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Is Broadcasting Terrorist Propaganda Protected Free Speech?


Yesterday Stop The ACLU reported about a New Yorker being arrested for broadcasting Hizbollah T.V.

    Iqbal has been charged with conspiring to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, the statement said. Federal authorities searched HDTV’s Brooklyn office and Iqbal’s Staten Island home, where Iqbal was suspected of maintaining satellite dishes, the statement said.

    The U.S. Treasury Department froze U.S. assets of al-Manar in March, saying it supported fund-raising and recruitment activities of Hizbollah, a Shiite Muslim group backed by Syria and Iran that has been at war with Israel in southern Lebanon. Source

One of our contributors made a bold prediction that the ACLU couldn’t be far behind. Well, it looks like his magic 8 ball is leaning to “very likely.”

    Donna Lieberman of the American Civil Liberties Union said she is “deeply troubled” that a television distributor is being prosecuted for the content of a broadcaster. Such a prosecution, she said, “raises serious First Amendment concerns.” She said she thinks that the law under which Iqbal has been charged has a First Amendment exception for news communications. Washington Post

Rantingprofs:

    Is the speech a direct enough incitement to violence that it can (and should) be banned?

    To me what the ACLU has to say on this is just about irrelevant. We need thoughtful commentary on these issues in time of war, but the ACLU has repeatedly proven they’re incapable of being the voice providing that commentary: they just knee jerk on these questions. We need people who’ve thought deeply about free speech and it’s legitimate limitations who are willing to concede that there are legitimate limitations. I’ve yet to hear the ACLU come across a single security provision or response to the situation they haven’t automatically rejected or suggested an acceptable alternative to.