Teams, team conservative, team libertarian, and Team Progressive to draft a constitution. Its an Amazing Group of scholars that will tell us how they think a constitution from scratch should read. I cant wait to share that with you. We have great programs 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 will be taking your 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 9th district since 2007. Since 2019, he has been chair of the house judiciary subcommittee on the constitution, civil rights and civil liberties. Rich lowry is the editor of national review, selected to become editor in 1997, and is the author of four books including lincoln unbound and the case for nationalism, how it has made us united and free. Suzanne is the chief executive officer of pen america the , leading human rights and freedom of expression organization. She has recently published a new book, dare to speak, defending free speech for all. And congresswoman mary gay scanlon serves as the representative from pennsylvanias 5th district, she currently serves as vice chair of the House Judiciary Committee as well as serving on the House Committee and select committee on modernization of congress. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for having us. Congresswoman thank you for , convening us because it was your insight that we should indeed convene a group of thought leaders in america to discuss a problem or a question that you flagged in a resolution do introduce in congress in june of 2020. That was a resolution you introduced with congressman ship. You denounced violence against the press in the u. S. , you called on Law Enforcement to protect freedom of the press and refrain from targeting journalists. You expressed the need for accountability when Law Enforcement violates the constitution law. The centrality of press freedom. Your resolution identifies a series of specific incidents against journalists for media workers being targeted by Law Enforcement with teargas, pepper spray, or pepper balls. On may 29, police shot a rubber bullet into the face of a photographer, permanently blinding her in eye. Oneyou have examples and you know as well that the leading ss watchdog organizations he said as of 4, the freedom june press Freedom Tracker managed by the freedom of press foundation has received ports up or than 300 reports of press Freedom 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 such a powerful organization and having the ability to convene people on a bipartisan basis to discuss central issues to our nation is such a valuable service, so thank you for bringing everyone together. In the wake of George Floyds death, we did see a series of protests. Early on in this protests we saw opportunists come out and there were incidents of violence and incidents of looting. In philadelphia, we had a althoughhat has ended, protest for Racial Justice have continued throughout our region. It was really striking to see in philadelphia and elsewhere that police were explicitly targeting journalists, journalists who were identified as journalists, they had press badges, many of us saw the detention of the cnn reporter live on camera during the morning news. Here in philadelphia, we stopped we sell reporting regarding we saw reporting regarding the detention of multiple reporters from the philadelphia inquirer, the wilmington papers. You mentioned the reporter who was shot with a rubber bullet and lost her eye. We so vividly occurring on camera a series of attacks and detentions of the press which is not something we have 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 , talking about the integral role a free press place in a democracy but it has not had to do one of these resolutions regarding u. S. Police forces in recent years. Congress has done resolutions talking about violations of the free press in other countries but until the past few years, it has not been an issue in the United States of america. That was the impetus for this resolution, if anyone wants to look at it, it is House Resolution 999, but that was the genesis for it. The fact that something very important had shifted and given the role in the free press on reporting on what is going on so the citizenry has accurate information. If our press are being detained being in some cases targeted with rubber bullets and pepper spray, etc. That was an , important thing we need to take note of and stop that action. Many thanks for giving the name of the resolution so viewers can read it. Representative cohen, you chaired a hearing of the Helsinki Commission on human rights it home journalists , to assess the state of media, freedom. The hearing noted there had been nearly 500 reported press Freedom Violations since the beginning of the black lives matter protests. On may 26, there were witnesses including christian almond poor of cnn on the right to freedom of opinion and other witnesses, tell us about the hearing, tell us about what your conclusion if attacks on the increaset represent an from historical levels in the u. S. , and how do we compare to what is going on around the world . Rep. Cohen it was a successful hearing. 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 hearings and meetings in vienna and other places. What we always hear, in governments and generally formerly soviet bloc, newly freed in the last couple of for three decades, suppressing media. Sovietrussianstyle 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 so outlandish and sad that that goes on over here. Organizations for security and cooperation in europe, the Helsinki Commission is concerned about that and keeps an eye towards protecting press freedom and First Amendment rights. We hear from people in the ,ommunity, activist groups civic activist groups. They were all concerned about i have been twice the belarus. They were all concerned about the lack of freedoms that lukashenko was taking advantage of. He just gets rid of his opponents. It is the first layer of opposition. Said it wasmanpour shocking that there are 500 allegations of police and other attacks on the press in america. 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. He did he said he had the largest crowd in the history of the washington mall, it was bigger than obamas, then the press caught him on it and his press secretary had to live for lie for him and the press showed where he was wrong and he called it fake news. From there on it has been 20,000 lies and he keeps calling it things toand puts of encourage people to attack reporters and have people at his rallies look at the press and he says nasty things about cnn. They look at them and jeer. It is chilling to think how much it is like the 1930s in germany. It is not that was different. 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. We the constitution and journalism, free press, both under attack. Those were two of the most important things. Benjamin franklin signed the constitution, helped write it, was a journalist. And was a big advocate of the first postmaster general. One of the three things most under attack right now, the press and the constitution, and the press partially because and hes mad at bezos sees it as a way to control the post office and get them to raise rates on his amazon business because he does not like what he says that the washington post. It is astonishing one of our Founding Fathers who nobody has any problems with, one of the few people that escaped the cherry of the masses charity of the masses and has reflections and statuaries standing firmly and without enemies, is being attacked on all fronts, the constitution, and it is just so sad. And the post office at the same time. Thank you for those comments. Rich lowry, strong words from representative cohen, 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. Your writing has defended the First Amendment and police and Law Enforcement. What is your reaction . Thank you for hosting this event. Thank you for what the Constitution Center does. Pleasure to be here with my fellow panelists. I was a couple of things. If police delete target and harm journalists, they should be held accountable and charged if appropriate. I think we need to be aware that these are chaotic environments. Police are often being attacked. The riots have not been as limited as the congresswoman portrayed it at the outset of her remarks. I wish they are they havent. My question about the resolution would be, if attacks on journalists are always wrong, which i believe they are 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 malicious just as much , of a threat to the First Amendment. Somehow that is beneath notice or 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 extremely 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 run 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 one case portland, the mayor , and Democratic Police commissioner are the same person. I appreciate the heated and 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 fellow congresswoman and congressman, for their fellow democrats. They brought this up with a mayors, they told them they are running fascistic Police Forces that are cracking down on journalists like 1930s germany . Thats a pretty heavy charged and it should be raised with the people responsible for these Police Forces. If i could keep in order. We will follow the Supreme Court, chief justice roberts, we will have a chance for the rebuttals. Pen has been involved in important lawsuits defending the First Amendment and there are two lawsuits pending is not involved in. I would love you to talk about them. E versus the city of minneapolis. The 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 portland, index u. S. Newspapers versus the city of portland. 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. In the ninth circuit stated that august, order saying the other side was likely to win. Or show success on the merits. If you could tell us about those , or other lawsuits. Let me take a step back and acknowledging that this issue is first not entirely new. We did a report in 2014 on press Freedom Violations in the context of the ferguson protests and documented 53 violations. It is important to recognize that these tensions are longstanding and you could go further back than that. 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 we did report we issued inmate just before George Floyds murder called arresting dissent. It talks about the 117 different bills introduced in state legislatures across the country to curb protest rights in all sorts of different ways. Limiting protest on federal facilities, highways, 23 of those have passed. There is a climate of adversarialism against protests 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. Two richs 80 of those attacks point, 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. I think what this represents is a loss of respect for the role of the press in democracy. As police sometimes overreach in their approach to managing protests, there is no sense of boundaries when it comes to the press. We have seen this in cases in the arrest of omar jimenz 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 , finally 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 special role the press plays in these incidents. Minnesota issued a class action against the state patrol, the police, the city. 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, then Assembly Rights as a whole are in jeopardy. Then in oregon, this request for injunction that would prevent police from dispersing journalists, threatening or targeting journalists, requiring journalists to relocate. During the trial judge in this stirring opinion upheld that request for injunction. It has been overturned temporarily 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 representative 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. Thank you for giving us a sense of the Legal Framework for these cases and helping us understand and minneapolis, the claim is state officials were in fact targeting journalists and interfering with their right to cover Public Events by refusing access to events for where events were unfolding. Rightshe constitutional of reporters. To all our panelists, we are getting Great Questions , including a request from several of our listeners that we focus on the law. Try to avoid partisan politics. Let us focus on the Legal Framework. Representative scanlon, you have spoken eloquently about the history of protections for journalists. Trial in with the 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 zinker and other cases. You are a Public Interest lawyer before you were in congress. How courts should evaluate these claims hitting the rights of journalists against government officials. Rep. Scanlon i