Free speech is a right certain countries grant their own citisens when those citisens are in their home countries. It means that in those countries, those countries' citisens can freely speak their minds. As an American I can say nearly anything and even a lot in the UK. Yet unless specifically invited to the UK to make a public speech I cannot not make anti-UK foreign policy speeches there. If I do, the UK can cancel the implied courtesy allowing me there.
To speak his/her mind freely a citisen-speaker must be clearly heard.
A citisen cannot be clearly heard if audience-members or others boo speakers or drown them out with air horns or other noise-makers. Nor can any citisen- or other speaker be heard if s/he was cancelled after an invitation to speak was given.
Universities especially should require incoming students sign pledges ensuring free [easily heard] speech to all speakers legally on those universities' campuses.
Only clearly heard Ideas can be exchanged or refuted.
Harvard allowed pro-Palestine speaker to be heard without interference. Wasn't such a right also good enough for pro-Israel speakers?
Harvard's brilliant President Alan Garber, BA, MA, PhD, and MD, misses the point when he claims that suspending US aid attacks Harvard's academic freedom. Is he serious? When Harvard blocks some of its students' free speech it ceases being a university that is owed tax-exemption and certainly it is owed no US aid.
I do not agree with your position that illegal people in this country have First Amendment rights. They should have no rights under our constitution because they are not here legally. They should be expelled, no matter what political positions they take!
Foreigners in the US either with visas or by agreements between their countries and the US are here by courtesy. They have some rights [like no prison without a full-trial]. but their being here is a courtesy easily revoked for bad behavior.
Proving their bad behavior takes no trial with all the safeguards enjoyed by US citisens. So they can be speedily expelled.
Expelling them if they entered illegally, a more serious matter, takes an immigration judge [with no jury defence-lawyer involved] who in her/his own judgment can check about three boxes to speed the illegal person out of the US.
This is how it used to be. How did those rules get forgotten to allow imagined rights to fill the void? Ask light-weight judges like Boasberg.
This is a naive and shortsighted view. Even if you don’t care about my freedom of speech (I’m British and travel to America to speak regularly), you should recognise that whoever gets to decide what constitutes bad behaviour (and consequently whether Americans are allowed to hear me or not) will depend very much on which political party is in power at any time. When we broke the Grievance Studies affair, I needed to travel to America. Many Americans wanted to hear me to speak on the subject and their right to do so should not depend on whether or not people who issue ESTAs think hoaxing academic journals was bad behaviour or not.
Since a British backpacker was detained by ICE for three weeks and deported in chains for doing housework in return for accommodation, we now have a travel warning on America. I’d have to get a B2 visa if my accommodation is paid for by any conference or event that wants me to speak to avoid that happening. This costs a fair bit of money and also requires an interview at the American embassy & they can’t process everyone who wants to go to a conference so I’ve not been able to accept any this year.
The warning also says to take a burner phone with no messaging apps and delete social media accounts before travelling because people have been required to open their phones and show private messages and then turned away if they are critical of the current administration. That’s all very well but I have a weird surname and if you search it with “Trump” you’ll find me being critical of the current administration in mainstream outlets. The advice is to attend conferences only by zoom at this time.
You can justify any one of these new developments on some ground or other but, at the same time, the practical results are that any American organisation wanting to host an international conference with diverse political views is running into problems. They cannot afford to cover visas for everybody and also risk some speakers not being allowed in because of their political views. It’s just easier to host them in other countries which makes me sad. I have long held up America as an exemplar of the kind of free speech protections we should have in the UK and now I am having discussions with event and conference coordinators about whether burner phones & deleting my social media presence would be enough to allow me in and whether there is any risk of me ending up in a detention centre if I do.
About ten years ago my daughter (US citizen) tried to enter the UK to volunteer on a farm. She had no work visa and was summarily deported after three days in detention. Of course, this was an utterly normal response for the UK and any other nation. The USA should not have a different standard, as if it is the catch-all nation for all manner of visitors. There is no politics needed to deport a visitor who lacks the proper visa.
Well, yes, of course. That's not being disagreed with by anybody. People need the right visas to enter a country. On that score, the US will just have to make its admin catch up with its rules if it wants to be able to host international conferences of various kinds as it always has done.
It’s laughable that the authorities in Britain are warning their citizens about the dangers of free speech in America. Look in the mirror please.
As far as the poor British tourist who was thrown in jail in Tacoma, I did read up on that, and I agree she was treated badly, however, there’s no indication that that had anything to do with anything that she said
I am not the authorities in Britain, though. I am a Brit opposing the authorities in Britain on the subject of free speech and feeling a bit sad that I can no longer hold the US up as an exemplar as clearly as I once could.
No, the detained backpacker was an example of the chaos of requiring visas to attend conferences in the US now. This has, I suspect, an unintentional limiting effect on free speech because it's so much harder to have international conferences and events now.
Max, you're missing the forest for the trees. Some of the most insightful and most powerful writing about our rights was written by James Madison. Madison (and many SCOTUS justices) have emphasized that the reason our Constitution secures "the freedom of speech" and "press" is to emphasize that such freedom is the first and foremost means by which Americans can and should assert and defend our rights.
The Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 were helpful in that the targeting of foreigners was closely related to the targeting of Americans. In the Report of 1800 that Madison wrote for the Virginia Assembly (opposing Section 2 of the Sedition Act of 1798), Madison and Virginia legislators highlighted the great danger in acquiescing in such violations of our Constitution by our public servants:
Attacking our freedom of expression and communication "more than any other" attack on our rights "ought to produce universal alarm; because it is levelled against that right of freely examining public characters and measures, and of free communication among the people thereon, which has ever been justly deemed the only effectual guardian of every [American] right."
Some of the most enlightening writing about our rights and our Constitution has been written by foreigners. Alexis de Tocqueville toured America and was prompted to write "Democracy in America" (1835) emphasizing the danger of "tyranny of the majority." John Stuart Mill (in 1859) echoed that idea in "On Liberty." Mere democracy (the mere will of the most influential majority) leads to tyranny. They wrote about the tyranny of the majority because they saw it. When they wrote, many people had the power to treat other people as property and the vast majority of people born in America were denied their right to vote. Their writing helped lead to crucial amendments to our Constitution. Those amendments (those changes to our society) protect Americans.
Corrin, as I said to Max, you're missing the forest for the trees. Right now in America far too many purported public servants presume or pretend that something somehow gave them the power to discriminate and retaliate against actual Americans for exercising "the freedom of speech" and "press" that our Constitution expressly secures to us all.
A big part of the reason for such unconstitutional discrimination and retaliation is that people in power either don't understand or don't respect the limitations We the People imposed on their power. Your formulation ("illegal people in this country" don't "have First Amendment rights") mistakes or misstates the issue.
The issue is (and must be) whether the powers being exercised by our public servants were delegated to our public servants by the People. The very reason the First Amendment starts with the words, "Congress shall make no law" is to expressly link the restrictions in the First Amendment to the powers "vested in a Congress" in Article I to "make all Laws."
Article I established the power and the duty of Congress to "make all Laws" that are "necessary and proper for carrying into Execution" all the "Powers" of Congress and "all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof." The power and duty of Congress to make all law clearly and expressly extends to all exercises of power by officers of the executive and judicial branches. Crucial express limitations on Congress's power in Article I implicitly apply with equal force to exercises of the powers vested in public servants under Article II or Article III (vested in or delegated to officers of the executive and judicial branches). All such exercises of power must be "necessary and proper for carrying into Execution" the "Powers vested by this Constitution" in our public servants.
Simply put, the First Amendment plainly and explicitly highlights powers that We the People never did vest in any public servant in any branch of federal government. No executive branch official was (or could be) vested with or delegated any power to retaliate against anyone for exercising the rights and freedoms secured by the First Amendment. Such presumed powers simply cannot be either "necessary" or "proper" (much less both "necessary and proper").
Article II emphasized that "[t]he executive Power" is "vested in a President." Then, Article II expressly emphasized the limitations We the People imposed on the power we vested. First, we vested the power in (and established the duty of) the president and all executive branch officials to "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed." Obviously, the exigencies of any given time (including emergencies) necessarily will expose gaps in laws enacted by Congress, so we also vested in the president (and imposed on him the duty) to "preserve, protect and defend" our "Constitution" to "the best" of the president's "Ability."
With the foregoing words We the People expressly emphasized how the president's powers are limited by our Constitution, including the limitation on the power of Congress (necessary and proper) and the First Amendment.
All that may be well and good with respect to United States citizens or even for those who are here legally on a visa, however, the constitution does vest all power concerning immigration in the federal government. And part of that power is the ability to remove any people who are not legal citizens for any reason.
Corrin, you missed the whole point of the language I quoted from our Constitution. It's plainly not true that our Constitution vested "all power concerning" anything in any public servant. That's a falsehood that is directly or indirectly taught to people who don't bother to read or think about our Constitution or read or think about the insights provided by the people who wrote and ratified it.
The people who wrote and ratified our Constitution (including Anti-Federalists) repeatedly expressed their extreme concern with "abuse of power" or "usurpation" of power or "encroachment" on rights. Limiting the power of all public servants is the whole point of the language quoted above (especially "necessary and proper" and "preserve, protect and defend" our Constitution or "support" our Constitution). Limiting the power of all public servants is the whole point of the way the Constitution divides powers between states and federal government (known as "federalism") and between the three branches of each such government (known as "separation of powers").
Corrin, you said "all power concerning immigration in the federal government." Now you have added "that they deem appropriate." You asserted those two mere conclusions to purport to contradict the actual language of our Constitution limiting all power granted to the federal government.
Your views reflect the falsehoods that people with power or people who want power have taught you to think. Their views are not what our Constitution actually says and means.
In my reply to Max, I addressed the Report of 1800 by James Madison and the Virginia Assembly emphasizing that our Constitution limits the powers of all public servants in every area. It did so to protect the liberty of the people with a revolutionary new concept: the people are sovereign and all public officials are public servants. Americans have representatives, not rulers. It is not legally possible for the power of our representatives in any area to extend to whatever "they deem appropriate." That's the whole point of the language in the Constitution limiting powers.
The Report of 1800 emphasized the need to read our Constitution "with a reverence for our constitution, in the true character in which it issued from the sovereign authority of the people." "The authority of constitutions over governments, and of the sovereignty of the people over constitutions, are truths which are at all times necessary to be kept in mind; and at no time perhaps more necessary than at the present."
"In the United States," the "people, not the government, possess the absolute sovereignty. The legislature, no less than the executive, is under limitations of power. Encroachments are regarded as possible from the one, as well as from the other. Hence in the United States, the great and essential rights of the people are secured against legislative, as well as against executive ambition. They are secured, not [merely] by laws paramount to prerogative; but by constitutions paramount to laws. This security of the freedom of the press, requires that it should be exempt, not only from previous restraint by the executive, as in Great Britain; but from legislative restraint also; and this exemption, to be effectual, must be an exemption, not only from the previous inspection of licensers, but from the subsequent penalty of laws."
i’m not disagreeing with any points you are making other than clearly, the government needs to have the authority to remove illegal migrants without being concerned about whatever rights they might have other than due process.
If they did not have such authority, we wouldn’t have a country so there would be no point arguing about the rest of your fine points!
“The Trump administration is making a big miscalculation on the First Amendment”
Greg includes a link to Taibbi’s “Blowing it On Speech” piece which has the above subhead.
I think FIRE has a case and might be right when it comes to the deportation of Öztürk.
I still side with Rubio even there, but a) I acknowledge that FIRE at least has an arguable case here, and b) I admire FIRE for standing up for what it believes in.
If this was solely about those like Öztürk, I’m even open to being persuaded to their side.
But it is Lukianoff and FIRE who make a big miscalculation in lumping Khalil in with the Öztürks in question.
Because Khalil went far beyond simple speech in what he did at Columbia University last year. He was one of the leaders of the illegal encampments. The ability of the government to deport him given current law and his actions should be beyond dispute.
At least FIRE was smart enough - or probably just lucky - to not take on Khalil’s case as well.
But in arguing that Khalil deserves the same protection from deportation for the same reason as Öztürk, they are not only wrong on the Constitution, wrong on the law… but they are going down the wrong path in trying to persuade more Americans to be on their side of the free speech issue.
Free speech is not an absolute right even for citizens; you cannot speak direct incitement to violence, nor shout “fire” in a crowded theater.
The First Amendment indeed offers some protections for non-citizens, including the right not to be imprisoned or fined for political speech.
I think it’s a stretch to say that the First Amendment means that non-citizens cannot be deported for speech that is legally protected by the First Amendment, but it’s at least a *reasonable* position.
But it is whack to suggest that Khalil, just because he was legally allowed into the country and so to be on U.S. soil, therefore has a First Amendment right not to be deported for his ongoing CONDUCT leading an illegal encampment advocating for the benefit of a foreign terrorist group, against our national security interests as determined by our elected leaders following a properly enacted law that is eminently reasonable given the importance of national security.
FIRE, you’re Blowing it On Speech when you include Khalil in your argument.
Free speech is a right certain countries grant their own citisens when those citisens are in their home countries. It means that in those countries, those countries' citisens can freely speak their minds. As an American I can say nearly anything and even a lot in the UK. Yet unless specifically invited to the UK to make a public speech I cannot not make anti-UK foreign policy speeches there. If I do, the UK can cancel the implied courtesy allowing me there.
To speak his/her mind freely a citisen-speaker must be clearly heard.
A citisen cannot be clearly heard if audience-members or others boo speakers or drown them out with air horns or other noise-makers. Nor can any citisen- or other speaker be heard if s/he was cancelled after an invitation to speak was given.
Universities especially should require incoming students sign pledges ensuring free [easily heard] speech to all speakers legally on those universities' campuses.
Only clearly heard Ideas can be exchanged or refuted.
Harvard allowed pro-Palestine speaker to be heard without interference. Wasn't such a right also good enough for pro-Israel speakers?
Harvard's brilliant President Alan Garber, BA, MA, PhD, and MD, misses the point when he claims that suspending US aid attacks Harvard's academic freedom. Is he serious? When Harvard blocks some of its students' free speech it ceases being a university that is owed tax-exemption and certainly it is owed no US aid.
I do not agree with your position that illegal people in this country have First Amendment rights. They should have no rights under our constitution because they are not here legally. They should be expelled, no matter what political positions they take!
Bravo!
Foreigners in the US either with visas or by agreements between their countries and the US are here by courtesy. They have some rights [like no prison without a full-trial]. but their being here is a courtesy easily revoked for bad behavior.
Proving their bad behavior takes no trial with all the safeguards enjoyed by US citisens. So they can be speedily expelled.
Expelling them if they entered illegally, a more serious matter, takes an immigration judge [with no jury defence-lawyer involved] who in her/his own judgment can check about three boxes to speed the illegal person out of the US.
This is how it used to be. How did those rules get forgotten to allow imagined rights to fill the void? Ask light-weight judges like Boasberg.
This is a naive and shortsighted view. Even if you don’t care about my freedom of speech (I’m British and travel to America to speak regularly), you should recognise that whoever gets to decide what constitutes bad behaviour (and consequently whether Americans are allowed to hear me or not) will depend very much on which political party is in power at any time. When we broke the Grievance Studies affair, I needed to travel to America. Many Americans wanted to hear me to speak on the subject and their right to do so should not depend on whether or not people who issue ESTAs think hoaxing academic journals was bad behaviour or not.
Since a British backpacker was detained by ICE for three weeks and deported in chains for doing housework in return for accommodation, we now have a travel warning on America. I’d have to get a B2 visa if my accommodation is paid for by any conference or event that wants me to speak to avoid that happening. This costs a fair bit of money and also requires an interview at the American embassy & they can’t process everyone who wants to go to a conference so I’ve not been able to accept any this year.
The warning also says to take a burner phone with no messaging apps and delete social media accounts before travelling because people have been required to open their phones and show private messages and then turned away if they are critical of the current administration. That’s all very well but I have a weird surname and if you search it with “Trump” you’ll find me being critical of the current administration in mainstream outlets. The advice is to attend conferences only by zoom at this time.
You can justify any one of these new developments on some ground or other but, at the same time, the practical results are that any American organisation wanting to host an international conference with diverse political views is running into problems. They cannot afford to cover visas for everybody and also risk some speakers not being allowed in because of their political views. It’s just easier to host them in other countries which makes me sad. I have long held up America as an exemplar of the kind of free speech protections we should have in the UK and now I am having discussions with event and conference coordinators about whether burner phones & deleting my social media presence would be enough to allow me in and whether there is any risk of me ending up in a detention centre if I do.
I urge you not be complacent about this.
About ten years ago my daughter (US citizen) tried to enter the UK to volunteer on a farm. She had no work visa and was summarily deported after three days in detention. Of course, this was an utterly normal response for the UK and any other nation. The USA should not have a different standard, as if it is the catch-all nation for all manner of visitors. There is no politics needed to deport a visitor who lacks the proper visa.
Well, yes, of course. That's not being disagreed with by anybody. People need the right visas to enter a country. On that score, the US will just have to make its admin catch up with its rules if it wants to be able to host international conferences of various kinds as it always has done.
It’s laughable that the authorities in Britain are warning their citizens about the dangers of free speech in America. Look in the mirror please.
As far as the poor British tourist who was thrown in jail in Tacoma, I did read up on that, and I agree she was treated badly, however, there’s no indication that that had anything to do with anything that she said
I am not the authorities in Britain, though. I am a Brit opposing the authorities in Britain on the subject of free speech and feeling a bit sad that I can no longer hold the US up as an exemplar as clearly as I once could.
No, the detained backpacker was an example of the chaos of requiring visas to attend conferences in the US now. This has, I suspect, an unintentional limiting effect on free speech because it's so much harder to have international conferences and events now.
If you are opposing the authorities in Britain on free speech, or on any other grounds, you better be careful what you say these days!
I have been for many years. I have active plans to get myself arrested now.
https://www.hpluckrose.com/p/the-thoughtcrime-lottery-a-liberal
Max, you're missing the forest for the trees. Some of the most insightful and most powerful writing about our rights was written by James Madison. Madison (and many SCOTUS justices) have emphasized that the reason our Constitution secures "the freedom of speech" and "press" is to emphasize that such freedom is the first and foremost means by which Americans can and should assert and defend our rights.
The Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 were helpful in that the targeting of foreigners was closely related to the targeting of Americans. In the Report of 1800 that Madison wrote for the Virginia Assembly (opposing Section 2 of the Sedition Act of 1798), Madison and Virginia legislators highlighted the great danger in acquiescing in such violations of our Constitution by our public servants:
Attacking our freedom of expression and communication "more than any other" attack on our rights "ought to produce universal alarm; because it is levelled against that right of freely examining public characters and measures, and of free communication among the people thereon, which has ever been justly deemed the only effectual guardian of every [American] right."
Some of the most enlightening writing about our rights and our Constitution has been written by foreigners. Alexis de Tocqueville toured America and was prompted to write "Democracy in America" (1835) emphasizing the danger of "tyranny of the majority." John Stuart Mill (in 1859) echoed that idea in "On Liberty." Mere democracy (the mere will of the most influential majority) leads to tyranny. They wrote about the tyranny of the majority because they saw it. When they wrote, many people had the power to treat other people as property and the vast majority of people born in America were denied their right to vote. Their writing helped lead to crucial amendments to our Constitution. Those amendments (those changes to our society) protect Americans.
Exactly!
Corrin, as I said to Max, you're missing the forest for the trees. Right now in America far too many purported public servants presume or pretend that something somehow gave them the power to discriminate and retaliate against actual Americans for exercising "the freedom of speech" and "press" that our Constitution expressly secures to us all.
A big part of the reason for such unconstitutional discrimination and retaliation is that people in power either don't understand or don't respect the limitations We the People imposed on their power. Your formulation ("illegal people in this country" don't "have First Amendment rights") mistakes or misstates the issue.
The issue is (and must be) whether the powers being exercised by our public servants were delegated to our public servants by the People. The very reason the First Amendment starts with the words, "Congress shall make no law" is to expressly link the restrictions in the First Amendment to the powers "vested in a Congress" in Article I to "make all Laws."
Article I established the power and the duty of Congress to "make all Laws" that are "necessary and proper for carrying into Execution" all the "Powers" of Congress and "all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof." The power and duty of Congress to make all law clearly and expressly extends to all exercises of power by officers of the executive and judicial branches. Crucial express limitations on Congress's power in Article I implicitly apply with equal force to exercises of the powers vested in public servants under Article II or Article III (vested in or delegated to officers of the executive and judicial branches). All such exercises of power must be "necessary and proper for carrying into Execution" the "Powers vested by this Constitution" in our public servants.
Simply put, the First Amendment plainly and explicitly highlights powers that We the People never did vest in any public servant in any branch of federal government. No executive branch official was (or could be) vested with or delegated any power to retaliate against anyone for exercising the rights and freedoms secured by the First Amendment. Such presumed powers simply cannot be either "necessary" or "proper" (much less both "necessary and proper").
Article II emphasized that "[t]he executive Power" is "vested in a President." Then, Article II expressly emphasized the limitations We the People imposed on the power we vested. First, we vested the power in (and established the duty of) the president and all executive branch officials to "take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed." Obviously, the exigencies of any given time (including emergencies) necessarily will expose gaps in laws enacted by Congress, so we also vested in the president (and imposed on him the duty) to "preserve, protect and defend" our "Constitution" to "the best" of the president's "Ability."
With the foregoing words We the People expressly emphasized how the president's powers are limited by our Constitution, including the limitation on the power of Congress (necessary and proper) and the First Amendment.
All that may be well and good with respect to United States citizens or even for those who are here legally on a visa, however, the constitution does vest all power concerning immigration in the federal government. And part of that power is the ability to remove any people who are not legal citizens for any reason.
Corrin, you missed the whole point of the language I quoted from our Constitution. It's plainly not true that our Constitution vested "all power concerning" anything in any public servant. That's a falsehood that is directly or indirectly taught to people who don't bother to read or think about our Constitution or read or think about the insights provided by the people who wrote and ratified it.
The people who wrote and ratified our Constitution (including Anti-Federalists) repeatedly expressed their extreme concern with "abuse of power" or "usurpation" of power or "encroachment" on rights. Limiting the power of all public servants is the whole point of the language quoted above (especially "necessary and proper" and "preserve, protect and defend" our Constitution or "support" our Constitution). Limiting the power of all public servants is the whole point of the way the Constitution divides powers between states and federal government (known as "federalism") and between the three branches of each such government (known as "separation of powers").
I didn’t say all power I said the power to control immigration for any reason that they deem appropriate
Corrin, you said "all power concerning immigration in the federal government." Now you have added "that they deem appropriate." You asserted those two mere conclusions to purport to contradict the actual language of our Constitution limiting all power granted to the federal government.
Your views reflect the falsehoods that people with power or people who want power have taught you to think. Their views are not what our Constitution actually says and means.
In my reply to Max, I addressed the Report of 1800 by James Madison and the Virginia Assembly emphasizing that our Constitution limits the powers of all public servants in every area. It did so to protect the liberty of the people with a revolutionary new concept: the people are sovereign and all public officials are public servants. Americans have representatives, not rulers. It is not legally possible for the power of our representatives in any area to extend to whatever "they deem appropriate." That's the whole point of the language in the Constitution limiting powers.
The Report of 1800 emphasized the need to read our Constitution "with a reverence for our constitution, in the true character in which it issued from the sovereign authority of the people." "The authority of constitutions over governments, and of the sovereignty of the people over constitutions, are truths which are at all times necessary to be kept in mind; and at no time perhaps more necessary than at the present."
"In the United States," the "people, not the government, possess the absolute sovereignty. The legislature, no less than the executive, is under limitations of power. Encroachments are regarded as possible from the one, as well as from the other. Hence in the United States, the great and essential rights of the people are secured against legislative, as well as against executive ambition. They are secured, not [merely] by laws paramount to prerogative; but by constitutions paramount to laws. This security of the freedom of the press, requires that it should be exempt, not only from previous restraint by the executive, as in Great Britain; but from legislative restraint also; and this exemption, to be effectual, must be an exemption, not only from the previous inspection of licensers, but from the subsequent penalty of laws."
i’m not disagreeing with any points you are making other than clearly, the government needs to have the authority to remove illegal migrants without being concerned about whatever rights they might have other than due process.
If they did not have such authority, we wouldn’t have a country so there would be no point arguing about the rest of your fine points!
No more soup for FIRE. I'll be exercising my freedom of speech by sending my $ elsewhere.
“The Trump administration is making a big miscalculation on the First Amendment”
Greg includes a link to Taibbi’s “Blowing it On Speech” piece which has the above subhead.
I think FIRE has a case and might be right when it comes to the deportation of Öztürk.
I still side with Rubio even there, but a) I acknowledge that FIRE at least has an arguable case here, and b) I admire FIRE for standing up for what it believes in.
If this was solely about those like Öztürk, I’m even open to being persuaded to their side.
But it is Lukianoff and FIRE who make a big miscalculation in lumping Khalil in with the Öztürks in question.
Because Khalil went far beyond simple speech in what he did at Columbia University last year. He was one of the leaders of the illegal encampments. The ability of the government to deport him given current law and his actions should be beyond dispute.
At least FIRE was smart enough - or probably just lucky - to not take on Khalil’s case as well.
But in arguing that Khalil deserves the same protection from deportation for the same reason as Öztürk, they are not only wrong on the Constitution, wrong on the law… but they are going down the wrong path in trying to persuade more Americans to be on their side of the free speech issue.
Free speech is not an absolute right even for citizens; you cannot speak direct incitement to violence, nor shout “fire” in a crowded theater.
The First Amendment indeed offers some protections for non-citizens, including the right not to be imprisoned or fined for political speech.
I think it’s a stretch to say that the First Amendment means that non-citizens cannot be deported for speech that is legally protected by the First Amendment, but it’s at least a *reasonable* position.
But it is whack to suggest that Khalil, just because he was legally allowed into the country and so to be on U.S. soil, therefore has a First Amendment right not to be deported for his ongoing CONDUCT leading an illegal encampment advocating for the benefit of a foreign terrorist group, against our national security interests as determined by our elected leaders following a properly enacted law that is eminently reasonable given the importance of national security.
FIRE, you’re Blowing it On Speech when you include Khalil in your argument.