National Constitution Center. They are the only institution, chartered by congress, to increase awareness of the constitution among the American People on a nonpartisan basis. We have a series of exciting town halls coming up and i want lug them. A new book, their virginian dynasty. On october 1, the National Constitution center is the National Constitution centers drafting project. Team teamd liberal and team conservative to draft, they will tell us how they think a constitution from scratch would reed and i cant wait to share that with you. We have programs on october in october on immigration and the new book the upswing. I hope you will join us for them as well as tuning into our weekly podcast. Now it is a pleasure to introduce the amazing panelists for this program tonight on the First Amendment, journalism, and the protests. We bill be taking her questions throughout the program, so put them in the Community Box and i will introduce them. Now it is time to introduce our guests and i will do that in alphabetical order. Congressman steve cohen has served as the representative from tennessees ninth district since 2007. He has been chair of the house judiciary subcommittee on the constitution civil rights and civil liberties. Review,or of national selected to become editor in 1997, and is the author of four books including lincoln unbound in the case for nationalism, how it has made us united and free. Suzanne is the chief executive officer of the pen, the leading human rights and freedom of expression organization. She has recently published a new book, dare to speak, defending free speech for all. Scanlonwoman mary gay serves as the representative from pennsylvanias fifth district, she serves as vice chair of the House Judiciary Committee as well as serving on the house select committee. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for having us. You for convening us because it was your insight that we should convene a group of leaders in america to discuss a problem or a question that you flagged in a resolution do ofroduce in congress in june 2020. That was a resolution you introduced, you denounced violence against the press in the u. S. , you called on Law Enforcement to protect the press and refrain from targeting journalists. You expressed the need for accountability. The centrality of press freedom. Your resolution identifies specific incidents against journalists for media workers being targeted by Law Enforcement with teargas, pepper spray, pepper balls. On may 29, pollys from minneapolis shot a rubber bullet all these from minneapolis shot a rubber bullet at a journalist, blinding her in one eye. That organizations have as of june 4, the Freedom PressFreedom Tracker managed by the freedom of press foundation has received ports up or than 300 reports of violations against journalists covering the demonstrations in the wake of the murder of george floyd nationwide. Tell us, why did you introduced a resolution, what are the specific incidents that concern you and lead you to introduce the resolution, and what you think congress should do about it . Rep. Scanlon thank you so much for providing us with this forum, i have worked with the Constitution Center and Constitution High School for the past 14 years. It is a powerful organization and having the ability to convene people on a bipartisan basis to discuss central issues to our nation is a valuable service, so thank you for bringing everyone together. In the wake of george floyd staff, asked towards floyds staff, wegeorge floyd floydsests george death, there were incidents of violence and looting. Protests for Racial Justice have continued throughout our region. It was striking to see in philadelphia and elsewhere that police were targeting journalists, journalists who were identified as journalists, they had press badges, many of us saw on the detention of the cnn reporter live on camera during the morning news. In philadelphia, we stopped reporting regarding the multiple reporters from the philadelphia inquirer, the wilmington papers. You mentioned the reporter who was shot with a rubber bullet and lost her eye. A series ofmera attacks and attention and detention of the press which is something we have not seen in this country on the scale that we did and this is a country that has experienced a lot of protests, so something had shifted. That is why i felt we needed to have a resolution that this is not ok and this is a deviation from the norm and we need to put an end to it. I got into drafting the resolution because congress does a lot of these resolutions ball role ahe free press place in a democracy but it has not had to do one of these resolutions regarding u. S. Pollys in recent years. Congress has done resolutions about violating of the free press in other countries but until the past few years, it has not been an issue in the United States. That was the impetus for this resolution, if anyone wants to look at it, it is house , but that was the genesis, the fact that something very important had shifted and given the role in the free press on reporting on what is going on has accuratenry information, if our press are being detained and in some cases targeted with rubber bullets and pepper spray, that was an important thing we need to take note of and stop that action. Thanks for giving the name of the resolution so viewers can reed edge. So viewers can read it. Chaired ative , you Helsinki Commission on journalists to assess the state of media, reed him. There has been nearly 500 reported violations since the beginning of the black lives matter protests. On may 26, there were witnesses on the right to freedom of opinion and other witnesses, tell us about the hearing, tell us about what your conclusion is , represents an increase from historical levels and how do we compare that to what is going on around the world . It was a successful area. One of the Amazing Things about it in my perspective, i had been on the Helsinki Commission for quite a while and we go to meetings in other places and , in we always hear generally soviet bloc, newly freed and the last three decades ,ountries, suppressing media sovietstyle tactics you see in hungary and poland and the Czech Republic and other places. You think of it like, they do that. That is so bizarre and outlandish and sad that that goes on over here. For security and cooperation, Helsinki Commission is concerned about that and keeps an eye towards protecting press freedom and First Amendment rights. We hear from people in the , theyity, activist groups ays are concerned about they were all concerned about the lack of freedoms that president lukashenko was taking advantage of. It was shocking that there are and others of Police Attacks on the press in america and she said what was shocking to her from her base in england to see this was happening in america and shocking to me, it is amazing and it all comes from trump. He started off with fake news. Crowdd he had the largest in the history of the washington mall, it was bigger than obamas , then the press called him on it and his press secretary had to live for him and the press showed where he was wrong and he called it fake news. From then on, it has been 20,000 lies and he keeps calling it fake news and encourages people to attack reporters and have people at his rallies look at the press and he says nasty. Hings about cnn hows chilling you think much it is like the 1930s in germany. The hearing was good. Now it has come to america through donald trump it came to donald trump through vladimir putin. The same things we saw in europe, which came from russia and the old soviet nations and his people who emulate him, it is the same thing in america. I guess that goes back to putin, not so much to trump, because he gave us trump dared trump. The constitution and journalism, attack. Ss, both under those were two of the most important things. Benjamin franklin signed the constitution, helped write it, was a journalist. One of the three things most , the attack right now press and the constitution, and the press partially because trump sees a way to control the post office and get them to note rates because he does like what hes seeing the washington post. One of our Founding Fathers who nobody has any problems with, he is one of the few people that and has reflections and statuaries standing firmly and without enemies, is being attacked on all fronts, the and itution, journalism is just so sad. The post office at the same time. Thank you for those comments. Strong alerts from presented of cohen, representative accusing the president of inciting violence to a degree, he said we had not seen before. You heard representative scanlon as well saying attack on journalists are occurring at a rate we have not seen before in the u. S. U. N. Charter writing have defended the First Amendment you and your writing have defended the First Amendment. Thank you for hosting this event. Pleasure to be here with my fennel panelists. Fellow panelists. Police tablet lately if Police Target journalists, they should be held accountable and charged if appropriate. These are chaotic environments, police are often being attacked, the riots have not been as limited as the congresswoman portrayed it, but they havent. My question about the resolution would be, if attacks on journalists are always wrong, why wouldnt the resolution also highlight the attacks on the journalists by black lives matter protesters and antifa protesters . Those seem to be just as bad, just as much of a threat to the First Amendment. Somehow that is beneath notice for the congresswoman and congressman are not concerned about those attacks for some reason. I take it as a given that the congresswoman and congressman are sincere in their concern over this issue, so i wonder if they have talked to the democratic mayors, Democratic City Councils who run these cities, who have run them for decades, and one the Police Departments. These local Police Departments do not report to donald trump, they report to these mayors and these Municipal Bodies controlled by democrats. In portland, the mayor and Police Commissioner are the same person. I appreciate the hyperbolic rhetoric and slams on donald trump, but that seems to be beside the point because if local police are targeting journalists, that is an issue for local officials in for congresswoman and congressman, for their fellow democrats. They brought this up with a mayors, they told them they are running fascist take police down onhat are cracking journalists like 1930s germany . Those are pretty heavy charges. If i could keep in order, we will follow the supreme court, chief justice roberts, we will have a chance for the bottles. Pen has been involved in thertant lawsuits defending First Amendment and there are two lawfords lawsuits pending is not involved in. Aclu filed a lawsuit against minnesota Law Enforcement officials to Keep Police Officers who target journalists accountable for their unlawful actions and there is also a case , a u. S. District judge issued a restraining order blocking the police from arresting or planning to arrest or using physical force against journalists or legal observers. The ninth circuit stated that order saying the other side was likely to win. About thosetell us or other lawsuits. Let me take a step back and acknowledging that this issue is not entirely new. On pressreport in 2014 Freedom Violations in the ferguson protests and documented 53 violations. It is important to recognize that these tensions are longstanding and you could go further. The other piece i would bring in is this is part and parcel of a Larger Campaign against protest and freedom of Assembly Rights and there are reports that we issued in may just before George Floyds murder that talked about the president s 17 bills that have been introduced in state legislatures across the country to curb protest rights in different ways, limiting protest highways, facilities, 23 of those have passed. Adversarial is him against protest in general. That is what we are seeing spill over into the press and to give the latest, it is up to 746 press Freedom Violations in the context of the protests as of today. 102 arrests, 185 physical attacks. 80 of those attacks documented are by police, state troopers, Law Enforcement and 20 are by protesters themselves. That is an issue, but the proportions need to be recognized. Loss of respect for the role of the press in democracy. Inice sometimes overreach managing protests, there is no sense of boundaries when it comes to the press. Inhave seen this in cases the arrest of omar from cnn when he is hauled away on camera and he is peaceful and not disorderly in any respect and yet he has handcuffed followed by his cameraman and his producer. These two lawsuits that you referenced are targeting the recognition that First Amendment violations are taking place and we need to make more distinctions between protesters and the rolled the press place. Minnesota issued a class action against the police, the plaintiff was shot in the face by a rubber bullet. It is recognizing that journalists are there to protect the protesters, document what is happening, hold officials accountable. If they are interfered with, Assembly Rights as a whole are in jeopardy. In oregon, this request for injunction that would prevent police from dispersing journalists, threatening or targeting journalists, requiring journalists to relocate. The judge in a stern opinion upheld that request for injunction. It has been overturned by the circuit court, though it is going to be reviewed again and it is not clear how that is going to wind up but what we are seeing is rights that we thought were secure in this country are not and we need new kinds of legal protections, including the measure adopted with the leadership of represent of scanlon as well as measures on the state level to guarantee rights that a lot of us thought were well protected but have seen otherwise. Thank you very much. Understand that in minneapolis, the plan is state officials were targeted less and interfered with their rights to clearing obstacles and these incidents according to the shall chill the rights. To all our panelists, we are getting Great Questions including a request from several of our listeners that we focus on the law. For this round, let us focus on the legal framework. You haveative scanlon, spoken about the history of protections for journalists. The case in philadelphia got some appropriate attention but there are other cases that you think are more relevant in establishing the modern framework for evaluating the rights of journalists. Tell us about that and other cases. You were a lawyer before you were in congress. How courts should evaluate these claims, hitting the rights of journalists against government officials. Rep. Scanlon i dont think it can be overstated just how central the free press right is to our system of government. 1735, this is preconstitution, we are going before the constitution. York andprinter in new published articles that were critical of the british governor and the british governor, having the british governor the british governor had engaged in practices and he was accusing the governor of misconduct. The british governor had him arrested and tried for sedition. Sedition being making fun of the king or his designee. Jail, he is not able to do his business, and some of the people of new york decided to hire the best lawyer possible and that was a philadelphia lawyer, this is why i have to tell the story as a philadelphia lawyer. Hamiltoner was andrew and he defended john peters anger and there was not a good Legal Defense at the time because the british king could charge someone with making one of him and have him locked up. Said was, if it is true what zanger said about this british governor, truth should be a defense because people have the right to know what their government is doing. This was a new concept, this was not part of the british system. The british system would have locked up zanger but Andrew Hamilton persuaded the jury to let him free because truth was a defense. In ourcame embedded constitutional view with respect to the free press, it is one of the reasons the First Amendment contains free press. Of ours been Part National conversation ever since. Can call out you the government for misconduct so long as it is true and that you dont do so with malice. That does have residents ofonance when we hear claims fake news or the price being the enemy of the people and that is why it was important that Congress Come forward with a resolution reaffirming the free press. It is a new thing that we have this loss of respect for the pressance and role of our and we point to some causation for that being undermining of the press so Congress Needs to step in and say, this is a core value of our consti