where do you draw the line? that line will be in a variety of places. host: our guest has been peter morici. thank you for your time and inside this morning. . .

why did you decide to do this documentary? >> well, you know, my joke is that free speech was inherited inout ro. my father is a free speech, first amendmentment lawyer, who spent his career defending many famous first amendment cases. he was involved in the pentagon papers case. so the kind of discussions we had at our dinner table greing

up ranged from lenny bruces right to offend to the nazi's right to march in a suburb. so, really, this is something that's been with me for a long time. and i made it for h.b.o., and sheila, who is the head of documentaries said to me one day when my father was representing done eye muss for his wrongful representation lawsuit, why don't i look into making a film. and i think the time was now because during wartime and when the nation feels its national security is threatened, it's a time when there's a push toward conformity in speech. and this was a time, what we saw over the country in high schools, plays about the iraq war being banned, university professors coming under fire for their controversial views. so it seemed the right time to

take stalk of the free speech in america. >> what have you learned from history and then moved it forward to present day. expand a little more on what you think the current state of free speech is. >> first, the history. the history is that when in wartime, you look at the world wars, the cold war, there are restrictions on civil liberties and free speech. the argument is that for national security certain liberties have to be restricted, and certain groups in particular will come under pressure. so during world war one it was the socialists. you had people locked up and put in prison for distributing leaf let's. of course in world war ii we have the painful part in our history were japanese were interned. during the cold war the mccarthy era we saul people who seemed to have communist

sympathies, maybe they did, maybe they didn't, come under fire and lose their jobs. again, during the so called war on terror and in the post-9/11 world it has been arab-americans who have been singled out and have to sort of watch what they say. i think what we see in this current era as opposed to those earlier ones is that pressure is really coming from private groups. it's not so much that the government is throwing people in jail, but private groups put pressure on individual liberties, which sort of have a chilling effect throughout society. and it makes people feel that they have to watch what they have to say for fear of reprisele. >> we invite our viewers to phone in with their questions and comments or our guest. liz garmen, producer of "shouting fire." is it tomorrow at 9:00 eastern? >> that's right. >> and we have a couple calls that are coming in.

we'll get to them, but first another short piece from the documentary. investigating the university of colorado, the boulder professor. and we'll take a look at that and then take some calls. >> please consider letting the students speak. >> if you speak up one more time. [inaudible] >> ok. look. >> understand that. this is mccarthyism at its finest. >> this is part of economic discourse. we are students. >> let me remind you -- >> on 9/11 itself, i had been asked to write an op ed to try to make sense of this to be posted the next day. so i had already written on 9/11 what might have the motive have been. >> liz, give us some more of the background on that short piece and what it all meanses to you.

>> well, warren churchill, we explore several pieces in the film. he was a university of colorado professor of ethnic studies, did a lot of work on native american issues. and after 9/11 he wrote a blog post equating the inhabitants of the world trade center with little ikemans. in other words, the little people who work in the machine that helped ikeman during nazi germany, with the bureaucrats who helped the oppressive machine go down. so he was questioning their innocence. and, of course, when this was written on the blog, nothing much happened. it was rather unnoticed. but later on it turned up when he was supposed to go speak in a certain school and they found this post and people got very, very upset about this post. one thing led to another and

then a lot of groups, and david horo wits, who is part of a movement called academic freedom went into overdrive, and there was a press campaign. ultimately what happens is the university of colorado launches an investigation. not into his speech, because there is free speech. there is a first amendment. but into his academic history and past. and, unfortunately, or fortunately, they were able to find academic eras -- irregularities. they were able to find several instances afacademic conduct and were able to fire him. now, what's troubling about this is not the findings. i spoke to people all across the academic world from left and right who agreed that there were problems in his academic scholarship. what's troubling is it was his free speech, his anti-u.s. criticism or what was seen as

criticism or implications of the victims of 9/11 is what launched this investigation. so that was what was troubling and led people to say it was a witch hunt. >> our first call from for our guest. harlem, new york. caller: good morning. hi, liz. i'm a fan of your work. and i just wanted to know whether or not you mentioned something about that we're not at war any more. so, i mean, most people do consider ourselves, this country, still engaged in a war on terror. and also, is it relevant at all that your producing partner for the past ten years has been rory kennedy, far lest activist? so i was wondering if you could be honest about your political background of your company and

the kind of left-wing gender that you have. thank you. zoo what do you say? iveragetsdz i didn't mean to say -- that we weren't at war. there is a war in iraq. there is a lot of military going on in many regions. so i didn't mean to indicate that we were not at war. when i say the so-called war on terror, because that's what it was called during the bush administration and currently we aren't calling it the war on terror according to obama. that was more of a semantic argument. i do think there is a crisis in iraq and in afghanistan and there are serious issues. so i do not mean to imply that it's not a time of crisis. i am pretty clear about my politics and my view on social issues so i don't think there's any real subterfuge there. my partner is the producer of

this film, rory kennedy, she's made films which also i think are pretty clear about their point of view. as a documentary film maker, we do have point of views. our claim is not to present everything as if we are totally neutral. what we do seek to do is allow all sides to tell their versions of the story. what you'll see in shouting fire, we have people from extreme left and extreme right talking in this film. so it's my goal to enable that conversation but certainly not to hide my point of view. i'm certainly a democrat. i identify with progressive politics and i'm certainly quite open about that. host: how long did it take to put the documentary together and how difficult? guest: it was challenging because you think when you're making a documentary about free speech, you will have a lot of people who are interested in speaking freely. there were a lot of doors shut to us.

there was a principal in new york city named debbie, a muslim american and had worked in the department of education for 15 years as a kindergarten teacher in public schools. then new york city had the idea of starting a dual language arabic language school. new york city has many dual language schools, chinese english, spanish english, and so forth. so the idea was to start an arabic english school. there was a concern that there aren't enough people who speak arabic in this country who can work for our country in issues of national security and in all different arenas. and, but immediately upon the announcement of this school by the dough in new york, -- department of education in new york, there was a real skepticism by many in the media and especial thri conservative media that this school would not only be an arab eek lish school but would instill values

of the islamo facist movement. in other words, be a breeding ground for anti-american sentiment. of course,, thsk a new york city public school. it was under the ejiss of joel kline, the chancellor of the board of education and had the same curriculum of all the other schools, it just always taught arabic. now, we embarked on this story. debbie had been given a hard time in the press, and we thought that the doe and people who were involved would come talk to us. but everywhere there waws lot of, we won't talk about this. the department of education wouldn't talk to us about the case. there was a group that was formed that was stop the mad drassa. they wouldn't talk to us. so you find that even when you're making a film about free speech not everyone is so willing to talk to you. host: let's hear from new jersey now.

caller: hi. how are you doing? host: good. caller: it's certainly an interesting topic. my assessment is that in often cases it's misinterpreted. i think one has to look at who wrote this into the constitution and why. and i believe that it was the people giving themselves the right to protest the government, which is who they feared the most back then. but now it's taken out of context many times to use for every little thing. there was a case where somebody wrote something distasteful on a shirt. and i myself don't have a problem with that in the street but the school didn't want it. and if the people in the school said she can't wear that shirt, it should be respected as the school's rules, not as the person's right. it's the person's right to wear that shirt at the home or in school, but in many cases the law goes too far and gives more

rights to the people. i don't know if i said that -- host: let's hear from liz. guest: certainly the law as you said the first amendment was written into our constitution, congress shall make no law. it is the government hall make no law restricting freedom of speech, assembly, free press. just to give a shout out to our founding fathers, an extraordinary idea at the founding of this country. nothing like this had ever been written before. no freedoms and civil liberties had ever been written before. so it's really extraordinary that our founding fathers had the foresight to write the first amendment. and it is so fundamental to democracy of free speech. without free speech, you cannot fight for your other rights. we've seen on the streets of iran people taking to the streets to protest the election. it's with free speech, which is

also assembly, which they're doing in iran, that you can fight for your rights. so without free speech, you cannot ensure that you have a democracy, that you live in a democracy. so it is sow essential. the -- so essential. the caller brought up a case that we actually cover in the film, if we're talking of the same one, of a student who wanted to wear an offensive t shirt into his high school. it said homo sexuality is shameful. he was quoting the scripture. he went into the school and the school told him to remove the shirt or he was going to have to leave the school. this is a very complicated constitutional area. there was a case during the vietnam war in which kids wanted to wear arm bands pr testing the vietnam war. and the court uphe would held that the students did not have to check their free speech rights at the door of the school. that they did have free speech rights in school as long as it does not disrupt the

educational experience. host: the short piece talks about being reprimanded for his religion. let's look at that. >> the most impactful moment was when i went and talked with the vice principal. he sat me down and he stared across the table and started talking to me. and about halfway through the conversation he looked me in the eyes and said, if your faith is offense yoif, you have to leave it in the car. i couldn't believe what i was hearing. if my faith was auvensive? are we in the united states? host: what can you add there? guest: again, this is kid who wanted to wear a t shirt which he thought was expressing his religious views into the school. what the school did was he walked into the classroom and they immediately rejected him from the classroom.

tinker versus des moines says that a student has free speech rights until it disrupts the educational experience. this is a hard case. does the mere fact wearing a t shirt in which has this language, which is very offensive to many, and there were homo sexual students in the class, disrupt just by the wearing of it? or should the school have waited until somebody punched him, for instance? and that certainly would be disruption? well, the school made the decision before any disruption actually occurred that was physical or voible. they just sort of immediately had thim take off the shirt. so that's an impulse where perhaps my thing would be, well, you know, the school was overreacting. let the speech out there, let other kids come back and argue against the speech he was making. the school had a less ban and gay community. they had a day of silence.

so let that argument happen. and if it becomes disruptive, then make him take tauf t shirt. but the preemptive strike against him struck me as an overreaction and a political correctness. there is a marketplace of ideas. if you don't like your speech that you hear, fight back with more speech. we don't have the right to not be offended. host: let's get back to those calls. san francisco, thanks for waiting. caller: hi. i'd like to find out what ms. gar bus thinks about the free speech the journalism when n.p.r. has chosen not to use the word torture when they report on the treatment of our prisoners. and when the presidents, bush and obamas, see their press conferences, reporters, to give them sympathetic questions to their views. host: thanks. the news, liz.

guest: certainly, we've steen lately about there's been a real constrictive writing of news sources. they're all owned by a couple of companies. that is troubling, that there aren't a multipolicety of sources. i will say, however, that there has been an explosion in terms of alternative sources for media. we see the story of iran coming out through twitter which is just amazing, and facebook, which is amazing. is while there are tendencies towards conformity, there are also amazing alternative out lets that we can seek. but yes, i think when the nation perceives itself to be at war and national security be threatened, there is an enormous amount of, let's say, walking on egg shels about what kind of speech is acceptable. there was one of the case that is inspired this film was, as a teacher who was trying to put on a play about iraq war in wilten high school in connecticut. and she wanted the kids in her

drama class to be able to read let thears soldiers had written home. the principal banned this play. and many people were very upset. he says there's a recruiter in the cafeteria, why can't we show what the soldier's experiences are? and i think that what we find, however, given us -- is that when the government is covering something up, it ultimately gets out there. i mean, you see the case of the pentagon papers way before the internet this was when the u.s. government was in vietnam and the secretary of defense says, decides to commission a study saying why are we in vietnam? and that's the pentagon papers, which is sort of an interesting thing that the secretary of defense has to commission a study to find out why we're in the war. well, the pentagon papers got out. obama deciding not to release these torture photos, which was again i think not a great decision for free speech, those

will get out. so i think that what we find is that government transparency is more important than anything else and that especial li given new technologies today, things will get out. so the government has an obligation to be more transparent. host: educated at brown university, liz has done several documentaries, including comba, ghosts of abu ghraib. she is up in new york where she's getting ready to premier "shouting fire," stories from the edge of free speech. tomorrow night, monday, 9:00. greens borrow, north carolina. sarah. good morning. caller: hello. host: hi there. caller: yes. long-time watcher, first-time caller. i have a brief comment and then just a couple of questions. for the comments, i personally

feel that it's not really responsible for c-span to show, to talk about a documentary that we haven't seen yet. i think that it's -- i'm going to watch it but i'm really going to be watching it with skepticism. host: why? caller: because i really think that she really didn't put her political views out before she was -- before a caller called in. and now we know what her political view is. but, you know. i really think that we should have seen the documentary first and then have her come on and then we could have made comment. caller: z is that your question? caller: my question is, with this documentary, i really would like to know her opinion on the reaction of the media and the liberal progressive

democrats. and you, ma'am, how you all reacted and how it was so great and wonderful. yet, a couple months ago when there were protests, peaceful protests for the tea party, we heard horrible, vile things. not only from the media but from the liberal, from the democrats, to if obama administration. host: how about those questions, liz? veragets i think it's a great point. i think one of the things when you'll have an opportunity to watch the film you'll see of cases of stifling free speech from both the left and the right. and i do believe the film doesn't argue and i don't believe that it's just the left saying to the right, you know, or the right saying to the left. it's not a question of democrats and republicans, it's a question of all of us. there was a kid who wore a t

shirt where he wrote his views about homo sexuality. i don't agree with those views but i respect his right to free speech. and i do think the tea parties, everyone has the right to lawful protests. i think something interesting again in sort of the left's push towards silencing speech was there was when the abortion doctor was murdered there was all of a sudden calls on the left that the right-wing media and their hateful language on abortion was responsible for this. i don't think that was the case. media and journalism has the right to say their feelings. but there has been this push towards silence. and my view is let the speech out. right wing speech, left wing speech, offensive, gentle, let it out. and if you don't like it,

counter it with more speech. host: via twitter. do you think america's free speech is being suppressed more this year? who is being targeted the most? any perspective there? guest: i think during the post-9/11 era, the closer we wrp to that very cat clizzic event in our history was the most tightening in terms of the past decade. that's when you saw protesters being arrested at the 2004 convention, you saw arab-americans being detained and questioned. so i think that actually the further we got away from 9/11, the more maybe people began to relax. although i sting think what the obama administration, this idea of not using the torture photos and other decisions that have come down are not pro-free speech decisions. host: have you heard anyone from the documentary world

about your documentary? guest: i think we're anticipating, i think this film no matter what part of the political spectrum you sit on, will make people's blood boil. there's a lot that's in there that people don't like right and left. and that's the thing about free speech. the thing about free speech is that sometimes it's a bummer. it auvends you. my father, a jewish man, was out talking about the nazi's right to march in scoki. his father, a hollow cost survivor, was appalled. these are questions that are appalling. and so i think that, yeah, we'll hear from people on the left and right, especially around questions on the middle east and israel and war in israel and the war between the israel and palestinians, we're going to hear from them. we've already begun to. caller: good morning. i have a comment that i'm hoping you can address.

it's the misunderstanding that i see about the meaning of the freedom of the first amendment and freedom of speech in particular. and since i lean left, i'm more concerned about when democrats misunderstand it. i don't care as much about when the right misunderstanding it. i'll use the churchill example that you used. one of the things that i see is people don't understand that the first amendment is to protect freedom of speech from the government. the government cannot repress our freedom of speech. but what you see more and more is people when -- again, you used the churchill example when bill o'reilley said we should boycott people were up in arms. they wanted him, that that should -- he should be investigated, brought up on charges. and people don't understand that that is not a violation of freedom of speech. and one last thing is that in private, a private school, a private business, a private

home, if i tell somebody i don't want you to say that, you can't say that here, i can do that. that's not a violation of the freedom of speech. caller: that's right. that's absolutely right. the first amendment applies to government. congress shall make no law restricting the freedom of speech. congress can't make a law that says, hey, "new york times," you can't print that or protest. there are resfrictions on time, place of protest, but generally the right to assembly has to be upheld. but of course within a private institution, i want to brown university. there was a kid expelled for yelling anti semtic language outside a dorm room window. a lot of us thought at that time to expel a kid. today, i wish the university had handled it differently. but they had certainly the right. they're a private university. to expel this kid. the university of colorado had a right -- well, that's

debatable. some would say they did not have a right to investigate waren churchill because it stemmed from free speech. that's a very complicated question. these are very, very complicated questions. but yes, private institutions have the right to make these decisions. my father represented don imus. he made a very infamous comment that made a lot of people very upset. cbs fired him for that. those are questions about private institutions which are complicated. host: liz, up in new york, who is director and producer of "shouting fires," stories from the edge of free speech. thanks a lot for your time this morning. >> thanks for having me. >> your guests tomorrow include the editor in chief of