UN Ambassador: Wants to control free speech with legislation.
At the UN Headquarters in New York, the Ambassador of Norway, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of the Right to Freedom of Opinion and Expression, a fellow on genocide prevention at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and experts on journalistic ethics and related issues, participated in a discussion on how to control freedom of speech with regard to incitement of “genocide and other crimes against humanity.”
Adama Dieng, UN Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide explained: “It is important to balance the principle of freedom of expression with the need to prevent or stop the most extreme cases of hate speech – those that have the potential to incite mass violence.”
Dieng said that there is a need for legislation to define hate speech, determine its root cause and counter it with “positive speech” approved by the UN and governments to facilitate civil society while “improving national and international early warning of build-up of hate, through the monitoring of new media.”
It must become clear through international action and governmental understanding that there are factors that make speech “dangerous because of the intimated or direct “severity, content, extent, imminence, likelihood, and context of the speech.”
Dieng continued: “However, we need more clarity on what constitutes incitement to atrocity crimes, especially because by better knowing what constitutes incitement, we can also better limit or control it. This, in turn, is essential to prevent mass violence.”
Genocide and its incitement is a concern of the UN because the founding principles of the international body with respect to the Holocaust and the role speech have played in recent events occurring in Rwanda and across the Middle East.
Censorship of speech on the internet is the concern of groups such as the Jewish Internet Defense Force (JIDF) who are “a private, independent, non-violent protest organization representing a collective of activists” that are committed to advocating for Israel on the internet by pro-Israel “presenting news, viewpoints, and information throughout a large network reaching hundreds of thousands via email, Facebook, YouTube, RSS feeds, Twitter, and other digital hubs to those who share our concerns for Israel and about anti-Semitic and jihadist online content.”
JIDF are proud that they have been integral in “the removal of thousands of anti-Semitic and jihadist pages online. Whether it’s an anti-Semitic Facebook page with millions of members, or a YouTube video promoting global jihad, our team is on it, monitoring it, and urging companies to adhere to their own rules.”
In the name of controlling free speech on the Web, as well as demanding that anti-Zionist views be silenced, JIDF have gathered “individuals” together in “a real grassroots effort for change.”
Marvin Kurz, senior legal counsel of the B’nai B’rith International (BBI), said that limitations on free speech are necessary to protect the Jewish community.
The House of Representatives passed HR 347 entitled the “Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act” in 2011 which was subsequently signed into law by President Obama in March of the same year.
The law states that it is a federal offense to protest on grounds that are restricted from public access such as the White House, in or around the President or Vice President, any government official and the Secret Service (SS) “knowingly”.
According to House Representative Thomas Rooney, the SS wanted the language of the bill to state that agents assigned to the president be included.
Interpretations of the bill have been varied; however the change to the language from “willfully and knowingly” to only “knowingly” is insight into the mind of the government who would have to proof the individual’s guilt by the intent standard ; however the legislation could easily be misused by the SS who would bring legal action against protesters who were gathered lawfully with the intent to suppress the 1st Amendment.
Judge Andrew Napolitano explained: “Permitting people to express publicly their opinions to the president only at a time and in a place and manner such that he cannot hear them violates the First Amendment because it guarantees the right to useful speech; and unheard political speech is politically useless.”
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