Springfield, Ill. (ECWd) –
For the past several months, the City of Springfield, Illinois city council has been allegedly violating the First Amendment rights of speakers and of those who chose to receive the spoken words of the speakers.
The Supreme Court, in Board of Education v. Pico, 457 U.S. 853 (1982), reaffirmed that the First Amendment of free speech extends to the right to receive information, such as the right to hear what others are saying (See #6 at the Free Speech Center). In 1965, the Supreme Court stated, “The dissemination of ideas can accomplish nothing if otherwise willing addressees are not free to receive and consider them. It would be a barren marketplace of ideas that had only sellers and no buyers.” Lamont v. Postmaster General, 381 U.S. 301 (1965).”
Now, in Springfield, the city council and its attorneys are leveraging their control of microphones and cameras to prevent the exercise of First Amendment Rights, which include the right to receive information.
The council refuses to permit the video camera to pick up images of t-shirts worn by public commenters or papers held up, which contain QR codes, unless the council pre-approves of the information it may link to, and they cut off the cameras and microphones of speakers that their attorney determined used profanity in previous meetings.
The city attorney sent letters out to individuals who spoke during a meeting and used “profanity” to inform them that any future public comments for the following 30 days would not be livestreamed or broadcast in any way. It even included threats of further restrictions (here and here).
There was no vote by the city council on either of these issues, just the opinion of the attorney (who lacks the authority to make these decisions).
The attorney general’s public access counselor did rightfully, in our opinion, state that this activity by the city council did not violate the Open Meetings Act as there is no requirement under the Act to livestream or broadcast any part or all parts of any meeting. What the PAC did not discuss, and was not part of the request for review, is how this squares up with the First Amendment right to speak and hear, or see, what is spoken.
See this video for one example (of many) of Springfield’s childish cutting of the mics and cameras for one public speaker. See this video for one example (of many) of the city changing cameras/camera angles to keep from showing a QR code they did not give advance approval of.
We urge anyone aggrieved by the city’s actions to contact a good First Amendment attorney and seek redress in the courts.
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