I don't think you want to increase the likelihood of the government putting journalists on trial.
Take something like the lead up to the Iraq War. Journalists were systematically lied to by government officials to drum up cause for an unjust war. Though some were smart enough to see through the sham, others listened to senior intelligenc…
I don't think you want to increase the likelihood of the government putting journalists on trial.
Take something like the lead up to the Iraq War. Journalists were systematically lied to by government officials to drum up cause for an unjust war. Though some were smart enough to see through the sham, others listened to senior intelligence & military brass and reported their story.
What happens to them in this situation? The get prosecuted by the same people who lied to them?
None of the media missing on big stories is particularly new. The skepticism from the vast majority of the press during the outset of Watergate is instructive here too among dozens of other stories of massive importance.
I get wanting some consequences for this stuff, but outside refusing to read people you believe to be liars (and libel cases), I'm not sure of a remedy that makes sense. Don't think we want the gov't prosecuting this. At all.
struggle with this one so perhaps you can help me.
I'm a classic liberal on the 1st amendment, but I have come to realize that some people in our democracy have more first amendment protection than others.
A classic example, prosecutors have absolute immunity in our system due to the Constitutional activism of some Conservative judges in the past.
If a prosecutor goes to the media and implies that a lesser crime I was involved in involved murder when that is not true and I was never charged with that, the prosecutor is protected from civil liability by absolute immunity and criminal liability by the fact that he's a prosecutor and is not going to prosecute himself.
As long as the media gives an "according to police" they can repeat any lie the prosecutor tells them with complete 1st amendment protection.
Now I'm sitting in a courtroom with jurors that have read in the local paper that my case involved murder while the prosecutor claims I cannot raise this issue since I was never charged with murder, which most judges will support.
I'm now convicted and spending the rest of my life in prison based on a false claim intentionally spread by a prosecutor in secure a conviction for something else. This is not a hypothetical. Prosecutors play this game with the media whenever they have a well known jury trial to pollute potential jurors in their favor to ensure a conviction.
Can this be defended from a classic liberal standpoint? Or, is a better to adopt Hammurabi's code: He who knowingly tells a lie about another person is guilty of that which he lies about?
Put another way, if you are going to falsely destroy another person's life you will have skin in the game, so think twice.
In such a case, can we have a Press with full 1st amendment protections when they use that power to deny the freedom and right to a fair trial to others?
Another example: A Newspaper supports the criminalization of some form of speech they don't approve of under the ubiquitous "fire in a crowded theater" argument that the Supreme Court had soundly defeated, but is still ubiquitous as an excuse to criminalize unpopular speech at the State Supreme Court level.
Does the press have a 1st amendment right to argue that other citizens should not have a 1st amendment right, but they should? What they call "hiding behind the Constitution" when other make unpopular speech they don't approve of?
I genuinely have no good answer and would appreciate your thoughts.
I'm in full agreement that some people have *more* first amendment rights than others and, additionally, that some speech is more powerful than other speech both in practice and as legal precedent. Cops are of course a great example---their burden for truth-telling should be higher but they lie to the media and in court with impunity. The lead up to the Iraq War is my stock example here for a reason: hundreds of thousands died for a lie. Zero consequences for the responsible officials. Domestic spying is another gutting example: look at the difference between Snowden and someone like Jake Clapper. The latter is regarded as a hero in some circles and most of our mainstream politicians treat Snowden as some traitor or pariah when he exhibited rare bravery at lifelong personal cost.
The vast differences between different classes 1A rights is a key point though. You bring up "the press have a 1st amendment right to argue that other citizens should not have a 1st amendment right." I'd also point to Ron DeSantis in Florida signing a law that makes certain Facebook can't "censor" people running for office but, of course, zero protections for the rabble. This stuff is pervasive and depressing.
As for the remedy? I wish I knew. There's a big difference, of course, with being wrong honestly and knowingly lying, especially in court or print. Proving the latter is difficult. In a world where shame and dignity mattered, there would be a reputation cost to lying. You probably don't need me to tell you that world does not exist (Marc Thiessen, America's number one torture advocate, is a syndicated columnist---just one of about a billion examples but one that always chaps my hide). We just have so many people in this country who operate not under a rubric of what's right but rather what they want and what they can get away with.
We all want consequences for deceit but when the arbiter is our government it's hard to see a way out.
It sounds like you struggle with many of the same challenges I do on this topic and I suspect we come down on the same side on protected speech as well. Your Marc Theissan and Ron DeSantis/Facebook examples are excellent as is your police example where they face no consequences for lying. I prefer the Prosecutor example only because they have absolute immunity. That means even if you proved they intentionally lied for a malicious purpose in court, the judge would still throw out the case under absolute immunity. It's a legal shield from accountability not even the police can match. Prosecutor's in Louisiana under DA Harry Connick knowingly sent innocent black men to the death chamber by hiding evidence (Brady Violation) that proved they were not guilty of the crime.
The consequences? They are still working as private attorneys today. They didn't even lose their law license and can never be sued due to their absolute immunity.
I don't think you want to increase the likelihood of the government putting journalists on trial.
Take something like the lead up to the Iraq War. Journalists were systematically lied to by government officials to drum up cause for an unjust war. Though some were smart enough to see through the sham, others listened to senior intelligence & military brass and reported their story.
What happens to them in this situation? The get prosecuted by the same people who lied to them?
None of the media missing on big stories is particularly new. The skepticism from the vast majority of the press during the outset of Watergate is instructive here too among dozens of other stories of massive importance.
I get wanting some consequences for this stuff, but outside refusing to read people you believe to be liars (and libel cases), I'm not sure of a remedy that makes sense. Don't think we want the gov't prosecuting this. At all.
struggle with this one so perhaps you can help me.
I'm a classic liberal on the 1st amendment, but I have come to realize that some people in our democracy have more first amendment protection than others.
A classic example, prosecutors have absolute immunity in our system due to the Constitutional activism of some Conservative judges in the past.
If a prosecutor goes to the media and implies that a lesser crime I was involved in involved murder when that is not true and I was never charged with that, the prosecutor is protected from civil liability by absolute immunity and criminal liability by the fact that he's a prosecutor and is not going to prosecute himself.
As long as the media gives an "according to police" they can repeat any lie the prosecutor tells them with complete 1st amendment protection.
Now I'm sitting in a courtroom with jurors that have read in the local paper that my case involved murder while the prosecutor claims I cannot raise this issue since I was never charged with murder, which most judges will support.
I'm now convicted and spending the rest of my life in prison based on a false claim intentionally spread by a prosecutor in secure a conviction for something else. This is not a hypothetical. Prosecutors play this game with the media whenever they have a well known jury trial to pollute potential jurors in their favor to ensure a conviction.
Can this be defended from a classic liberal standpoint? Or, is a better to adopt Hammurabi's code: He who knowingly tells a lie about another person is guilty of that which he lies about?
Put another way, if you are going to falsely destroy another person's life you will have skin in the game, so think twice.
In such a case, can we have a Press with full 1st amendment protections when they use that power to deny the freedom and right to a fair trial to others?
Another example: A Newspaper supports the criminalization of some form of speech they don't approve of under the ubiquitous "fire in a crowded theater" argument that the Supreme Court had soundly defeated, but is still ubiquitous as an excuse to criminalize unpopular speech at the State Supreme Court level.
Does the press have a 1st amendment right to argue that other citizens should not have a 1st amendment right, but they should? What they call "hiding behind the Constitution" when other make unpopular speech they don't approve of?
I genuinely have no good answer and would appreciate your thoughts.
I'm in full agreement that some people have *more* first amendment rights than others and, additionally, that some speech is more powerful than other speech both in practice and as legal precedent. Cops are of course a great example---their burden for truth-telling should be higher but they lie to the media and in court with impunity. The lead up to the Iraq War is my stock example here for a reason: hundreds of thousands died for a lie. Zero consequences for the responsible officials. Domestic spying is another gutting example: look at the difference between Snowden and someone like Jake Clapper. The latter is regarded as a hero in some circles and most of our mainstream politicians treat Snowden as some traitor or pariah when he exhibited rare bravery at lifelong personal cost.
The vast differences between different classes 1A rights is a key point though. You bring up "the press have a 1st amendment right to argue that other citizens should not have a 1st amendment right." I'd also point to Ron DeSantis in Florida signing a law that makes certain Facebook can't "censor" people running for office but, of course, zero protections for the rabble. This stuff is pervasive and depressing.
As for the remedy? I wish I knew. There's a big difference, of course, with being wrong honestly and knowingly lying, especially in court or print. Proving the latter is difficult. In a world where shame and dignity mattered, there would be a reputation cost to lying. You probably don't need me to tell you that world does not exist (Marc Thiessen, America's number one torture advocate, is a syndicated columnist---just one of about a billion examples but one that always chaps my hide). We just have so many people in this country who operate not under a rubric of what's right but rather what they want and what they can get away with.
We all want consequences for deceit but when the arbiter is our government it's hard to see a way out.
It sounds like you struggle with many of the same challenges I do on this topic and I suspect we come down on the same side on protected speech as well. Your Marc Theissan and Ron DeSantis/Facebook examples are excellent as is your police example where they face no consequences for lying. I prefer the Prosecutor example only because they have absolute immunity. That means even if you proved they intentionally lied for a malicious purpose in court, the judge would still throw out the case under absolute immunity. It's a legal shield from accountability not even the police can match. Prosecutor's in Louisiana under DA Harry Connick knowingly sent innocent black men to the death chamber by hiding evidence (Brady Violation) that proved they were not guilty of the crime.
The consequences? They are still working as private attorneys today. They didn't even lose their law license and can never be sued due to their absolute immunity.