Pirate's Cove

Leave it to the Grey Lady to fund a way to create a Constitutional and internationalist issue out of this

The American commitment to free speech is the most robust in the world. But these days that tolerance stops at the border.

Two cases pending in federal court in Manhattan will soon test how far the government can go in keeping Americans safe from what a State Department manual calls the “irresponsible expressions of opinion by prominent aliens.”

One case concerns a decision by the Bush administration to bar a Muslim scholar from visiting the United States. The other is a criminal prosecution of two Brooklyn businessmen for transmitting Hezbollah’s television station on their satellite service.

Well, why should they be allowed said free speech, Times writer Adam Liptak? The Muslim scholar is not a citizen of the United States, and we are under no compulsion to let him in, particularly if he preaches jihad. The First Amendment doesn’t apply to him. As you point out yourself, he is free to say what he wants, just not here. The Constitution is not an international compact, requiring we assign people around the world our rights.

As far as broadcasting Hezbollah TV in the US, I would think that liberals would be against hate speech. You write enough articles and attempt to pass laws against speech.

And, BTW, Adam, the 1st is designed to keep Congress from passing laws that restrict people from criticizing government. Not all speech is free. You can say whatever you want, but, you can be held in account for it, which is why we have the ability to sue people for defamation and slander.

The spirit of the old law, the McCarran-Walter Act, was revived after the Sept. 11 attacks. The USA Patriot Act of 2001, for instance, allowed the government to deny visas to people who had used their “position of prominence within any country to endorse or espouse terrorist activity.”

The government invoked that law in 2004 when it denied a work visa to Tariq Ramadan, a Swiss philosopher and Muslim intellectual. As a consequence, Professor Ramadan had to give up a teaching appointment at, in the words of The Guardian newspaper, “that hotbed of Muslim extremism, the University of Notre Dame in Indiana.”

If he is linked to terrorism, deal with it. Funny how Adam fails to bring up the restrictions on free speech during WWII, when a Democrat was in office.

“The First Amendment includes not only a right to speak, but also a right to receive information and ideas,” Judge Crotty wrote last year. That includes a right, he continued, quoting a Supreme Court decision, “to have an alien enter and to hear him explain and seek to defend his views.”

No, the 1st gives The People, meaning Americans, those who have applied for citizenship, and, to some degree, people who are let in legally, the right to criticize the government. But nobody is compelled to listen, and the US is not compelled to let everyone in. Under today’s liberals, they would have wanted Hitler to come over and speak at Columbia, explaining his views on genocide.

The question before the judges considering the two cases is thus a difficult one. What role should the First Amendment play when foreigners are doing the talking and the topic may be terror?

None. Foreigners are not under the auspices of the 1st, as they are not citizens. Deal with it, liberals. Keep your internationalist ideas to yourself.