FREE SPEECH UNDER SIEGE IN U.S. DISTRICT COURT IN THE NATION'S CAPITAL

From Pamela at Atlas Shrugs:

Today was a dark day in American history, but you'd never know because the media is complicit in this sharia enforcement.  I had a front-row seat to witness the rape of the First Amendment in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, Judge Rosemary Collyer, presiding. Robert Spencer and I went down to Washington as defenders of America's most fundamental and unalienable right. And in return, we had the sad misfortune of watching a U.S. District Court Judge discard, denigrate, downplay and dismiss our most basic law of the land: the freedom of speech.

The Judge went out of her way to validate and substantiate the ridiculous premise of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA), that the AFDI pro-freedom ad would endanger passengers on the D.C. subways and thus must not be posted, or at least delayed until some (fanciful) time when the jihad threat would subside. It was painful to watch Judge Collyer almost physically wrestling with the First Amendment, trying to tackle it and pin it to the floor. But the First Amendment was much too wily for the wrongheaded, utterly subjective, and clueless judge.

Philip Staub, the lawyer for WMATA, invoked the international Muslim riots that have been blamed (falsely) on the Muhammad video, and said the WMATA had received an email threatening them if they posted our ad. He was, in other words, counseling submission to violent Muslim intimidation, and the curtailing of the freedom of speech to appease savages. He made the laughable argument that if the ad ran after November 1, the threat would have subsided by then, and would be well -- as if the jihad terror threat would completely die down by then. Judge Collyer then asked him if the ads could be posted sooner if they were moved away from the train platforms, so that passengers would be less likely to get caught up in fights or terrorist attacksover them. He seemed open to that idea.

The whole issue about moving the ads represented the judge’s attempt to find a way to accommodate the WMATA’s fearmongering argument that the ad would endanger passengers. And is that now the American response to threats of violence from a fascist ideology – to accede and submit to that very same fascist ideology? The judge was an embarrassment to every proud American who understands what is at stake. I can’t speak for our lawyer, Robert Muise, but his frustration was palpable.

GO READ THE WHOLE THING.