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#freespeech

39 posts36 participants1 post today
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While you certainly don't "have to hand it to the nazis," I must admit that it's way easier to show people that the Trump regime's attempts to target anti-genocide protestors using "War on Terror" logic will lead to them targeting all protestors using that same logic, when they just blurt that part out loud:

commondreams.org/news/deportat

DHS Official Explicitly Equates Protest to Terrorism in 'Stunning' Interview

"The Trump administration has accused Khalil, who is of Palestinian descent, of leading "activities aligned to Hamas" and protests where pro-Hamas propaganda was distributed, but officials have provided no evidence that he's provided support to Hamas or other groups designated as terrorist organizations by the U.S. government.

A White House official this week told The Free Press that Khalil is not being accused of breaking any laws, but is rather "a threat to the foreign policy and national security interests of the United States," and Edgar's comments to Martin offered further evidence evidence that DHS is working to deport Khalil without accusing him of a crime.

"He is coming in to basically be a student that is not going to be supporting terrorism," said Edgar. "So, the issue is he was let into the country on this visa. He has been promoting this antisemitism activity at the university. And at this point, the State Department has revoked his visa for supporting a terrorist type organization."

This story comes out of an interview with Troy Edgar (Trump's deputy homeland security secretary) by NPR's Michel Martin; thus it's important to note that while Edgar isn't making a legal argument here, he is absolutely working the court of public opinion to sway your perception about the legality of Trump's unlawful arrest, detainment, and ongoing attempts to deport a former Columbia University student green card holder, legally residing in the country with his wife (who is an American citizen), for protesting a genocide (by Israel) in Gaza, facilitated by both the current, and prior US administrations.

With that in mind, the first thing I'd like to point out is the bizarre, manipulative, and legally irrelevant language Edgar uses here. From a technical standpoint, the phrase "activities aligned with Hamas" is wholly unrelated to any law on the books in America, even our nightmare War on Terror era anti-terrorism laws, while simultaneously covering such a broad spectrum of activities that untold millions of Americans could potentially be "engaging in activities aligned with Hamas" - if for example, as in Khalil's case, you've advocated for ending Israel's genocide in Gaza, or the US government's arm shipments to Israel that make it possible, you've technically engaged in "activities aligned with Hamas," who also want the genocide and arms shipments to end. Does anyone, including Troy Edgar know what "a terrorist type organization" means? You won't find a single paragraph in US law that discusses prohibitions against supporting "a terrorist *type* organization" and this is really just a way for Edgar to say Khalil is working for "terrorists" without exposing himself to liability for false accusations; it's a poison phrase to turn public opinion against the accused, and in favor of the Trump administration's unlawful and quite frankly fascist actions. This is of course setting aside that Edgar, much like the rest of the Trump regime, continues to use the War on Terror legal language of "supporting a terrorist organization" (typically financially, materially, or logistically) to describe protesting a genocide; a stretch that also has no basis in American law that I'm aware of.

Additionally of course, there's the bombshell this article is mostly based around to consider; a US deputy homeland security secretary just went on public radio and argued that (legally nebulous) "pro-Palestine activity" and even just protesting in general, is terrorism. While many disingenuous bootlickers will try to parse Edgar's words here, he was given plenty of opportunities to answer questions about what "terrorist" activities the government was alleging Khalil engaged in, and Troy continually repeated the phrases "pro-Palestinian activity" and "protesting." Furthermore given that the entire Trump administration keeps making this "mistake" over and over again, it seems pretty reasonable to assume that at least from a propaganda perspective this is the regime's official position on supporting Palestinians and protesting in general.

Folks, can you think of any reason why an increasingly unpopular fascist administration presiding over the rapid impoverishment of the US labor class, and working with Israel to ethnically cleanse Gaza, would want to declare "pro-Palestinian activity" and "protesting" to be terrorist activity? Might it be because they expect a lot of Americans to start getting interested in Palestinians and protesting?

Common Dreams · DHS Official Explicitly Equates Protest to Terrorism in 'Stunning' Interview | Common DreamsDHS official Troy Edgar failed to provide evidence for the arrest of former Columbia student Mahmoud Khalil. Is protesting now a deportable offense? Khalil's arrest sparks protests and demands for his release. #FreeMahmoud

“It’s all part of the same thing. It is Censorship or Repression, or Dictatorship, or Reaction, or whatever you want to call it. It is the stuff Fascism fattens on.”

- Shirley Jackson, while a student at Syracuse University in the 1939-1940 school year, writing in defense of #FreeSpeech on campus in the student-created magazine Spectre (quoted in Private Demons: The Life of #ShirleyJackson) #Relevant

🇺🇸 As a Columbia U alum, I never thought I'd hear the dean of the prestigious Journalism School tell students to scrub their social media of Middle East content because “Nobody can protect you. These are dangerous times.”

nytimes.com/2025/03/12/nyregio

x.com/medeabenjamin/status/190

#freespeech
#usa
#Gaza
#Palestine
#Genocide
#geopolitics
@palestine@a.gup.pe @palestine@lemmygrad.ml
@yemen
#tiktok
#cdnpoli
#columbiauniversity
#blackmastodon
@blackmastodon
@upolitics@newsmast.community
#MahmoudKhalil
#canada
#democracy
#veterans

Baffling to see a woman in a friends FB thread supporting the presence of Tate bros 'Pimping Hoes' podcast on #Spotify in the name of free speech. Describes herself as a 'free speech absolutist'. Just not for those poor country PoC moderators that have to deal with the absolute sh*t pouring into socmed streams every day - see screenshot from Gillespie, 2018 Custodians of the Internet.

archive.org/details/Custodians

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@nixCraft 💡 GBS Media Response:

Big Tech isn’t just dominating markets—it’s controlling speech and shaping narratives. 🚨

They suppress competition, throttle independent creators, and dictate what the public sees. Free speech suffers when a few companies hold all the power.

The future belongs to independent voices and decentralized platforms. It’s time to reclaim the internet for everyone—not just Silicon Valley. 💪

"Trump's disappearing of Mahmoud Khalil should be a warning for us all. If Trump has his way, Kahlil will be just the first of many. …

This episode is the latest in what the left warned would be Trump’s anti-democratic crusade were he to be re-elected. What New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg calls the 'Greatest Threat to Free Speech Since the Red Scare.'”

~ Todd Beeton

#Trump #MahmoudKhalil #FreeSpeech #authoritarianism

thinkbigpicture.substack.com/p

The Big Picture · Backlash Grows Against Trump's Detention Of Mahmoud KhalilBy The Big Picture

ICE came for Khalil Mahmoud in retaliation for his political speech. We must speak out—or we’re next.

Tell your members of Congress that the government must immediately release Mahmoud Khalil, return him to his family, and stop violating the constitutional right to protest. indivisiblesf.org/call-scripts

If you would like to help Mahmoud’s family, including his pregnant wife, with legal defense, you can donate on their Chuffed page. chuffed.org/project/justice-fo
#USPol #Resist #FreeSpeech #ICE

Indivisible SFTell Your Members of Congress: Demand the Immediate Release of Mahmoud Khalil | Indivisible SFTell our Congresspeople: Stop BOP from Putting Trans Women in Men’s Prisons
Replied in thread

@EUCommission
If the EU wishes to do something 10 times more powerful and impactful, it should wholeheartedly embrace and promote the #SocialWeb and extricate itself from State Controlled #USA #SocialMedia such as #Facebook and #Twitter.
The #EU should provide free assistance to anyone who wants to set up a #Mastodon or #PeerTube or #Pixelfed server.
It should make their own #Fediverse servers their primary source of communication. It should spend money on promoting #ActivityPub and its benefits.
This is how the EU fights #Trump #Fascism and puts Social Media and its moderation into the hands of EU citizens.
#Democracy #FreeSpeech

“This Is All Retaliatory”: Judge Blocks Mahmoud Khalil’s Deportation as Trump Vows More Arrests

youtube.com/watch?v=9l558ULKDy

A federal judge has blocked the deportation of recent Columbia University graduate Mahmoud Khalil, a permanent legal resident of the U.S. who was arrested by immigration authorities for helping organize campus solidarity protests with Gaza…

#ICE Secretly Hauled #MahmoudKhalil to #Louisiana as Retaliation, Lawyers Allege

By moving the campus #activist to a new jurisdiction, ICE disrupted court proceedings and limited his legal access, his attorneys say.

by Jonah Valdez, March 11 2025,

"Mahmoud Khalil’s wife watched as agents from the Department of Homeland Security handcuffed her husband and whisked him away from their New York City apartment in an unmarked vehicle on Saturday evening.
Agents ignored the pleas of Khalil’s wife who tried to show them legal papers proving her husband was a green card holder. They wouldn’t heed her requests to share where they were taking him, according to court filings. Eventually, one of the agents offered a terse response: Check the local immigration court at 26 Federal Plaza in Manhattan.

"By next morning, however, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainee locator indicated Khalil was no longer in New York. Instead, it showed him at the Elizabeth Detention Center in New Jersey. When Khalil’s wife visited the jail, she was turned away.

"Without warning to Khalil’s wife or his immigration attorney Amy Greer, who the same morning had filed a petition to challenge her client’s arrest as a violation of his First Amendment free speech rights, ICE agents had transferred Khalil to a different facility. This time, they moved him thousands of miles south of his New York home to a facility in Louisiana. It wasn’t until Monday morning that Khalil’s exact whereabouts were updated in the ICE online system: the #LaSalleDetentionFacility in #JenaLouisiana, a #PrivateJail operated by the #GEOGroup.

"Attorneys for Khalil allege the move from the New York metropolitan area to Louisiana was a '#RetaliatoryTransfer' intended to restrict his access and to lawyers and family, and position what has grown into a closely watched #FirstAmendment case in a jurisdiction more friendly to the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant policies.

"Three days after his detention, Khalil still has not been charged with a crime. The Department of Homeland Security has said it arrested Khalil, a lead negotiator for Palestine solidarity protesters at Columbia, for having “led activities aligned to Hamas.” President Donald Trump, who campaigned on deporting pro-Palestinian protesters, pledged that Khalil’s arrest is 'the first arrest of many to come' and that his administration would continue to target for deportations 'more students at Columbia and other Universities across the Country who have engaged in pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity.'

"Although a Manhattan federal court ordered a temporary halt preventing the Trump administration from immediately deporting Khalil, attorneys remain concerned for his well-being and ability to access proper legal counsel. In a motion filed Monday evening by attorneys from the Center for Constitutional Rights and the Creating Law Enforcement Accountability and Responsibility project at the City University of New York School of Law, attorneys seek to reverse the ICE decision and to transfer Khalil back to New York."

Read more:
theintercept.com/2025/03/11/ma

Archived version:
archive.ph/7uhSa
#CharacteristicsOfFascism #FloodingTheZone #ShockAndAwe #FirstAmendment #USPol #Fascism #Authoritarianism #FreeSpeech #FreePalestine #RightToProtest #Censorship #ColumbiaUniversity #Palestinian #Protests #FreeKhalil #DHS #DepartmentOfHomelandSecurity #CenterForConstitutionalRights #TrumpRegime #HumanRightsAreNeverWrong #PrivatePrisons #IndefiniteDetention

The Intercept · ICE Secretly Hauled Mahmoud Khalil to Louisiana as Retaliation, Lawyers AllegeBy Jonah Valdez