Phil Cannella Lawsuit, Freedom of Speech

Phil Cannella Lawsuit

Phil Cannella • Phillip Cannella Lawsuit News: Phil Cannella Lawsuit has long recognized the values our forebears put into the Bill of Rights, those first 10 amendments to the constitution. The First Amendment in particular is one that Phil Cannella cherishes and considers perhaps most important of all. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/bill_of_rights_transcript.html

Phil Cannella Lawsuit • Phillip Cannella Lawsuit

It is this freedom that makes the Unites States somewhat unique in the world. In many countries, such a freedom just doesn’t exist. In fact, exercising such rights could be very dangerous indeed and result in the death penalty, torture or being locked up. Take countries like Iran and North Korea as an example. Expressing views contrary to the established religion or political views almost certainly will result in the death penalty.   In many countries where Islam is the primary religion, expressions contrary to or in any way demeaning the Koran (the Islamic sacred book) is not permitted.

Phil Cannella Lawsuit poses a great question

North Korea is perhaps the most censored country in the world where there are no independent journalists permitted in the country. The following excerpt from a great article paints the picture very well: “North Korea has wedded the traditional Confucian ideal of social order to the Stalinist model of an authoritarian communist state to create the world’s deepest information void. All domestic radio, television, and newspapers are controlled by the government. Radio and television receivers are locked to government-specified frequencies. Content is supplied almost entirely by the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). It serves up a daily diet of fawning coverage of ‘Dear Leader’ Kim Jong Il  and his official engagements.” https://cpj.org/reports/2006/05/10-most-censored-countries.php

North Korea is not alone in this regard. Other countries that deal with freedom of speech and expression in a similar manner include Cuba, Syria, Burma and Turkmenistan among others. While these countries may be extreme in their handling of free speech, there are many countries who do censure what people can say. Speaking or writing against the established religion of a country can be dangerous in many countries.

Phil Cannella Lawsuits points out extremes

Phil Cannella poses a great question worth considering. Should there be boundaries on the freedom of speech or should we let people say anything they like even if it constitutes hate speech, defamation or is designed to instigate violence? We certainly don’t want to fall into the dark ages that engulf countries like Russia where people are locked up for expressions contrary to the ruling order: “Three members of Russian punk band Pussy Riot have been jailed for two years after staging an anti-Vladimir Putin protest in a Moscow cathedral. Judge Marina Syrova convicted the women of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred, saying they had ‘crudely undermined social order’. The women say the protest, in February, was directed at the Russian Orthodox Church leader’s support for Mr Putin.”http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-19297373Unfortunately the justice system in Russia is under the control of the state even if this is not openly admitted and so no fair judicial review is likely to have occurred.

In the United States, unlike many other “civilized” nations we enjoy the freedom of speech and expression without censure. However, as Phil Cannella points out, there are extremes. While we do not want to fall back into the dark ages as some nations of Earth still find themselves in, we cannot and should not tolerate speech that is based on lies and hate that is designed to destroy or injure the good reputation of another person or group. Where such conduct occurs we cannot willy-nilly censure it, but we have to provide an avenue for people or groups victimized by such hate and defamation to seek and get justice.

This is precisely what Phil Cannella fought so hard for when it came to a defamation campaign waged against him. When reviewing the material that was published it was tantamount to a true hate campaign and its stated objective was to drive him out of business. While in some countries the internet is not an open forum and the content published on the web and the content that can be accessed online is heavily censured, in the United States this is not the case and we enjoy the freedoms of expressions to think and say as we please.

However, with these freedoms there have to be guardrails, there have to be rules that can be followed and there have to be regulations and laws one can turn to for help when there are infractions against those rules. Fortunately in the United States we do not have a judicial system that is not controlled by the State or Church and our Founding Fathers also provided for the power of government to be split between the Legislative branch (Congress); the Executive branch (President); the Judicial branch (Supreme Court). Many other nations are not so fortunate with all power lying within a supreme religious or political leader.

Phil Cannella took the law to the acid test. Would it provide the guardrails and put a stop to material posted online in an attempt to defame and destroy or would it let it go under the guise of “freedom of speech.” To that end Phil Cannella filed a lawsuit against an anonymous individual who had gone to the internet to spew her hate under a fictitious name known as Watchdog. Understandably people express their views anonymously in order to avoid the potential backlash that can occur if their identity were known especially when the material being published could be construed by one party as offensive.

Witness, the author of the book Satanic Verses in the late 1980s that resulted in the Iranian religious leader of the time issuing an order to kill the author: “The Satanic Verses controversy, also known as the Rushdie Affair, was the heated and frequently violent reaction of some Muslims to the publication of Salman Rushdie’s novel The Satanic Verses, which was first published in the United Kingdom in 1988. Many Muslims accused Rushdie of blasphemy or unbelief and in 1989 Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini of Iran issued a fatwāordering Muslims to kill Rushdie. Numerous killings, attempted killings, and bombings resulted from Muslim anger over the novel.

The issue was said to have divided ‘Muslim from Westerners along the fault line of culture,’ and to have pitted a core Western value of freedom of expression—that no one ‘should be killed, or face a serious threat of being killed, for what they say or write’]—against the view of many Muslims—that no one should be free to ‘insult and malign Muslims’ by disparaging the ‘honour of the Prophet’ Muhammad.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Satanic_Verses_controversy. Phil Cannella Lawsuit