First Amendment Under Attack: 18 Examples of How They Are Coming for Our Free Speech

End of the American Dream

In the United States today, the First Amendment is under attack like never before. Technological innovations such as the Internet have made it possible for average Americans to communicate directly with one another in ways that completely bypass the mainstream media, and this is making the elite very uncomfortable. They have decided that they better come after our free speech before it is too late. Right now, free speech in America is being chipped away at it in thousands of different ways. On the one hand, you have the disciples of "political correctness" that want to make all forms of speech that are "offensive" to anyone against the law. On the other hand, you have those that are obsessed with "national security" that want to ban all speech that is critical of the U.S. government or the U.S. military. These twin forces are constantly seeking to push the First Amendment into a smaller and smaller box. If you say the wrong thing in America today, your website might be shut down, you could be suspended from school, you may find yourself out of a job and there is now even a possibility that you could be arrested and shipped off to Guantanamo Bay without a trial.

Usually those that are targeted for their speech are those that the "establishment" does not like. That would include free thinkers, political activists, libertarians, true conservatives and Christians.

Instead of seeing the value in allowing everyone to say what they think, we are being taught in America today that there is speech that is "acceptable" and speech that is "not acceptable".

If we allow this attack on the First Amendment to continue, eventually we will wake up in a country where our freedom of speech is totally gone.

The following are 18 examples of how the elite are coming for our free speech....

#1 Two bills currently going through Congress, the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect Intellectual Property Act, would give the U.S. government the ability to shut down literally millions of websites.

These bills are incredibly dangerous and if they are passed they could change the way that the Internet operates forever.

The following is from a piece that Google co-founder Sergey Brin recently authored about these new bills....

"Imagine my astonishment when the newest threat to free speech has come from none other but the United States. Two bills currently making their way through congress -- SOPA and PIPA -- give the U.S. government and copyright holders extraordinary powers including the ability to hijack DNS and censor search results (and this is even without so much as a proper court trial)"

Any website that posts "infringing material" could be instantly shut down under these news laws. For example, if one "infringing video" was posted on YouTube, the entire site could be taken down forever and permanently erased from Google in a matter of days. That is how serious these new bills are as Brin noted later on in his piece....

"While I support their goal of reducing copyright infringement (which I don't believe these acts would accomplish), I am shocked that our lawmakers would contemplate such measures that would put us on a par with the most oppressive nations in the world."

Can you imagine a world where there is no more YouTube, no more Facebook and no more Twitter?

That is what we could be looking at.

Sadly, many in the U.S. Congress seem absolutely obsessed with censoring the Internet.

U.S. Senator Chris Dodd once said the following....

"When the Chinese told Google that they had to block sites or they couldn’t do [business] in their country, they managed to figure out how to block sites"

U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman has gone even farther. Just check out what he once said....

"Right now, China – the government – can disconnect parts of its internet in a case of war. We need to have that here too"

Not only that, U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman also recently asked Google to install a "terrorist button" on all Blogger.com blogs so that readers can easily flag "terrorist content" for authorities.

The Internet is under attack from Washington D.C., and if you love the Internet you need to say something while you still can.

Please contact your representatives in Congress and tell them that they must vote against these bills.

#2 Politicians all over the United States are using law enforcement authorities to shut down free speech that they do not like. For example, during a recent meeting of the Pensacola City Council, a priest was nearly arrested after he calmly said some things that members of the city council did not like. If you have not seen this video of the incident yet, you should really check it out.

#3 The First Amendment is especially under attack in our public schools. For example, one group of high school athletes was recently suspended for "Tebowing" in the hallways of their school.

#4 The U.S. government is now encouraging children to spy on their parents as part of the "war on terror". If a school official hears that a parent has said the "wrong thing" at home, that parent could potentially get labeled as a "potential terrorist".

#5 Even though tens of millions of Americans have found the information and products sold by Kevin Trudeau to be incredibly helpful, the FTC has mercilessly gone after him. They have done everything that they can to shut him up and now he is being ordered to pay a ridiculous financial penalty of 37.6 million dollars.

#6 Hillary Clinton recently said that certain "political, cultural, and religious beliefs" are obstacles to promoting alternative lifestyles around the world and therefore must not be tolerated....

"Now, raising this issue, I know, is sensitive for many people and that the obstacles standing in the way of protecting the human rights of LGBT people rest on deeply held personal, political, cultural, and religious beliefs"

#7 Some U.S. courts have ruled that it is unconstitutional to use the name of "Jesus Christ" during any official government meeting. The following comes from a recent WorldNetDaily article....

But the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for Separation of Church and State are standing by their victory in a U.S. circuit court decision that states even "a solitary reference to Jesus Christ" in invocations before the Forsyth County Board of Commissioners' meetings could do "violence to the pluralistic and inclusive values that are a defining feature of American public life."

#8 In North Carolina last year, a pastor was dismissed from his chaplain duties for praying in the name of Jesus.

#9 Down in Texas, the Department of Veteran Affairs actually tried to ban prayers that include the words "God" or "Jesus" during funeral services for veterans.

#10 Being able to engage in peaceful protests is one of the most important rights that the First Amendment protects. But in recent years that right has been under attack like never before. In a recent article I detailed some of the violence that law enforcement authorities have used against protesters in 2011....

In recent weeks, we have seen law enforcement authorities brutally dragging female protesters to the ground by their hair. We have also seen them use pepper spray, tear gas, rubber bullets and flash-bang stun grenades against protesters. If this is how protesters are going to be dealt with from now in America, then we have completely lost the moral high ground. How will we ever get other nations to take us seriously when we criticize their brutality against protesters when we are so brutal ourselves?

#11 As I have written about previously, the FBI is now systematically recording Internet talk radio programs all over the United States. This is going to cause many Internet talk radio hosts to watch what they are saying. After all, who wants a visit from the FBI? The following comes from a recent article by Mark Weaver of WMAL.com....

If you call a radio talk show and get on the air, you might be recorded by the FBI.

The FBI has awarded a $524,927 contract to a Virginia company to record as much radio news and talk programming as it can find on the Internet.

The FBI says it is not playing big brother by policing the airwaves, but rather seeking access to what airs as potential evidence.

#12 In Wichita, Kansas last year, a Christian minister was handcuffed and hauled off to jail by police for sharing the gospel and handing out tracts to Muslims on a public sidewalk.

#13 On June 18, 2010 two Christians decided that they would peacefully pass out copies of the gospel of John on a public sidewalk outside a public Islamic festival in Dearborn, Michigan and within three minutes 8 police officers surrounded them and placed them under arrest.

#14 As I have written about previously, a very revealing document obtained by Oath Keepers shows that the FBI is actually instructing store owners to report many new forms of "suspicious activity" to them. Apparently the FBI now believes that the definition of "suspicious activity" includes "radical theology" and making "extreme religious statements".

#15 Last year, a high school student in Southern California was suspended for two days because he had private conversations with his classmates during which he discussed Christianity. He was also banned from bringing his Bible to school ever again.

#16 A Christian consultant was recently fired by Bank of America and by Cisco because they discovered a book that he had written that expressed Christian viewpoints about social issues.

#17 Members of the U.S. Congress have been banned from saying "Merry Christmas" in any piece of congressional mail that is paid for by U.S. tax dollars. Even if you do not celebrate that holiday, you should still be outraged at that infringement of free speech.

#18 Barack Obama recently signed a new law that officially designates the United States as part of the "battleground" on the war on terror. This new law allows the U.S. military to arrest American citizens if they are suspected of being "potential terrorists" and to detain them indefinitely without trial. So if the U.S. military comes and grabs your neighbor and ships him off to Guantanamo Bay, then this new law is probably to blame.

This new law is also going to have a huge chilling effect on free speech in America.

I have personally been contacted by several people that I know in recent weeks that are changing their behavior because of laws that have recently been passed.

It is not enough for the elite that they control Wall Street, most of the big corporations and the U.S. government.

They also want to shut all the rest of us up and keep us from complaining about it.

The elite literally want to control what we think and what we say.

We live in a country where political correctness is way out of control and where bureaucrats are constantly trying to push our free speech into a smaller and smaller box.

They are coming for our free speech my friends.

If you love free speech, and if you love the Internet as it currently exists, then you need to stand up and say something right now.

If we do not respond to these constant attacks on the First Amendment, then eventually we are going to lose it for good.

Reprinted with permission from End of the American Dream.

December 21, 2011

Copyright © 2011 End of the American Dream