house. as many as are in favor, say aye. to the contrary, no, i think the ayes have it, the ayes have it. leader of the house. >> i beg to move this house do not now adjourn. >> the question is that this house do now adjourn. those in favor, say aye. to the contrary, no. i think the ayes have it, the ayes have it. ayes have it. order, order.

>> we get funding through taxes. federal. >> sort of public funding thing. >> maybe. i don't know. >> how is c-span funded? 30 years ago, america's cable companies created c-span as a public service, private business initiative, no government mandate, no government money. >> a look at the film "shouting fire: stories from the edge of free speech." this is just under half an hour. >> we invite our viewers to phone in with questions and comments for our guess, liz garbus director and producer of

"shouting fire" tomorrow at 9:00 eastern. >> 9:00 eastern, that's right. >> we have a couple calls that are coming in. we'll get to them in a moment but first another short piece from the documentary. it's on investigating the university of colorado at pwoulingdor professionals where churchill work. we'll take a look at that and talk and take calls. >> let me point out we invited invited -- >> please consider letting students speak. >> if you speak up one more time. >> let the students speak. >> understand that, understand that. >> you need to let the students speak. this is a university. this is part of academic discourse for students. discourse for students. >> let me refined you. >> on 9/11 itself i had been asked to write an on-ed to try to make sense to be posted the next day so i had already

written on 9/11 what might the motives have been. >> give us more of the background on that short piece and what it all means to you. >> well, churchill, we explore several cases and ward churchill is certainly the most fame news. he is a university of colorado professional 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 eichmans, the people who work in the machine that helps eichman during nazi germany was -- the bureaucrats who helped the oppressive machine go down so he was questioning the innocence, their innocence. and of course when this actually was written on the blog, nothing much happened. 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 they, you know, people went -- got very, very upset about this post. one thing led to another and then a lot of groups, acta, and david horowitz, a movement toward what they call academic freedom went into overdrive and started to sort of -- there was a press campaign against ward churchill. ultimately the oouvrt of colorado launches an investigation, not into his speech, because there is free speech, this is a first amendment, but into his academic history and past. unfortunately, or fortunately, they were able to find academic irregularities, plagiarism, able to find several instances of misconduct and they were able to fire him. now, what's troubling about this is not the findings, i think that i spoke to people all across the academic world from left and right who agree that pretty -- there were problems in his academic scholarship.

what is troubling is it was his free speech, his anti--u.s. sentiments, criticism of what was seen as criticism or implications of the victim is what launched this investigation. so that was what was troubling and led people to say that it was a witch hunt. >> first call for our guest up in new york. she is liz garbus of hbo. harlem, new york. suzanne, republican caller. hello there. >> 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 anymore so, i mean, most people do consider us, this country, still engaged in a war on terror and also is it relevant at all that you're producing partner for the past ten years has 11 laurie kennedy, who is a far

left wing activist? i was wondering if you could, you know, at least be honest about your political background of your company and kind of left wing agenda that you have. thank you. >> what do you say, liz garbus? >> i didn't mean to say we weren't at war. certainly there's a war going on in iraq, there's a lot of military activity going on in many regions so i didn't mean to indicate we were not at war. what i meant when i said the so-called war on terror is that's what it was called during the bush administration and currently today we aren't calling it the war on terror. that was more of a semantic argument. i do think we are in a time of national crisis and there is a crisis, you know, in iraq and afghanistan and there are serious issues so i do not mean to imply 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 subterfuge. my partner is rory kennedy and her film, she has maid films which are i think pretty clear about their point of view. as a filmmaker, we do have point of views, our claim is not to present everything as in we are totally neutral. what we do seek to do is allow all sides to tell their versions of the story which you'll see in "shouting fire" we have people from left, extreme left and extreme right talking in this film so it's my goal to enable that conversation but certainly not to hide any -- my point of view. i'm certainly a democrat, i identify with progressive politics and i'm certainly quite open about that. >> how long did it take to put the documentary together and how challenging was it? >> it was challenging because you think when you are making a

film about free speech you'll have a lot of people interested in speaking freely but we found there was a lot of doors shut to us. one story we did was about a principal in new york city, she is a muslim-american and had worked in the department of education for 15 years. as a kindergarten teach then new york city had the idea of starting a dual language arabic-english school, new york has many dual-language schools, chinese hch english, spanish-english, so the idea was to start this, 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 natural security and all different arenas, and -- but immediately upon the announcement of this school by the d.o.e. in new york, there was a real skepticism by many in the media and especially the conservative

media, that this school would be not just an arabic-english school but a school that would instill values of what some people referred to as islam i can fast sift movement, agreeding ground for anti-american sentiment. of course this was a new york city public school, under the aegis of joe klein, the chancellor of the board of education with the same curriculum as all the other schools, just also taught arabic. now, you know, we embarked on this story, debbie had really been given a hard time in the press, especially the "new york post" and we thought the d.o.e. and people involved would talk to us but everywhere we went there was a lot of we won't talk about this, the department of education wouldn't talk to us about the case, and there was a group formed called "stop the madrasa," they wouldn't talk to us, so you find that even when

you are making a film about free speech, not everyone is so willing to speak with you. >> let's hear from middletown, new jersey, george. you are on with liz garbus. >> hi, how ya doin'? certainly interesting topic and i'm looking forward to watching this special. 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, you know, 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 the person can't wear that shirt, it should be respected as

the school's rules, not as the person's right. now it's the person's right to wear that shirt at home or in the school but in many cases the law goes too far and gives too many -- gives more rights to the people. i don't know if i that happene happened -- >> let's hear from liz. >> certainly the law as you said, the first amendment was written into our constitution, congress shall make no law, it is the government shall make no law restricting freedom of speech, assembly, free press and may i say to give a shout-out to our founding fathers, an extraordinary amendment, extraordinary idea that the founding of this country, nothing like this had ever been written before, no freedoms and civil liberties like this had been given before. really xwit extraordinary that at that time and place our founding fathers had the forsythe to write the first amendment, congress shall make no law restricting freedom of speech. it's so fundamental to democracy, free speech.

without free speech you cannot fight for your other rights. we see on the streets of iran people taking to the streets to protest the elections. 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. it's so essential. the caller brought up a case we actually cover in the film if we're talking about the same one of a student who wanted to wear an offensive t-shirt into his high school. the t-shirt said homosexuality is shameful, he was quoting 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 called continuingor versus des moines in which kids wanted to wear arm brands in protest and the court upheld the students did not have to check

their free speech rights at the door of the school. they had free speech rights in school as long as it does not disrupt the educational experience. >> short piece from the documentary as a student talked about being reprimanded for his religion. here is a look at that. >> most impactful moment of that whole day is when i went to talk with the advice-principal, he called me and 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 face is offensive, you have to leave it in the car: i couldn't believe what i was hearing. if my face was offensive! are we in the united states? >> what can you add there? >> again, this was a kid who wanted to wear a t-shirt which he felt was expressing his religious views into the school.

what the school did is he walked into the classroom and they immediately ejected him from the classroom. tinker versus des moines, the case, the precedent in this issue says a student has free speech rights unless until it disrupts the educational experience. this is a very hard case. does the mere fact of wearing a t-shirt in which has this language which may be very offensive to many and i'm sure there are homosexual students in the class, we spoke to some of them, disrupt just by the wearing of them the educational experience or should the school have waited until, say, somebody punched the guy who wore the t-shirt, for instance, and that certainly would be a disruption? well, the school made the decision before any disruption actually occurred that was physical or verbal, they just sort of immediately had him take off the shirt. so that is an impulse where perhaps my thing would be, well, you know, the school was

overreacting, let the other kids come back and argue against the speech. the school had a lesbian and gay community, they had a day of silence, let that argument happen and if it becomes disruptive, make chase take off the t-shirt but the preemptive strike against him struck me as sort of 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. >> let's get back to those calls. san francisco, thanks for waiting. ruth is on the line calling as a democrat. hi there. >> hi. i would like to find out what she thinks about free speech in journalism when npr has chosen not to use the word torture when they report on our treatment of our prisoners. and when the presidents bush and

obama take press conferences with reporters that give them sympathetic questions to their views. >> thanks. liz? >> certainly we've seen lately about a real sort of constructing of the variety of news sources, all owned by a couple of companies, you know, that is troubling that there aren't a multiplicity of sources. i will say, though, there has been an explosion in terms of alternative sources for media. we see the story of i ran coming out through twitter which is just amazing and facebook which is amazing so while there are tendencies toward this conformity in the media, there are also amazing alternative outlets we can all seek but again, yes, i think there is -- when the nation perceives itself to be at war and national security to be threatened, there is an enormous amount of let's say walking on egg shells about what kind of speech is acceptable. there was one of the cases that

inspired this film was a teacher who was trying to put on a play about i rack war in connecticut and she wanted the kids in the drama class to be able to read letters that soldiers had written home, actual letters. the principal banned this play and many people were very upset saying there's a recruiter in the cafeteria, why can't we be showing what the sold deers' experiences are. there is this push tort conformity and what we find, however, given this is that when the government is covering something up, it ultimately gets out there. 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, sort of an interesting thing that the secretary of defense has to commission a study to find out why we are in the war.

well, those papers got out, obama deciding to not release these torture photos which was, again, i think not a great decision for free speech, those sort of will get out. so i think what we find is that government transparency is more important than anything else and that especially given the technologies today things wirl get out so the government has really an obligation to be transparent. >> educated at brown university, liz garbus has done several document tear ris, including "coma,," also produced specials. she's in new york where she's getting ready to premiere "shouting fire: stories from the edge of free speech," and that's tomorrow night, monday, 9:00, hbo. greensboro, north carolina. sorry race on the line. republican caller. good morning. >> hello. >> hi there. >> long time watcher, first-time

caller. i have a brief comment and then a couple questions. i want to make it really quick. for the comments, i personally feel it's not really responsible for c-span to show or to talk about a documentary that we haven't seen yet, i think that it is -- i'm going to watch it but i'm really going to be watching it with skepticism. >> why? >> well, because i really think that, you know, she really didn't put her political views out before she was -- before a caller called it 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 comments. >> what's your question? >> 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, of protests and how you all rejacketed and how it was just 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, the obama administration. >> how about those questions, liz garbus? >> great point. one of the things when you'll have the opportunity to watch the film you'll see is that we look at cases of stifling of free speech from both the left and the right and i do believe that it's not just -- the film doesn't argue and i don't

believe it's just the left saying to the right, you know or the right saying to the left. it's not just a question of democrats or republicans. it's a question of all of us. again, there was a kid who wore a t-shirt saying -- he wrote his views about homosexuality, i don't agree with those views but i respect his rights to free speech and i do think that the tea parties, everyone has the right to lawful protest and i certainly agree with that. i think something that was interesting, again, in this sort of left push toward silencing speech was there was when the -- was murdered, there was all of a sudden calls on the left about that the right wing media ask their fate hull language about abortion was responsible for this. i don't believe that is the case. the media and journalists have the right to express opinions and speech is speech and because somebody goes and murders somebody, those folks aren't responsible. i agree on both right and left there has been this push toward silence and my view is let the

speech out. right-wing speech, left-wing speech, offensive, ghentle, you let it out and you don't like it, counter it with more speech. >> via twitter there's a question, liz: do you think americans' free speech is being suppressed more this year, 2009, than in the last few years and who is being targeted the most? perspective there? >> i think actually during the post9/11 era, the closer we were to that very cataclysmic event in our history was the most tightening in terms of the past decade of speech. i think that's when you saw protesters being arrested at the national convention in 2000, 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 still think with the obama administration, this idea of not releasing torture photos

and other decision that is have come down are no proceed-free speech decisions. >> have you heard from anyone in the political world about the documentary? we know it hasn't aired yet but are you hearing anything? >> well, i think we are anticipating that -- i think this film, no matter what part of the political spectrum you sit on, it will make people's blood boil. there is a lot that is in there that people don't like, right and left, and that's the thing about free speech, the think about it is that it sometimes is a bummer, it offends you. my father, a jewish man was out talking about the nazis' right to march in skokie. his father, a holocaust 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 in the middle east and israel and the war in israel and the palestines, we're going to hear from them, we have already begun to.

>> illinois is hanging on the line. john, you are on with liz garbus. hi there. >> good morning. >> i have a comment i'm hoping you can address about the misunderstanding i see about the meaning of the freedom of the first amendment and freedom of speech in particular. since i lean left, i'm more concerned about when democrats misunderstand did it, i don't care as much when the right misunderstands it. i'll use the ward churchill example you used. you brought that up. one of the things i see is people don't understand the first amendment is to protect freedom of speech from the government, the government cannot repriest our freedom of speech. but what you see more and more is people when -- again, you see the ward churchill example. when bill o'reilly said we should boycott, tell the alumni not to send in money, people were up in arms. they wanted him -- that that -- he should be investigated,

brought up on charges, violation of freedom and speech and people don't understand that is not a violation. 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. >> that's right. i mean, 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 lou that says, hey, "new york times," you can't print that or you can't protest. there are restrictions on time, place of protest but generally the right to assembly must be upheld but of course within a private institution, i went to brown, there was a kid when i was there who was expelled for yelling bigoted and anti-semitic language outside a dorm room window. a lot of us thought that at that time it was appropriate to expel a kid for their bigot the racist views, today i wish the

university had handled it differently but they had certainly the right. they are a private university to expel this kid. the oouvrt of colorado had a right, well, i mean that's debateable, some would say they did not have the right to investigate ward churchill because it stemmed from free speech. that is a very complicated question. these are 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, reasonably so, cbs fired him for that. you know, those are questions about private institutions which are complicated. >> liz garbus up in new york who is director and producer of "shoulting fire: stories from the edge of free speech," hbo tomorrow night. thanks for your time this morning. >> thanks for having me.

>> thanks for having me. plush plush ..:.