How To Kill The First Amendment

Fox News' Roger Ailes said this recently during an address at his alma mater, Ohio University: "I have one wish for OU, that it continues to be a place for open debate where people from different points of view with various opinions can meet and discuss these things openly. Because there will be no progress, and America will not survive, if we don't allow that open debate," Ailes said.

Ailes is right about the crucial importance of freedom of speech and thought in American life. The First Amendment is under intense attack from many points on the ideological compass, but mostly from the far Left.

The enemies of free speech and thought have lately turned to more subtle tools of suppression than merely shouting down speakers. Among these are extortionary threats to launch false charges of racism against companies that support politically incorrect groups, such as the American Legislative Exchange Council.

But far more sinister is the tactic adopted by Brett Kimberlin, an activist and the founder of the group Velvet Revolution who was convicted in 1981 of exploding eight bombs in 1978 in Speedway, Ind. One of his bombs blew off the leg of a man who subsequently committed suicide.

Nowadays, Kimberlin targets conservative bloggers like Aaron Worthing and Robert Stacy McCain in Maryland, and Patrick Frey of Patterico's Pontifications in California. Why? For publishing facts about Kimberlin's criminal record.

Kimberlin harasses his targets by, among many other ways, filing false charges in courts that require expensive, time-consuming litigation, disrupting his targets' workplaces, and dropping dark hints about spouses and kids.

Here's how Patterico describes Kimberlin's tactics against Worthing in seeking a "peace order": "It is beyond the scope of this post to detail every way in which Kimberlin's peace order is misleading and deceptive. Kimberlin complains that Aaron spoke of purchasing a gun, implying that Aaron's statement was aggressive -- when Aaron actually said he had bought a gun to defend himself.

"Kimberlin claims that Aaron is responsible for 'alerts' coming to his email inbox, suggesting Aaron is emailing him, when in fact the 'alerts' Kimberlin is talking about are Google alerts. If you write about this guy on the Internet, he may run to a judge and say you are causing abusive alerts to come to his email.

"You might say: What's the harm in getting a peace order? I have watched this play out in other venues and I know just what Kimberlin is up to. As soon as he gets a 'peace order,' he will run back to court the very next time Aaron mentions his name in public.

"That means that Kimberlin asserts the right to abuse the court process to harass Aaron -- and if Aaron tells the world how Kimberlin is abusing the court process, Kimberlin will claim that as a violation of the peace order and try to have Aaron held in contempt of court."

Unless these tactics are vigorously repudiated by the First Amendment's friends across the ideological spectrum, our Constitution will become little more than a parchment barrier to oppression.

The groups that Kimberlin has founded and associated with since his release from prison have received more than $1.5 million in grant support, much of it from liberal foundations -- the Tides Foundation, Streisand Foundation and Heinz Foundation -- according to Matthew Vadum of the Capital Research Center. Vadum wonders if they know (or care) how their donors' money is being spent.

So count me today with Michelle Malkin, Instapundit's Glenn Harlan Reynolds, blogger Lee Stranahan, PJMedia's Tatler and many others with one message for the Brett Kimberlins among us: Get your hands off our First Amendment.

This isn't about Left and Right, it's about liberty versus tyranny.

Mark Tapscott