I've updated with some of the press we have received in this case (seen in originating post).  Many people have not grasped that there was lots of planning and effort that went into this suit.  This case was an issue of first impression across the United States, we are literally breaking  new ground in Free Speech.  To say that the legal eagles of the 1st Amendment were just interested, would be a total understatement, especially when organizations like ACLU, Electronic Frontier Foundation, First Amendment center and others are weighing in for our issue.  Many lawyers and attorneys have weighed in on these issues (and to date, I have not seen one that opined against our position).


We are currently headed to court tomorrow morning on the 5th.  We will know more there.  At this point, we have essentially won.  Our members have been unbanned; other people have been unbanned.  HPD is currently not deleting comments or anything similar.

I posted this first paragraph in another thread not knowing this thread was here so I am moving it here with additional comments.
I have to say that I think the lawsuit over the removal of the facebook posts is a mistake. I think it makes the group look crazy, either that or just whiners.
Also I think it is a waste of funds that could be better spent especially because I believe that the lawsuit won't win. Facebook is a private company, there is no freedom of speech on facebook.  As a private website comments can be deleted and it is not infringing on anyone's freedom of speech. HPD is not going on the website and suppressing all comments it does not like, it is controlling what they want on their private page.

As funtimes has noted in the other thread they have sort of made headway in the unbanning of people from the HPD Facebook page.

This is indeed probably the first lawsuit of its kind and it will most likely set a precedence one way or the other. I do not think that they will rule against the HPD though. Yes it is administered by a government worker and represents a government entity but they are only controlling what goes on on their website. The main police station is a government building operated by government personnel, if I were to go and post some political message on one of the pillars of the building and they take it down is this a violation of my free speech? I think most would say no, so why is it a violation of free speech to control what is posted on their own Facebook page?
Ok, lets say that Facebook comments on government Facebook pages are in fact free speech, lets consider the consequences. A ruling that Facebook comments are protected speech would basically open the door to unlimited spamming would it not? I could friend HPD and inundate their Facebook page with random comments effectively rendering the site useless as well as any other government Facebook page.

I think HPD will be the victor in this one.

We didn't just win - we stomped their asses in the ground[/b].  All that is left is for us to lift our foot and to see how far down they went lol.

Too many people bend over and take it, thanks for making a stand for what's right.

Hey FT, are they mad? =Op

What part of we have essentially already won - did you miss?  City and County will be paying a check out for our attorney fees and legal expenses; they will develop a policy to manage their social media, and that policy will be utilized for other agencies in this county (and very likely state); they can no longer ban anyone; they can no longer censor posts unless they are outside of the protections of the 1st amendment.  There will be procedures for reviewing posts, removing posts, deleting material, and managing the page.  It will no longer be up to one person. They will develop appeals processes if your content was wrongfully removed.

We didn't just win - we stomped their asses in the ground.  All that is left is for us to lift our foot and to see how far down they went lol.

I don't know if I would call it a win or not. Correct me if I am wrong but it seems to me that HPD just decided to roll over and give in rather than make a stand and take a legal fight. HPD never wants to be the test bed for anything, they want to play it safe and only do things that other departments have already tried. They don't want to fight in court, thats why some people who shouldn't be cops get their jobs back, thats why HPD never gets new technology or techniques until other departments consider it safe first.

You could see this as a victory in that your posts won't get deleted as readily but this is not a legal precedent that posts on a government Facebook website are protected by the 1st amendment.  I suppose for your purposes it does not matter since you get to post again but my comments were more aimed at whether the posts were ultimately going to be considered free speech.  HPD decided to not fight so the issue is dropped but there is nothing legally that prevents them from turning around and again deleting posts at will since there is no case precedent.

I don't know if I would call it a win or not. Correct me if I am wrong but it seems to me that HPD just decided to roll over and give in rather than make a stand and take a legal fight. HPD never wants to be the test bed for anything, they want to play it safe and only do things that other departments have already tried. They don't want to fight in court, thats why some people who shouldn't be cops get their jobs back, thats why HPD never gets new technology or techniques until other departments consider it safe first.

You could see this as a victory in that your posts won't get deleted as readily but this is not a legal precedent that posts on a government Facebook website are protected by the 1st amendment.  I suppose for your purposes it does not matter since you get to post again but my comments were more aimed at whether the posts were ultimately going to be considered free speech.  HPD decided to not fight so the issue is dropped but there is nothing legally that prevents them from turning around and again deleting posts at will since there is no case precedent.

I hear what you're saying.  This is just my opinion, but Idon't think any govt agency will simply roll over and give in if they feel that they are right.  Again, IMO they realize that it is unconstitutional for them to delete posts and ban users.  I don't know enough about the law to say if this sets a legal precedent, but the fact that they did not want to fight this tells me they want to admit defeat and move on.  I'm not a lawyer.

Before they could say anything on the first day, the judge had already told them that he didn't see any other possibility than ruling in our favor.  At that point, he told the city they better settle lol.   There are quite a few attorney generals that have already cautioned their states to act in the manner opposite of HPD.  Some agencies have feared exactly this incident, and opted out of social media all together.  I will just point out that the City trys to fight *everything* that they can.  This isn't going to be a cite able opinion, but trust me people are paying attention (other agencies, government entities etc.).  The policies that get developed from this will likely make their away across the State.

Funtimes, so if the court would say that it is protected speech then what prevents someone from lets say spamming a governmental Facebook page? I am just wondering the consequences.

I admit I am not familiar with all the news concerning the ruling. The article I saw made it seem like a voluntary action by the HPD not a court mandated action. I did see a mention that the judge did not make a ruling yet on the matter and that he would review HPDs decision. I will be interested in reading the final court decision either way.

. If you can pay an officer a year salary or fight to be allowed to block a facebook post which is a better use of departmental funds?  The City and County would fight tooth and nail if they had a shot (They don't want pay attorney fees and stuff, there are also outside agencies that would likely want them to fight.  This is one reason the ACLU was with us in court, to bring their weight to our side of the fight.

I must wonder about a judge saying who would win before hearing the case. I realize the judge may have been trying to be practical but it does not look good for a judge to make a determindation before hearing the case.  We went in for a Motion on a Temporary Restraining Order, basically telling the city to immediately stop deleting and unban people.  They were able to agree to doing this without the Judge writing an order.  "Word" is still pretty powerful, you don't just say you are going to do something and then give the finger to an Article III judge.  He pretty much told us that if they didn't unban, to let him know and he would fix it. At that point, we agreed to moot the TRO so long as the city did what they said they would do (I was unbanned that day and so were all the other HDF members).  This is really why you don't see any written orders. Also, Judges make decisions all the time. In fact, most of the time, they already have a decision before your oral arguments. The case was 'heard' through written motions.


This of course raises many more questions. Is unfriending someone blocking their speech then? No. You are a private entity, not a government one.  How about not accepting a friend request?  No. Again, you are not the government. Being an Agent of the Government is the cornerstone of this case.  Without that factor, there would never have been a ripe controversy.  You are free to delete, post, deny requests, ignore etc.  However, the government is not, not unless they treat all people equally.  (You have to be a friend to post on their website right?) No. You like their page.  It's best analogized as looking through a glass door for a town hall meeting.  I can see what is going on inside, I could yell from outside and maybe be heard, but it works best if I open that door to go inside and participate. 

Funtimes, so if the court would say that it is protected speech then what prevents someone from lets say spamming a governmental Facebook page?  Facebook already protects from 'spam' (meaning lots of messages short period).  Users are also empowered to report posts as spam, threats etc. they have been given that power by Facebook.  Facebook actually restricts what "Government" pages can do in ways.  Facebook doesn't want Govt to silence its people on social media, so it prohibits certain things from going on.  Lastly, a user can block another user, so if for some reason a person or persons consistently posted things that were offensive to you - you can block them.

There are ways the government can delete stuff, but it cannot be arbitrary.  They also can't claim defamation against a government agency.  Defamation requires actual malice; meaning, that they have to be able to prove that I absolutely knew that what I was saying is false.  This is very - very - borderline impossible to do.  If I were to say HPD is full of a bunch of corrupt blah blah.  As long as that belief was sincerely held by me, it cannot be defamation.

Some words and speech that may be offensive, would also be protected - i.e. fuck.   Most people are not going to do that anyways, so I don't think we will worry about it.    If you look at the posts *we* made, the worst things that were said was 1.) terrorist, and 2.) nazi.

I don't know if I would call it a win or not.

This of course raises many more questions. Is unfriending someone blocking their speech then? No. You are a private entity, not a government one.  How about not accepting a friend request?  No. Again, you are not the government. Being an Agent of the Government is the cornerstone of this case.  Without that factor, there would never have been a ripe controversy.  You are free to delete, post, deny requests, ignore etc.  However, the government is not, not unless they treat all people equally.  (You have to be a friend to post on their website right?) No. You like their page.  It's best analogized as looking through a glass door for a town hall meeting.  I can see what is going on inside, I could yell from outside and maybe be heard, but it works best if I open that door to go inside and participate.

I did not mean can I do it but can a government agency do it when I was asking about abstaining actions such as not accepting a friend request or unfriending someone. I was under the impression that you needed to be a friend of the HPD page to post on their page. Under that premise I was wondering if not accepting a friend request would be considered blocking speech,

Thanks for your explanations on the other parts. I don't necessarily agree with everything but at least I better understand what is going on in the case.