Freedom Of Speech

After days of silence during which long-held resentment toward Abercrombie & Fitch Co. began to boil over, Chief Executive Michael S. Jeffries tried to stem a backlash against the teen-focused retailer. Jeffries, in a statement Thursday, discussed criticism that the company lacks women's XL and XXL sizes in favor of catering toward young, good-looking customers. "A&F is an aspirational brand that, like most specialty apparel brands, targets its marketing at a particular segment of customers," he said in the statement.

LAREDO, Texas -- A recent wave of kidnappings in Nuevo Laredo was prominently featured in a recent Sunday edition of El Mañana, one of the largest and most long-standing Spanish-language newspapers on the border. But the story carried no byline, and no residents were quoted or pictured. "People don't want to go out for interviews - they say, 'No, we may get kidnapped,'" said Ninfa Cantú Deándar, who runs the paper with her siblings. Because of threats from Mexican cartels, the paper - published in the twin cities of Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, and Laredo, Texas - is operating very differently these days.

The news accounts, now 70 years old, offer only fragments of the "ghastly drama" that surrounded the marriage of Mary Kenan Flagler Bingham, "the richest woman in America." She was the widow of Standard Oil co-founder Henry Flagler and her estate was worth between $60 million and $100 million. Her bridegroom was Judge Robert Worth Bingham, a Kentucky lawyer without independent means. Their wedding in 1916 made headlines, even in New York. And so did her mysterious death eight months later.

AIDS Walk Los Angeles is protesting the refusal of the Santa Monica bus system to accept paid notices promoting the organization's 2012 fundraiser. The flap is the most recent nationally involving free speech rights and bus ads. For the last five years, AIDS Walk Los Angeles has promoted its annual event with ads plastered on the city's municipal Big Blue Buses. Last year, however, the Santa Monica city attorney's office ordered Big Blue Bus officials to stop accepting such ads because they violated the transit system's long-standing policy banning non-commercial advertising, according to Joe Stitcher, the bus system's chief administrative officer.

Bulgarians celebrated their newly revived freedom of speech Sunday by gathering in parks to discuss political ideas, including the creation of opposition parties to challenge the ruling Communist regime. Meanwhile, a popular discussion program returned to national television Sunday night, presenting a series of provocative interviews sometimes critical of the government.

Who has free speech and who doesn't? In theory, we all do. But in reality, an awful lot of us don't. I would love to live in a world where we could say anything about anybody. So would--I imagine--a Marine staff sergeant from Camp Pendleton who just got disciplined for shooting off his mouth. And so would--I imagine--a Los Angeles cop who just got disciplined because she took a perceived cheap shot against the chief. Do military personnel have free speech? Do police officers have free speech?

W ithout freedom of thought there can be no such thing as wisdom, and no such thing as public liberty without freedom of speech; which is the right of every man as far as by it he does not hurt and control the right of another: and this is the only check it ought to suffer, and the only bounds it ought to know. --Benjamin Franklin, 1722 (at age 16) Warning: This column contains words and ideas that may be offensive to some readers.

The head of the Palestine Liberation Organization's Washington office said Wednesday that he will sue to block the State Department from shutting down his operation and vowed, "I will not leave." "I will not abandon my rights to freedom of speech and freedom of expression," said Hassan Rahman, director of the Palestinian Information Office, which the department said Tuesday must close within 30 days.

An Asahi newspaper reporter shot to death, another seriously wounded. The Japanese translator of Salman Rushdie's "The Satanic Verses" stabbed to death. The mayor of Nagasaki shot and seriously wounded after he declared the late emperor "partly responsible" for World War II. The director of a movie critical of gangsters slashed in the face and neck.

Stanford University, joining a national trend, has adopted new rules against racial and sexual harassment by students, officials announced Friday. However, as at other campuses, opponents contend that the regulations violate freedom of speech.

When can you be arrested for talking to someone? When can you be arrested for touching them? When the person you're talking to or touching is the vice president of the United States, it seems. On June 16, 2006, Steven Howards spotted Vice President Dick Cheney, who was coming out of a shopping mall in Beaver Creek, Colo., and chatting amiably with several people. Howards approached the vice president and allegedly pushed or touched him on the shoulder as he told him that his "policies on Iraq are disgusting.

Let's stipulate that you don't have to be a thug, racist or fool to oppose taxpayer-supported grants to illegal-immigrant college students. Let's agree, meanwhile, that you can support financial aid to those undocumented migrant students without being a squishy-headed traitor. The California Dream Act raises thorny issues about whether non-citizens should get government benefits at a time when many state services are being slashed. The arguments on the two sides are powerful enough that Gov. Jerry Brown has been taking weeks to decide whether to sign the legislation.

Facing increased scrutiny at home and a war crimes indictment abroad, Sudanese President Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir stood before his National Assembly on Tuesday and promised a freer, more inclusive government. Bashir, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court in connection with massacres in Darfur, spoke just days after attending ceremonies marking South Sudan's independence from his own Khartoum-based government. Sudan is entering a "second republic" comprising mainly Muslim Arabs, and people will be able to vote on a new constitution crafted with widespread participation, he said.

One version of the video game "Postal 2" features an easily angered "postal guy" with dark glasses and a high-powered rifle. He wanders through town killing everyone he sees, leaving them bloody and mutilated. A trip to the library turns into carnage of mass shootings and blazing fires. Another features young girls being struck by a shovel as they beg for mercy. The player can then pour gasoline over them, set them on fire and urinate on them. Despite admittedly being disturbed by what he saw in "Postal 2," a federal judge struck down, on free-speech grounds, a California law that would forbid the sale or rental of such grossly violent video games to those younger than 18. On Tuesday, when much of the nation is focused on the midterm elections to Congress, the Supreme Court will hear California's appeal and debate whether the states can restrict the sale of violent games to children and teenagers.

Despite free-speech concerns, Supreme Court justices sounded sympathetic Wednesday to a lawsuit filed by the father of a Marine killed in Iraq whose funeral was picketed by protesters with signs like, "Thank God for IEDs. " The justices appeared inclined to set a limit to freedom of speech when ordinary citizens are targeted with especially personal and hurtful attacks. The 1st Amendment says the government may not restrict free speech, but it is less clear when it shields speakers from private lawsuits.

It's called "libel tourism" — the practice of bringing a defamation lawsuit against an author or publisher in a country with less robust protections of free speech than those afforded Americans by the 1st Amendment and Supreme Court decisions. Many Americans may be surprised to learn that a leading destination for libel tourists is the United Kingdom. The United States can't prevent Britain or other countries from making it easier to win libel suits that might not succeed in this country, where even publications that include errors have received 1st Amendment protection.

Comedian Martin Lawrence has titled his first film "You So Crazy," after the name of his national stand-up comedy tour. But the Motion Picture Assn. of America ratings board, which has slapped the film with an NC-17 rating, thinks it's more like "You So Nasty." Lawrence held a press conference Tuesday at Manhattan's Omni Berkshire Hotel to announce his appeal of the rating. The appeal is scheduled to be heard Feb. 23, nine days before the film opens in New York and Los Angeles.

First Amendment activists and a member of Congress said this week that the FBI may have stepped out of line with a letter accusing a Compton rap group of encouraging "violence against and disrespect" for law enforcement officers. "The FBI should stay out of the business of censorship," said Rep. Don Edwards (D-San Jose), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee's subcommittee on civil and constitutional rights, when informed of an Aug.

UC Irvine officials recently recommended a one-year suspension for the Muslim Student Union, the group that appears to have been behind the disruption of a speech by Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren on the campus in February. It's an apt punishment for what was clearly an inappropriate protest, although it will satisfy neither conservative politicians such as Assemblyman Chuck DeVore (R-Irvine), who wrote a letter to the university's chancellor urging that the group be permanently banned, nor defenders of the Muslim group, who think the students were only exercising their free-speech rights.

Overturning a century-old restriction, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday that corporations may spend as much as they want to sway voters in federal elections. In a landmark 5-4 decision, the court's conservative bloc said that corporations have the same right to free speech as individuals and, for that reason, the government may not stop corporations from spending to help their favored candidates. The ruling -- which will presumably apply as well to labor unions and other organizations -- is likely to have an impact on this year's congressional elections.