In today's newspaper, one story on top of the other (yes, an advantage of news in print is that you get information in a context someone has thought about):
First, a judge in New Mexico decided that a village can't keep residents from saying not nice things about the government at local council meetings. So, score one for First Amendment 101, the law being clear that those with the power to shut people up can't pick and choose among the messages they'll tolerate.
Second, in the story below that, a judge in Oregon started out strong, then whiffled on the TSA's No Fly list when she ruled that the procedures to challenge placement on the list -- or, rather, the lack of procedures, or anything else available to people who, inexplicably, find themselves there -- are unconstitutional. That's the good part. The other part is that she did nothing to create new procedures, just told Homeland Security, which oversees the Orwellian list, that they should find a way for people on that list to see the unclassified info that put them there. Ya think maybe?
Then, on the facing page, we get the (not) news that no one in our great ally, Egypt, is going to do anything to reverse the outrageous prison sentences for 3 Al Jazeera journalists. So, I think we can safely say that Egypt is in favor of censorship, no if's, and's or but's.
