what do you think the greatest challenge is for the first amendment protection? >> what the answer the easy part first. because of the internet or new technology they're likely to have war speech in the more protection in some ways what of the great things about the internet where the rich people alrich corporation has a say on the internet. it does not cost anything and if it does to do this or do that we can keep the cost down it is great, great contribution to free expression in the world even that has protected generally very well as we have but the internet we should remember is also a whole for child pornography and not see speech -- nazi speech where there is sometimes dangerous by other people who share those views. and tend to communicate about it but that said we're is the biggest problem going to come from? i suspect the old threats when the country feels threatened it is very natural. the one of related speech it is perfectly logical to say someone is saying something that you really disagree but you want to suppress. but then to say in effect that is

in your experience tusis the laws of the court will be think the greatest challenge will be first amendment protection in the years to come? >> let me answer the easy part first. i don't think it will come because of the internet or new technology. people are likely to have more speech and more protection because one of the great things about the internet is far more than newspapers rich corporations own men in general everybody could have a say it doesn't cost anything and where it does cost you can keep the cost down. the internet has said great contribution of free expression in the world and even in the country which has protected it generally very well but the internet we should remember is the home for not to speech and child pornography and a lot of terrible stuff where people who have sometimes dangerous odd views find other people to share those views and communicate. that said i suspect that will come from the old red when the country feels threatened it is very natural to want to limit speech oliver wendell holmes said a perfectly logical and somebody is saying something that you

i am not sure he is speaking on behalf of the first amendment or anything.'m not sure what he is speaking on behalf of that i can assure you as he carried in hong kong, everything in his computers were scooped up by the secret services of the chinese and russians. im not sure that is a friend of liberty. >> there are limits to the first amendment. >> it is not a suicide pact. you can't go out and tell the nation's secrets to our enemies and do it willfully. but it is amazing how much you can do. there are some limits but there is a lot of freedom. we are constantly testing the boundaries. >> what about people in our business? do we cross the line? >> we do cross the line. in the age we live in with instant communication and anybody can say anything and put it out to millions, it is magnified. let's remember that there were plenty of people like that at the time of the signing of the republican published these incredible rags. now it is just a matter of degree. people then read newspapers and now they don't. >> it is is becoming one person, one irresponsible

well it's because the first amendment doesn't care what your politics are the first amendment protects you regardless of your political position regardless of what what your advocacy is for or regardless of what your beliefs are so you know that churches are part of this very intentionally because the first amendment has always protected people's rights to join together to join together to do political action or to join together to do religious work it's the same law so you know the the the purpose of the breadth of the coalition is to really make the point that you know the first amendment protects us all right this is a yes that's first rodeo taking a lawsuit against the n.s.a. here this goes back to two thousand and eight when you were. working to expose this the domestic surveillance and how legal it all is what's the latest on this two thousand and eight case and what's behind it what's the latest. well first of all we started in two thousand and six so we started with the case against the phone companies for the wire or at least wiretapping and then you may recall in two thousand

author of the first amendment. the government should be afraid of people. >> i must say that -- in contrary to what we just read from greenwald, or -- snowden, excuse me, the american people are not mad at the american government and after his revelation to the contrary. when you look at the polls they are mad at snowden and they think that his behavior and the fact he fled the country and not accountable is reprehensible. >> i will say this. when you look at polling the american people are very concerned about this kind of program and the potential abuses of. >> it correct. if you ask them -- understanding that we live in an age of terrorism, if you ask them is this something that the government needs to engage in, they -- also -- say yes. >> to terrorism only. we we don't know. >> 59% say that the government surveillance invades innocent americans' privacy. overwhelming majority of americans think that the government has gone too far. >> go ahead. >> if you take young people, which i think you have to -- think ab

finally we have about thirty seconds but can you give us one line how can people defend their first amendment rights get educated education pre-season action take action at the local level in mind when i wrote a drone ordinates it was past it was the first one in the world you can locally be very effective. even if you're being threatened to kill americans. freedom is get out here in florida stay with. me will help thank you so much john whitehead constitutional attorney and author of the book a government of wolves thank you well the california prison system is dealing with yet another setback in attempting to calm tensions within mates prison officials announced on saturday that an inmate being held in solitary confinement died at the california state prison called coron on monday that's one of the prisons participating in the mass hunger strike and the state inmate supporters say that the inmate thirty two year old bill cell was taking part in that protest but prison officials on the other hand say that he wasn't and that his death is being treated as a suicide r.t.d. has called the prison

i'm ken paulson, the executive director of the first amendment center. our guest once described rap as "america's black radio station." if that's the case, we're joined today by the program director of an entire movement. please welcome the founder of public enemy, chuck d. [applause] you're a man of opinions. what i didn't know until reading a bit more about you was that your folks were both activists, that you grew up in a household of opinions. did that shape the way you look at the world? yup, 'cause my parents kind of, like, raised me to be independent and have independent thoughts, not so much as follow my peers, and to challenge information. so, i mean, to be an activist just means that they were conscious of certain facts that were circulating. and in the '60s, they were in their 20s, late 20s, so that was a time where you had a conscious movement where people were actually looking into themselves, finding out about themselves, and trying to do something to better themselves. and my parents encouraged me to do so myself. i understand that a kind

i can say we stood as you know over two things the first amendment in the first amendment in regard to the first amendment it has had a chilling effect on speech on my speech microplane speech and other journalists that we know who are not part of this case combine that with the revelations about the n.s.a. surveillance dragnet surveillance and the unfortunate clapper case really like her said it was also part of we know that the government has absolute right to target any one of us it's not that difficult for them to do so and you know combine that as well with as i say assault on whistleblowers and it's definitely chilling our speech and our freedom of association we're all worried about who we provide a quote platform to which might be construed as substantial support or being that's associated for us and i think that's particularly worrying for people who have worked with her background. now on the judge in this case ruled that you do not have standing to bring this case up as i mentioned earlier so then my question is who has standing if anyone to bring this case up. so i have two

i'm ken paulson, the executive director of the first amendment center. "america's black radio station." if that's the case, we're joined today by the program director of an entire movement. please welcome the founder of public enemy, chuck d. [applause] you're a man of opinions. what i didn't know until reading a bit more about you was that your folks were both activists, that you grew up in a household of opinions. did that shape the way you look at the world? yup, 'cause my parents kind of, like, raised me

i'm ken paulson, the executive director of the first amendment center. "america's black radio station." if that's the case, we're joined today by the program director of an entire movement. please welcome the founder of public enemy, chuck d. [applause]

first amendment protected available journalism is not supposed to be under the surveil you know that kind of scrutiny and of course of this is part of the larger case of it's not just that these sorts of behaviors you know chill ordinary americans or make them fearful but it puts the whole issue of sure of is journalism a threat to national security so that's a question i want to ask you do you think journalism is currently under unlawful scrutiny and is that a threat to our first amendment rights. oh the heart of justice admitted they were tapping into what a few reporters were doing and again. i had a former n.s.a. agent actually tell me necessarily agency agents say that a long time employee that the n.s.a. is downloading at least one trillion base of information from the internet every month that means your e-mails phone calls text messages bank records anything electronic so what they're doing is anything you're saying out there is being collected right now that's a fact i've had several secrets are secret service agents tell me that so they're watching everything we're doing an

cases recounts the career and represents his thoughts on current first amendment debate. this is about an hour and 15 minutes. >> this evening, we're delighted to have one of the greatest present living lawyers, and one the greatest lawyers the nation had by the name of floyd abrams, who just released a wonderful book, that the critics are raving about called "friend of the court: on the front

a pastor could endorse or decline a candidate from the pulpit legally via the first amendment, until 1954, this innovative thing called the johnson amendment. for 160-plus years, american pastors could say what they want from the pulpit. then in july the 2nd, 1954, with this brand new law that was passed on a voice vote only with no discussion, lyndon baines johnson was the mover behind that. he wasn't aiming at the churches. his chief of staff admits he was aiming at two businessmen in texas who offended him that happened to have not for profit corporations. he wanted to shut them down. the irs stepped in, seized the moment, and swept into that 501c3 category, which happens to be churches. for 58 years, the attempt has been to get that law challenged in court because it's believed it's unconstitutional. that's precisely what the pulpit freedom sunday movement is all about. pastors can legally say what we want, and we record our sermons, mail them to the irs, and say sue us because we're standing on the constitution and on the first amendment. a preacher doesn't have to preach about t

of first amendment rights it's more about some kind of anger at the united states some kind of anger maybe in his personal life. i don't know exactly what it is how do you dealing with privacy and surveillance well it's really hard and it's a balance it's a correct. discussion to have about how far can you go. the reality is that we're living in a very dangerous world with pretty complex groups of people that want to come here and kill us they have succeeded unfortunately as we know in september eleventh they succeeded in boston this is succeeded in london a few weeks after boston so it's not as if they haven't had success so it's hard to detect if that's hard to find of so you have to have very significant surveillance at the same time and you just to go get everybody's records i'm a little uncomfortable with that and this should be some standards there should be some. probable cause reasonable suspicion. some set of criteria so maybe that's what this of all lead to but for him to just reveal this when this is classified information does tremendous damage to us it does tremendous da

of first amendment rights it's more about some kind of anger at the united states some kind of anger maybe in this personal life. i don't know exactly what it is how do you deal with privacy and surveillance well it's really hard i mean it's a balance it's a correct. discussion to have about how far can you go. the reality is that we're living in a very dangerous world with pretty complex groups of people that want to come here and kill us they have succeeded unfortunately as we know in september eleventh they succeeded in boston this is succeeded in london a few weeks after boston so it's not as if they haven't had successes so it's hard to detect of that's hard to find of so you have to have very significant surveillance at the same time and you'd just to go get everybody's records i'm a little uncomfortable with that i mean this should be some standards there should be some. probable cause reasonable suspicion. some set of criteria so maybe that's what this will all lead to but for him to just reveal this when this is classified information does tremendous damage to us it does tre

correct me if i am wrong but you have the right to ask that's yo your first amendment right. villaraigosa the ability to work things out with an employer. so i'm trying to figure out how this make sense to push on the ballot i mean in this kind of really fast pace manner and a president chiu so there's no confusion since this is your item i will facilitate this discussions >> oh, certainly. >> till we get to the point of no amendments. >> supervisor cowen. >> this is an interesting conversation here. from envy prospective we have an opportunity to continue moving the conversation forward and continuing to test the limits. i remember a time when gay men and women couldn't get married and you heard some of the similar things at any time chambering how much is it going to cost as a business and will they kiss in front of me. we tried to get women in the military it's too costly too sweeping of a change. we here civil rights we can't let woman and colors vote it's too much and too foos. we've got local laws on the books that says it's okay for african-americans to own property bu

and seizure but as reporters who use snowden as a source here call in their own prosecution the first amendment rights to free up to a free and open press are also being called into question for more on this i was doing earlier by c.e.o. and president of free press aaron i asked him if the treatment of snowden was going to have any impact on the future of journalists and whistleblowers absolutely i think that there is a major chilling effect if you talk to any investigative reporter trying to cover national security trying to cover matters of national importance they'll tell you their sources are starting to clam up because not just because of snowden but because of the repeated attacks on journalists for doing their jobs the prosecution of whistleblowers it's becoming a lot harder to get information about what the government is doing now we have these blockbuster revelations which raise huge questions of first amendment rights fourth amendment rights but i think for reporters and the press there's a lot of concern about are they going to be able to get these stories and what kind of risk are t

look at first amendment law.they are always looking at the conduct of the government and how it may chill others. there is always a balance. maybe this person did wrong. but will it hurt other people from doing right? these facts are indisputable. whistleblowers are the number one source of fraud detection p[eeriod. these contracts are multibillion-dollar contracts, many in secret. politicians and their friends get these contracts. how do you police them? there is a lot of people who benefit when whistleblowers are and thatand chilled, has to be taken into consideration as we judge these events. i have seen the chilling effect. is very hard when someone comes to our office with legitimate concerns that touch national security that should be known the american people or by law enforcement. it is hard to advise anyone to blow the whistle right now and that is not good for our democracy. ast: stephen kohn serves as supervising attorney with the national whistleblower defense fund. here are the numbers to call. democ

but i am interested to hear how many advocates actually use aerial signs as a form of first amendment issues. so, so happy to duplicate this file and support the original ordinance with recommendation. >> okay. so, why don't we -- the file has been duplicated. is there a motion to forward the original version with recommendation? >> is so moved. >> okay. can we take that motion without objection? ~ that will be the order. [gavel] >> and then we have the remaining duplicated file and, supervisor kim, would you like to make a motion to take the amendments supervisor avalos has proposed? and if you would qualify with or without the sunset provision? >> so, i will make a motion to amend the duplicated file with the amendments that i have distributed via supervisor john avalos' office. thank you for joining us. i will be keeping the deletion of the sunset clause at least just for the sake of the public. and if we choose to take it out next week, we can take the sunset -- we insert the sunset clause if that is appropriate and kind of the recommendation of folks that we interface with over t

the first amendment is such a valued amendment, it's the first one? what if you took out the word, word. >> i have to address david's point. this is not about religion at all. it doesn't even mention religion. how can you say -- >> you said something about religion. >> how can you say it's an attack on religion. it is fundamentally not. it is no different than what they've done currently in san antonio and done in many other cities, prohibit discrimination against race, gender, color, no different than where we were 50 years ago when you couldn't marry the person you wanted to and sit where you wanted to. >> save the civil rights argument. >> why should people be allowed to discriminate against me in the same way they discriminated against you 60 years ago. there is no legal protection for gays and -- >> if we took it to actions not just words, if people want to express their own personal belief, does it then turn into religious discrimination if they say i'm christian, whatever, a faith tradition that doesn't approve of this i won't take any discrimi

which seems like a very farfetched rationale under the, for a first amendment restriction. but the law has been upheld numerous times. there are lots of cases, there are a lots of demonstrations every year. you know, whether it is death penalty or cornel west or minister dropping to his knees and praying on the plaza of the court, they get arrested and usually challenge this law. it is usually in superior court and goes to the d.c. court of appeals, the local court of appeals and the law is upheld. well this case that art was mentioning, instead went to the, federal district court. and finally, at long last the law was declared unconstitutional. it's a law that prohibits as semiages and banners -- assemblages, and banners and processions on the property of the court and as the judge said, you know, if you read this literally it could cover a group of preschoolers tethered together, you know, going up on the plaza for their first visit to the supreme court. of course i couldn't quite imagine preschoolers visiting the supreme court. i don't know that they could get much out o

amendment. so, we can go to public comment first. >> great. we have one public comment card, david elliott lewis. if there is anyone else who would like to make public comment on item 2 or 3, you can fill out a blue card in the front of the room. >>> david elliott lewis. generally support the change to the general plan and the provisions for more bike parking street and in buildings. my only concern is the provision for paying in-lieu fees instead of providing services. that's only based on looking at what's happened with affordable housing when developers have paid in-lieu fees in exchange for not really providing housing, fees that were paid but not enough to provide for the missing housing. so, i'm just hoping if you do calculate in-lieu fees, that it really is enough to make up for what's being lost for bicycle parking. that's all. otherwise i'm really supportive of the plan. thank you. >> thank you. ms. shem. >>> thank you, supervisors. my name is [speaker not understood]. i want to thank supervisor avalos and your hard working staff. leg

. >> reporter: protesters have first amendment rights to be here, and we want to hear from them as longt violent or anything. sometimes protesters, you know, are fueled a little more by passion than by facts. and they may not be happy with a manslaughter if you wanted conviction of murder two, but manslaughter carries up to 30 years in prison. for a 29-year-old man, that's a substantial time. i don't think anyone will be happy. those that are mal contents probably won't be happy. there's nothing for anyone to be happy about. that's the problem. >> greta, only 30 seconds on this, we have a hard break. was the long defense closing argument, does that effect the jury in any way, does that hurt them giving the jury fatigue maybe with a long defense? >> reporter: you mean the closing argument too long? >> yes. >> reporter: well, i tell you, it is freezing cold in there, it is freezing cold. i think they go in the jury room, look at the facts. i think closing arguments fade in their memory, but you don't want to bore the jury and freeze them to death, but that's what happens. these aren't dra

banner towing is not public speech and with the first amendment and this is viewpoint neutral. even though the plaintiff was abortion organization and this is neutral and you have specific tourism interest in this as well and it minimizes traffic distractions as well and the kiosks and the distractions and we are happy to provide assistance. i want to read a statement from catherine howard from the park alliance. they support this legislation as well especially because flights over golden gate park and ocean beach and there are other parts connected. in san francisco beautiful we are happy to work with and you neighborhoods with this opportunity. thank you. >> thank you. ms. rogers. >> hi alice rogers again from south park and i want to thank supervisor kim once again for realizing this is also a neighborhood issue and not just a large corporate sporting event issue. we have spent years on the phone with the faa dealing with this issue and and linked with the america's cup, so we really appreciate the efforts of supervisor kim to make this a full time legislation. we would love

balancing the first amendment with the right of people to live their lives without fear. >> before we go to q and a from the audience, a quick word from our sponsors. >> sorry to interrupt but we want to keep the day moving quickly. to smeed up the lunch service, please remove your bags from the tables. water and refreshments are available. lunch will begin promptly at 12.30 so please make sure everything is off your table so the servers can facilitate a quick luncheon service and we'll get on with our program. sorry to interrupt. >> so any questions from the audience? did we have someone with a microphone? go ahead. >> i'll go first. i completely agree with what you said about everything against bullying, everything against all the misconceptions, the lack of education, it all has to begin with community. let me introduce myself, i am a regional director for region 6 and also an ob-gyn physician, also a physician. one of the things that i have come across, having dealt with in my education and everything else, is that the school itself is a huge community for the kids and if we leave

we're not on their agenda, they completely ignore the first amendment, fourth amendment, second amendment. >> crystal, how does he get away with it. first amendment. >> how does he get away saying these are phony scandals and they're not phony to people whose lives have been completely up ended by them, but will the press hold this president and his administration accountable? >> sadly, governor huckabee, no. i think the reason being that the liberal media is stuck on the fact that president obama is the first black president, and what's odd and troubling to me, he's always talking about himself in the third person. you know what he says on his economic speech tour, washington has taken its eye off the ball. well, last time i looked, mr. president, you're commander in chief. you're the biggest head of washington. instead of focusing on trayvon martin's death, you know, that was really -- remember last week at this time president obama pushed himself in the news cycle by taking up the murder of trayvon martin after a jury found george zimmerman not guilty. that is not an important topic of

his career and presents a spot on current first amendment debate. this is about an hour and 15 minutes. >> delighted to have one of the greatest lawyers, present living lawyers and one of the greatest lawyers of the nation by the name of floyd abrams who has just released a wonderful book by critics are raving about call a friend of the court on the front lines with the first amendment. and what we will be doing is a 40 minute conversation interview he has kindly agreed to open it up to audience questions said that many people have a chance have a chance to question one of the greatest lawyers. so he took kickstart it, could you please tell us out this very interesting book is receiving these critical and reviews came about. >> first, i got a call from a professor at the university of washington law school. he told me he was interested in doing a book about my views about

you could also do away with the first amendment, second amendment, third amendment, fifth, sixth, seventh: i don't want to do that. >> well, someone could argue and say, look, now the government can control everything, preventing crime. doubt it would work very well, but that is what they could argue. of course we would have a police state which is expressly prohibited by the constitution. @%e reason we have a constitution is to prohibit the government from doing this. john: believing the constitutional argument for a moment, can you make is live from the more? i don't see how my privacy is being invaded by these massive scans? >> well, that's fine if you completely trust the government. john: ion't >> the government can use t information, for example, to blackmail corporate executives. they could use the information to persuade mbers of congress to vote a certain light, and they can u the information against the plic. we do not wt a cture in our country of distrust, of year. my parents ce from the mide east. they came from regimes that were tyrannical. and in those countries people were

chairman, the amendment i offer this evening clarifies and confirms the scope of two programs that mr. snowden illegally exposed while sitting in a hotel in communist china. first, the amendment clarifies that under section 702, no u.s. citizen or person in the u.s. can be targeted. period. i say again, no u.s. person under section 702 may be targeted in any way by the united states government. while there are other specific authorities, the u.s. person may be subject to an

sure, is a probl, but we need to me another law in curbing somebody's first amendment right?d it fascinating watching what goes through a jors mind findinthese people not uilty. those type of things are important for the general public to know what goes on in the back room, what is happening in a jury room. i don't think it is a good idea. where does it end? i think it is a very dangerous area to get into to curb the first amendment right now allow them to write a book. melissa: they can write a book, music not profit from it. maybe limit the amount of moneyy they can make. it seems there is some sort of middle ground because the temptation is just too great. you have these few jurors and one them could hang up the entire verdict thinking as they're ing into it they know ey're going to do this because they're going to try andell the book rights, it seems the financial temptation is so great in a sittion like this, you think about any of the trials were you have seen people that you feel like there is a specific outcome the world is anticipating, doesn't happen, you immediatel

you could also do away with the first amendment, second amendment, third amendment, fifth, sixth, seventhnd eighth. >> i don't want to do that. >> someone could argue that and say the government can control everything, they can prevent all crimes. i doubt it would work very well but of course, we'd have a police state. that's expressly prohibited by the constitution. the reason we have a constitution is to prohibit government from doing this. >> leaving the constitutional argument for a moment, can you make this live for me a moment. i don't see how my privacy is invaded by these massive scans. >> that's fine if you completely trust the government. >> no, i don't. >> our founders didn't trust the government, i don't trust the government. the government can use the information to, for example, blackmail corporate executives, they could use the information to persuade members of congress to vote a certain way and they can use the information against the public. weep don't want a culture in our country of distrust, of fear. my parents came from the middle east, they came from regime that is