizens United v. FEC, the political activist in Bartnicki v. Vopper, the self-interested bank in First Nat’l Bank of Boston v. Bellotti, the disgruntled defendant in Henry v. Collins, the elected district attorney in Garrison, the activists in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, and the Jehovah’s Witness pamphleteers in Lovell v. City of Griffin. It equally fully protects defendant.

In footnotes from a few cases from 1979 to 1990, the Court did leave open the possibility that some of its First Amendment defamation rules would only apply to the institutional press. See, e.g., Milkovich v. Lorain Journal Co., 497 U.S. 1, 20 n.6 (1990). And a few other courts, including the Oregon Supreme Court, expressly held that such First Amendment defamation rules, and especially the Gertz v. Robert Welch protections, apply only to the institutional press. See, e.g., Wheeler v. Green, 593 P.2d 777, 784–85 (Or. 1979).

But while the Oregon Supreme Court’s decision establishes what Oregon state libel law is, it is the judgments of the United States Supreme Court that are controlling on the First Amendment question. The United States Supreme Court has never held that the institutional press enjoys such extra rights.

All the federal courts of appeals that have considered this question have specifically held that the institutional press lacks any such extra rights. And the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United expressly closed the door that the earlier footnotes left open, making clear that a speaker’s First Amendment rights do not turn on whether she is a member of the institutional press."

Source of Post Quote and More
http://volokh.com/2012/01/05/motion-for-new-trial-in-obsidian-finance-group-llc-v-cox/

Obsidian Finance Group v. Crystal L. Cox, Investigative Blogger, Motion for New Trial

Obsidian V. Cox - New Trial Motion. Eugene Volokh, Benjamin Souede



Free Speech, Shield Laws, Retraction Laws, Bankruptcy Courts, Bloggers Rights, Tonkon Torp Law Firm, Obsidian Finance Group, David Brown, Kevin Padrick, Patty Whittington, Ewan Rose, Kevin D. Padrick, Oregon Attorney General, Judge Marco Hernandez, Oregon Civil Lawsuit, Summit 1031 Bankruptcy, US Bankruptcy Trustee.