The Ridgewood Blog Brings a Free Market Laissez-faire Point of View to Local, New Jersey State and National Issues.
The NJEA, FOP and other public-sector labor unions are attempting to influence the legislative process with campaign donations? Wow, there’s a surprise. Union thugs have destroyed NJ’s economy and made property taxes so unreasonable that the state suffers from net migration out and an economy that lags the recovery in surrounding states. The unions and their paid-for cheerleaders in Trenton are 100% to blame, they are driven by shameless greed.
ISIS Influence on Web Prompts Second Thoughts on First Amendment
By ERIK ECKHOLMDEC. 27, 2015
It is one of the most hallowed precepts in modern constitutional law: Freedom of speech may not be curbed unless it poses a “clear and present danger” — an actual, imminent threat, not the mere advocacy of harmful acts or ideas. But in response to the Islamic State’s success in grooming jihadists over the Internet, some legal scholars are asking whether it is time to reconsider that constitutional line.
Appeals for a tougher response to the Islamic State’s online recruiting efforts have, not surprisingly, emerged from the political realm. Donald J. Trump said the government should call on Bill Gates and others to somehow close off dangerous Internet sites, and called First Amendment concerns foolish.
Hillary Clinton said the government should work with host companies to shut jihadist websites and chat rooms. That would be constitutional if voluntary, legal experts say, but not if the government exerted pressure on private firms to cooperate in censorship.
Some security experts called on YouTube to ban videos of lectures by Anwar al-Awlaki, which helped radicalize the attackers in San Bernardino, Calif., and many others.
Recently, though, a few legal scholars, too, have engaged in what others call First Amendment heresy. What does clear and present danger mean when terrorists are provoking violence over the Internet? Should not the government have a way, they ask, to block messages that facilitate terrorist acts?
Sep 16, 2015
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, Rep. Scott Garrett (NJ-05), Chairman of the Financial Services Subcommittee on Capital Markets and Government-Sponsored Enterprises, issued the following statement as the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) begins their September meeting:
“As the ridiculous amount of attention on this week’s FOMC meeting proves, the performance of our economy and the financial markets is increasingly dependent on a group of unelected bureaucrats at the Federal Reserve. Chair Yellen and her predecessors claim that the Fed’s monetary policy decisions are based upon objective criteria, yet traders, lenders, economists, and other market participants anxiously wait to probe and dissect every word in the FOMC statement.
“There is a problem when more Americans are looking to a secret Fed meeting for economic indicators than the actual financial markets. We need to scale back the undue influence that the Federal Reserve and other central bankers have on our economy by following what has worked in the past: a rules-based monetary policy that fosters greater certainty and leads to longer periods of sustained economic growth.”