So to Speak: The Free Speech Podcast

We continue our conversation about the Turkish government's crackdown on civil society with Middle East Studies Association (MESA) President and City University of New York Professor Beth Baron. MESA has sounded the alarm bells about the threat to academic freedom posed by the Turkish government. In August 2016, they sent a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry regarding persecutions and prosecutions of scholars and academics within Turkey. www.sotospeakpodcast.com Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/freespeechtalk Like us on Facebook: facebook.com/sotospeakpodcast Email us: sotospeak@thefire.org Call in a question: 215-315-0100

If you care about free expression, you should care about what's happening in Turkey. Since a failed July 15, 2016 coup attempt against Turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the Turkish government has intensified the use of emergency decrees and laws against terrorist propaganda and insulting the president to purge perceived dissenters within civil society. On today's episode, we are joined by journalist Mahir Zeynalov. Mahir writes for "The Huffington Post" and "Al Arabiya," and was deported from Turkey in 2014 for criticism of the government. He faces arrest if he ever returns. During the show, we speak with Zeynalov about the mind-boggling number of journalists, academics, and civil servants purged from Turkish civil society, what the international community can do to help, and the confusing populist support that Erdogan has within Turkey. www.sotospeakpodcast.com Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/freespeechtalk Like us on Facebook: facebook.com/sotospeakpodcast Email us: sotospeak@thefire.org Call in a question: 215-315-0100

Ken White has made a name for himself in First Amendment circles for his particularly astute and often comical commentary on free speech issues for the popular "law, liberty, and leisure" blog 'Popehat.' An attorney by day, Ken likes to use his considerable legal chops—he's a 1994 graduate of Harvard Law School—to take a rhetorical axe to what he sees as facile arguments in favor of censorship. Ken is our guest on today's episode of "So to Speak." We talk with him about his list of the worst censors of 2016 and spend some time remembering the life of a giant in the free speech world, Nat Hentoff, who passed away this past weekend. Ken also explains how he successfully uses the "Popehat Signal" to rally attorneys to provide pro bono assistance to people wrapped up in free speech legal battles. www.sotospeakpodcast.com Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/freespeechtalk Like us on Facebook: facebook.com/sotospeakpodcast Email us: sotospeak@thefire.org Call in a question: 215-315-0100

A precipitous decline in the percentage of schools maintaining severely restrictive speech codes. A proliferation of bias response teams. "Security fee" or "speech tax?" Donald Trump. Milo Yiannopoulos. Penis drawings. These topics and more are covered in our recap of the fall 2016 semester, featuring Foundation for Individual Rights in Education vice presidents Samantha Harris and Will Creeley. Also, we take a listener question. www.sotospeakpodcast.com Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/freespeechtalk Like us on Facebook: facebook.com/sotospeakpodcast Email us: sotospeak@thefire.org Call in a question: 215-315-0100

In July, the ACLU tapped Georgetown University Law Center Professor David Cole to be its new national legal director. In that role, Cole will oversee nearly 300 lawyers and a docket of about 1,400 state and federal lawsuits. On today's episode of "So to Speak," Wall Street Journal Supreme Court Correspondent Jess Bravin interviews Cole about his new job and explores some of the hottest topics in the First Amendment world: flag burning, campaign finance reform, what can legally be done about rising concerns over "fake news," and more. Cole also speculates on what the future may hold for the ACLU and the First Amendment after President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration. This is the first podcast in our exclusive partnership with the First Amendment Salon. www.sotospeakpodcast.com Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/freespeechtalk Like us on Facebook: facebook.com/sotospeakpodcast Email us: sotospeak@thefire.org Call in a question: 215-315-0100

Attorney Martin Garbus' client list is a who's who of the world's foremost artists, politicians, corporations, scientists, and political dissidents. In a career spanning a half century, he's represented actors Sean Connery and Al Pacino, authors Tom Brokaw and Nancy Reagan, and even Nobel Prize winners Vaclav Havel and Andrei Sakharov. Although Garbus holds a diverse practice, he is perhaps most famous—and in some circles, infamous—for his work in First Amendment law. In today's episode of "So to Speak," we dive deep into some of Martin Garbus' most interesting—and sometimes scary—career moments. His smuggling a list of political prisoners out of the Soviet Union, his involvement with Daniel Ellsberg in releasing the Pentagon Papers, and his defense of the mercurial comedian Lenny Bruce are just some of the stories we will touch upon. This is the inaugural episode in a series that will profile the careers of some of the world's most prominent free speech advocates. www.sotospeakpodcast.com Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/freespeechtalk Like us on Facebook: facebook.com/sotospeakpodcast Email us: sotospeak@thefire.org Call in a question: 215-315-0100

In 1996, Emory University Professor Deborah Lipstadt found herself in a peculiar situation: she and a team of lawyers would have to defend the truth about the Holocaust against British historian and famed Holocaust denier David Irving. It was a quirk of the English legal system that allowed the battle to play out in court. In England, the burden of proof in libel cases rests on the defendant, not the plaintiff. So, when David Irving filed a libel lawsuit against Professor Lipstadt and her British publisher for critical statements Professor Lipstadt wrote about him in her 1993 book "Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory," it was up to Professor Lipstadt to justify her criticism. Sixteen years after Professor Lipstadt won her legal battle, the story of her encounter with Irving is now the subject of the recently released movie "Denial." Deborah Lipstadt is our guest on today's episode of "So to Speak." During our conversation, Professor Lipstadt revisits the Irving trial, explains its implications for free speech and academic freedom, and elaborates on the unique phenomenon of seeing one's life acted out on the big screen. www.sotospeakpodcast.com Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/freespeechtalk Like us on Facebook: facebook.com/sotospeakpodcast Email us: sotospeak@thefire.org Call in a question: 215-315-0100

The time of America's founding was full of raucous debate and widespread dissent. Americans built effigies, wrote pamphlets, sang songs, and gathered at liberty trees to protest British rule. But while citizens of the 13 colonies, and later America, might have acted like they had a right to express themselves in the myriad ways that they did, the spectre of seditious libel—illegal statements criticizing the government—often hung over their heads. In "Revolutionary Dissent: How the Founding Generation Created the Freedom of Speech," New York University journalism professor Stephen D. Solomon chronicles how early Americans such as Paul Revere, James Madison, Alexander McDougall, and others fought seditious libel laws and developed their understanding of the right to freedom of speech along the way. We sit down with Professor Solomon in today's episode of "So to Speak" to discuss his new book. We also learn why anyone who cared about free expression at the time of America's founding associated it with the number 45. www.sotospeakpodcast.com Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/freespeechtalk Like us on Facebook: facebook.com/sotospeakpodcast Email us: sotospeak@thefire.org Call in a question: 215-315-0100

"How do you make the case for freedom of speech these days?," asks Brendan O'Neill in the latest episode of "So to Speak." The question is a serious one for O'Neill. As the editor of the online British current-affairs magazine "spiked," he is on the front lines every day fighting to preserve free speech and a free press in a legal environment that doesn't have a First Amendment. In a part of the world that just last year imprisoned a man for four months for singing a controversial song before a soccer match, O'Neill says that there are many laws that can land people in hot water for speaking their minds in the United Kingdom. For example, he says that England has among the worst libel laws in Europe. In England, unlike the United States, the libel laws are greatly weighted in favor of the person who sues, says O'Neill, who notes that about 80 percent of libel actions go in favor of the person suing. As a result, he regularly considers the libel laws when editing content for "spiked." "It's a rich man's law, which is used to silence criticism, and political views, and difficult, awkward views that people don't like," he says. "spiked" counts as part of its mission the defense of "freedom of speech with no ifs and buts" because, as O'Neill says, "as soon as you give an inch on freedom of speech, they will take a mile." But, despite the United Kingdom's countervailing laws, O'Neill says that the argument in favor of freedom of speech "still has real purchase and real power." And until those censorship laws are struck down and threats to free speech are extinguished, O'Neill says "spiked" will keep making those arguments. www.sotospeakpodcast.com Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/freespeechtalk Like us on Facebook: facebook.com/sotospeakpodcast Email us: sotospeak@thefire.org Call in a question: 215-315-0100

"Two inflammatory words … one wild drink. Nectar imprisoned in a bottle. Let it out. It is cruel to keep a wild animal locked up." When artist and illustrator Ralph Steadman wrote those words for the label of Flying Dog Brewery's "Raging Bitch" Belgian-style IPA, he had no idea that cruel imprisonment would be precisely their fate. In 2009, the Michigan Liquor Control Commission banned the sale of "Raging Bitch" from store shelves in the state because the commission claimed the beer's name and its label, designed by Steadman, were "detrimental to the health, safety, and welfare of the general public." Any other company might have accepted the commission's justification for censorship. But Flying Dog Brewery isn't a company to just roll over. Flying Dog was founded in 1990 by George Stranahan, a close friend of journalist Hunter S. Thompson, who pioneered a style of journalism known as "Gonzo": first-person, satirical critiques on society and culture. The brewery has always maintained the critical, anti-authoritarian message embodied by Gonzo journalism. So, when Michigan banned the sale of "Raging Bitch," Flying Dog didn't back down. That's not its Gonzo style. Instead, it took the brew ha-ha to court and fought back with a First Amendment lawsuit. We wanted to learn more about Flying Dog's dog fight in defense of its art. Its lawsuit culminated earlier this year in a resounding legal victory, and the brewery created a First Amendment Society using damages awarded from the lawsuit, thus proving that every dog has its day. So, we headed down to Frederick, Md., where the brewery is located. What's the story? Nobody had bothered to say. So we would have to drum it up on our own. Free enterprise. The American dream. Horatio Alger gone mad on beer in Frederick. Do it now: pure Gonzo. www.sotospeakpodcast.com Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/freespeechtalk Like us on Facebook: facebook.com/sotospeakpodcast Email us: sotospeak@thefire.org Call in a question: 215-315-0100