Unaccountable Speech Czars and Their Civility Codes
by KAREN LUGO
March 22, 2011
If you thought that the Supreme Court was the final arbiter of free speech, think again. Although the highest court has just affirmed in an 8-1 ruling that speech touching areas of public concern deserves the highest level of protection in furtherance of public debate, local speech police are still busily imposing victim-defined civility codes. There may be no criminal punishment that accompanies a censure from these speech-minders but there certainly is a heaping dose of public approbation and foreseeable damage to reputation and professional standing. Especially when the executive director of the government-appointed commission gratuitously comments for publication that there is an implicit link between your speech – and an ostensible hate crime. An assumption based upon an assumption affords a public official the authority to speculate that you have motivated a hate crime? This kind of unbridled and arbitrary power is chilling and certainly not consistent with the Supreme Court’s recent vindication of "free and robust debate of public issues.”
Who would have thought it could happen in America? First, you learn that two radically anti-American Muslim imams are coming to your town, then you organize a local rally to protest their appearance. The community responds enthusiastically. Thinking that this is certainly a matter of utmost public concern, at least 500 Southern California residents turn out to declare their opposition to the extreme Islamist rants of these men. Respected public officials speak, there is singing and praying, and speakers affirm that radical Islamists and sharia law are not consistent with American constitutional freedoms. You go home. Weeks later, you are linked to an unverified hate crime and the Council on Islamic-American Relations is blasting out press releases every few days about how your effort to denounce hate instead incited hate. Of course they neglect to mention all of the times that you and the other speakers emphatically acknowledged and affirmed the contributions of moderate Muslims to American society.
CAIR knows that civility-minded commissioners justify their official existence and rôle as promoters of new hate-incitement regulations only by discovery of hate. The mission is to respond to hate complaints and arbitrate tolerance -- but missing in the Orange County, California mission statement is any responsibility to critically investigate these complaints. This was obvious when the organizers of the Yorba Linda protest of Malik Ali and Sirhaj Wahhaj arrived at the hastily scheduled hate hearing to find that nine of the eleven Orange County Human Relations Commissioners had only viewed a distorted and doctored video of fringe hecklers and thought themselves prepared to discuss a consensus commission statement on the matter. So a complaint of hate is sufficient evidence of hateful intent by 500 people? This absurd proposition raises the complainer to the status of tyrant with veto power over all who do not speak according to the complainer’s script. Therefore, when bigoted imams pitch hate, racism, and bigotry, they are ignored because they are spokespersons for a complainer group but when community members react to denounce this repugnant speech, they are called purveyors of hate.
Most stunning is the commission’s ability to hear complaints, consider a sanction, and indict a speaker without even notifying the subject that there is a complaint; one that may result in a public condemnation of his actions. Our Constitution provides protection from governmental deprivation of life, liberty, and property without something called due process. Reputation is legally considered to be one’s property. One of the important requirements of legal due process is notice that an official decision is being considered that may result in an adverse ruling. Another important constitutional provision is the Fifth Amendment right to face one’s accuser. But these busybody organizations operate outside these constitutional parameters and have the power to sanction and condemn without notice, process, or diligent inquiry. Left unchecked these governmental, but unaccountable, bodies represent a grave threat to protected American freedoms and individual rights.
In the meantime the Orange County Human Relations Commission is getting ready for its annual May gala event to honor Muzamil Siddiqi and other “community members, schools and community-policing projects.” According to the Investigative Project, Siddiqui is the director of the Islamic Society of Orange County and was formerly the president of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). He still serves on ISNA's board of directors and is Chairman of the ISNA affiliated North American Islamic Trust (NAIT). ISNA's founders had roots in the Muslim Brotherhood. Siddiqi's personal statements endorse Sharia law in America and he says that Allah’s rules “include social, economic and political matters. By participating in a non-Islamic system, one cannot rule by that which Allah has commanded. But things do not change overnight. Changes come through patience, wisdom and hard work.”
Priceless.
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Karen Lugo is a Constitutional Law Attorney, founder of the Libertas-West Project, and Co-Director of the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence.
