[ April 17, 2024 ]
Another city bans free speech. Chilling. Read this.
Related:
- AFDI Triumphs in Free Speech Lawsuit Against Seattle
- 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Upholds Sharia, Bans Seattle Counter-Terror Ad
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Seattle Imposes Ad Ban to Annul Pamela Geller’s Free Speech Lawsuit Victory
Officials who oversee Seattle’s transit system moved to ban political, religious, and other ads from its facilities and public transportation vehicles soon after Pamela Geller’s American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) prevailed in a freedom of speech lawsuit against the city, earning the right to run FBI’s Most Wanted terrorist posters, Breitbart News has learned.
By: Edwin Mora, Breitbart, April 16, 2019:
“People should realize that this is a struggle for the very foundation of any free society: the freedom of speech. If there is a group you can’t criticize, then that group can impose tyranny over you. If we lose this free speech battle, all our other freedoms are lost” Geller recently told Breitbart News via email.
She argued the advertisement ban sidestepped the September 2018 U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruling in AFDI’s favor, which allowed the group to advertise the Most Wanted terrorist list in Seattle.
However, the new restrictions, dubbed the “Geller ban” and instituted in December 2018 by the King County Department of Transportation’s Transit Division that oversees Seattle’s public transportation system, have ended up preventing AFDI from running the terrorist wanted ads, Geller pointed out, noting that her free speech lawsuit victory was bittersweet.
Before the appeal court’s ruling, judges had denied AFDI the right to place public service ads featuring images of the FBI’s Most Wanted Terrorists on Seattle’s public transportation system, due to a perceived disparagement of Islam.
The city’s rejection prompted AFDI to sue the King County Metro system for its suppression of free speech.
“We won the right to run the FBI wanted terrorist poster that Seattle prevailed upon the FBI to withdraw [ in 2013]. And as soon as we triumphed, Seattle transit imposed the infamous Geller ban, banning political, religious and cause-related ads in Seattle (following NY, Washington DC, Boston, Miami, Chicago, San Francisco, etc),” Geller told Breitbart News in the email.
In a document outlining the transit agency’s advertising restrictions, King County officials noted that the policy bans advertising on transit facilities and vehicles that fall within the categories of political, religious, government (except for the county’s), and other forms of “speech.”
“They banned all political ads, as that was the only course of action they could possibly take in order to continue to avoid running my ads,” Geller said. “They’re so determined to continue whitewashing Islam and denying and obfuscating the roots of jihad terror that they are willing to lose immense amounts of revenue from all political advertising.”
Transit agency officials argued that their “viewpoint neutral” ban seeks to prohibit “advertisements that interfere with and divert resources from transit operations, that detract from transit purposes by creating substantial controversy, and/or that pose significant risks of harm, inconvenience, or annoyance to transit passengers, operators, and vehicles.”
“Such advertisements create an environment that is not conducive to achieving increased revenue for the benefit of the transit system or to preserving and enhancing the security, safety, comfort, and convenience of its operations,” the officials added.
Responding to the agency’s argument Geller noted, “I see ads that annoy me all the time. If that is the criterion [for the ban], whose annoyance counts, and whose doesn’t, and why?”
She told Breitbart News that King County’s decision to ban FBI wanted posters featuring some jihadis amounts to the “enforcement of Sharia blasphemy law in another American city.”
King County officials described the transit agency’s advertising ban as“restrictions” that “foster the maintenance of a professional advertising environment that maximizes advertising, revenue, and protects the interests of the captive audience that uses Metro’s transit services.”
In other words, the county’s transportation department believes that banning certain ads will allow the county to generate more revenue.
“The ban will, obviously, drastically curtail their ad revenues. To argue otherwise is plain deception” Geller noted.
Nevertheless, the county asserted that the advertising policy intends to fulfill the following goals:
Maximizing advertising revenue; maintaining a position of neutrality and preventing the appearance of favoritism or endorsement by the county; preventing the risk of imposing objectionable, inappropriate or harmful view on a captive audience; preserving the value of the advertising space; maximizing ridership and maintaining a safe environment for transit customers and other members of the public; avoiding claims of discrimination and maintaining a non-discriminatory environment for riders; preventing any harm or abuse that may result from running objectionable, inappropriate, or harmful advertisements; [and] reducing the diversion of resources from transit operations that is caused by objectionable, inappropriate or harmful advertisements.
Geller vowed to keep fighting for free speech all the way to the Supreme Court if necessary to ensure Seattle upholds the appeal court’s ruling.
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26 Comments
5 years ago
Try buying an ad for your book FATWA, and see what happens…they’d have to ban all commercial advertising to stop that, I think…
5 years ago
I wouldn’t call those advertisements political in nature. They were simply a news organization giving facts. Therefore, all news/media organization advertisements should be banned. No local newspapers, no radio or television stations .. and the list goes on. Those ads are NOT political ads. Simply the news being reported.
5 years ago
Reply to
Achmed Mohandjob
Why can’t Ms. Geller file a multi-million dollar lawsuit against the corrupt, craven a$$holes who run Sea$$le?
5 years ago
Reply to
Achmed Mohandjob
good points ..!!
btw …have you try to run an ad there for your porn family business ??
5 years ago
Reply to
SemurJengkolMaknyus
No, but I was talking to your mother; which proved difficult due to her mouth being filled with those that had just had your son. She was quite busy sucking and licking them clean. But, in any event, she told me that your son was still taking on over fifty males per day … and that she was licking and sucking ALL of them clean. That’s one busy family business you have there, semenjerkoff.
5 years ago
Reply to
Achmed Mohandjob
if you want to see ” Us ” full of subtitles, complete all languages !?
here: boxseries07.blogspot.com
5 years ago
How is banning the FBI’s most wanted list,
political, religious or cause related?
No ad is viewpoint neutral!
5 years ago
How is banning the FBI’s most wanted list,
political, religious or cause related?
No ad is viewpoint neutral!
5 years ago
Dangerous times………
?w=443&h=259&zoom=2
5 years ago
An FBI wanted list is not political. I used to see them in the post office.
5 years ago
That is unconstitutional, I would think. But then, Seattle is a leftist utopia.
5 years ago
Write your Congresspeople, tell them we need to stop affording Islam the privileges and exemptions provided religions, under our laws. Those who violate our laws, and profess to be above them, should not be allowed to (dishonestly) profit from them.
Islam is a disingenuous fascist totalitarian theocracy, whose “laws” violate human rights, and OUR Constitution.
Island is not a religion.
https://newenglishreview.org/Rebecca_Bynum/Why_Islam_is_Not_a_Religion/
5 years ago
Seattlestan. Had they been Islamic adverts then no problem.
5 years ago
I’ve never read such nonsense in my life as that “justification” from the bus company for the unjustifiable.
” prohibit advertisements which divert resources from and interfere with transit operations “.
followed by the classic ” detract from transit purposes by creating substantial controversy or that pose significant risks of harm, inconvenience, annoyance to transit passengers,operators and vehicles “.
What we read from that “authority” is nothing less than a temper tantrum from a bunch of stuffed suit toddlers at a children’s tea party, the rough equivalent of ” It’s my ball and I’m going home “.
At the risk of causing another hissy fit, buses are substantial pieces of kit, they’re unlikely to take a “view” about some advert or other because unlike people buses don’t have feelings but people who wish to understand the causes of this jihad that’s actually murdering ordinary people do have feelings and probably resent being coddled by those with a nanny complex.
Being induced to “think” for oneself by an advert now and again is not known to be a cause of life shortening, those fools need sacking,their jobs belong to balanced adults.
5 years ago
John 8:44 (GNTA) “You are the children of your father, the Devil, and you want to follow your father’s desires. From the very beginning he was a murderer and has never been on the side of truth, because there is no truth in him. When he tells a lie, he is only doing what is natural to him, because he is a liar and the father of all lies.” They still won’t be able to destroy the voice of truth! For Pamela! For Trump!
5 years ago
Sad to say many of our institutions are run by the deluded Left under the influence of their father – SATAN!
Even they don’t believe is proving how effective SATAN has been.
5 years ago
Such moral cowards. They fear Islam so much….even as much as they love it.
4 years ago
We call this law war and the Commiecrats are particularly adept at it. We Need to become as adept as they very quickly.Keep Up the good work and challenge this latest effort to shut us up.
4 years ago
Has Geller found Obama’s real birth certificate yet? lol
4 years ago
Despite all the prohibitions, you must continue. Allah will be your helper.
4 years ago
For now, are there other locations where advertising is accepted? But keep on fighting for bus advertising.
