Several LOLs for me in this DNews editorial today. AND Rachel, think about the line We run false statements in the Letters to the Editor..... relative to free speech and climate deniers. The nuance would be if there is a free speech right to say false things that are also dangerous. Our View: Idaho should protect speech, not the dairy business By Lindsey Treffry, for the editorial board | Posted: Thursday, September 11, 2014 1:00 am U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill was a voice of reason in a murky dairy lawsuit last Thursday. Winmill denied Idahos request to dismiss a lawsuit brought by animal rights, environmental rights and civil liberties proponents. The suit argues the recently passed law criminalizing recording at agriculture facilities is unconstitutional. Winmill says he refused to dismiss the case because it raises First Amendment concerns as it restricts protected speech. As journalists, we say, Duh. The dairy law, passed in February, makes gathering proof of animal abuse a crime, a crime with a harsher punishment than the penalty for animal cruelty itself. It also criminalizes agriculture industry employees who lie on job applications, which is where Winmill urged caution. Any laws criminalizing false speech, such as lying on employment applications as the new law does, deserve extra scrutiny because most false statements are still protected, he wrote. False statements that do not constitute defamation, fraud, or perjury are fully protected speech, Winmill wrote. False speech is still speech - period. We run false statements in the Letters to the Editor occasionally, and those statements are protected by the constitution. Politicians, without fallout, spit out false statements weekly on television. Plus, the worst repercussion for an Idaho employee who falsifies information on their non-dairy employment application usually is getting the boot. So, why, for dairy workers, are they not only given the boot, but faced with jail time for lying during the application process? Winmill said the law could be seen as a prior restraint on free speech based on content because only those who release undercover video or audio recordings of an agriculture facility could be charged with a crime. Employees who release video in another profession could not. Idahos workers and their right to free speech should always come before the rights of businesses. With that idea in mind, we hope the lawsuit prevails.
Posted on: Fri, 12 Sep 2014 00:10:16 +0000
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