[EL] Why the Selfie is a Threat to Democracy”

[Benjamin Barr]

Rick notes that there "are ample, ample ways to express one's support
for a candidate aside from the single way (the selfie)".

I've never understood why we would consider government's preferences
for how an individual elects to communicate.  It's like the old joke
reformers used to try to pull about PACs during the heyday of
BCRA--it's not a ban because you can get other people to speak for
you!

We certainly don't treat the ample alternative means of communication
analysis as a meaningful consideration for high value speech.  See,
e.g., Meyer v. Grant.  It is the selection of the medium of
communication and its very creation that entails protection, not the
nifty ideas of bureaucrats about other ways you could communicate to
somehow please the speech police.

This is fantastic news, of course, for my client, James O'Keefe.
Ballot photo bans have proven pernicious in our efforts to carry out
investigative journalism.  May more bans soon be on the chopping
block.  Great work by Judge Barbadoro!

Forward,

Benjamin Barr







Sent from my iPhone

> On Aug 18, 2015, at 10:49 AM, Rick Hasen <rhasen at law.uci.edu> wrote:
>
> are ample, ample ways to express one's support for a candidate aside from the single way (the selfie)