This all started back in 2013, when the FBI was running a terrorism awareness campaign featuring bus ads depicting photos of sixteen of the world’s Most Wanted Terrorists.
This was a publicity campaign sponsored by the Joint Terrorism Task Force for the State Department’s Rewards for Justice (RFJ) program. The ad featured the world’s leading global terrorists. As it happened, all but one were Muslim. Islamic supremacists and their leftist lapdogs demanded the want ad come down, claiming it was insulting to Muslims. The FBI caved and pulled the Seattle-area bus ads featuring the “Faces of Global Terrorism” after receiving complaints “that the ads stereotype Muslims.”
My organization, the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), believed that this public awareness message was critical to national security and should run. We are constantly being clubbed with the claim that “moderate Muslims” abhor and reject the acts of terrorism that are constantly committed in the name of their religion, so why would they object to a wanted poster featuring Islamic terrorists who supposedly have twisted and hijacked their peaceful religion? Why would “moderate Muslims” provide cover for jihad terror? Why, indeed.
AFDI submitted a virtual copy of the FBI ad to run on Seattle transit. The cowards at Seattle King Metro refused to run the ad, claiming that it was disparaging to Muslims. Reality is disparaging to Muslims?
We sued Seattle King Metro. Predictably, the liberal fascists in Seattle sided with the supremacists. We appealed to the clowns on the notorious 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. And now they, as expected, ruled in favor of sharia and supremacism.
Of all the free speech legal battles I am embroiled in, this one is the most absurd. It illustrates the crippling submission and capitulation of government authorities to Islamic supremacist demands. And now it has gotten even more absurd: King County claimed last year that “AFDI…has directly forced six of the ten largest transit agencies in the United States to end all forms of political, public interest, and religious advertising. AFDI’s Pamela Geller calls this the ‘Geller Ban.’ Dkt. 57 (Declaration of Hackett, Ex. D (Geller Dep. at 44:19 – 45:1-4)). To date, not counting the transit systems chilled by AFDI’s ‘free speech’ campaign, the ‘Geller Ban’ has substantially limited the speech available to over 50 million Americans who live in the affected service areas.”
That’s right: they’re blaming us for the fascist, counter-free speech actions of the transit systems that changed their rules to ban all political ads rather than run our ads. This is like blaming a woman for being raped.
Our legal team at the American Freedom Law Center has responded:
The so-called “Geller Ban” referred to by the County is nothing more than a concerted effort by government officials to discriminate against Plaintiffs by seeking to close forums for Plaintiffs’ speech because the officials dislike the message. Plaintiffs refuse to surrender their freedoms to these government censors.
Click here to read our entire reply brief in our case against King County.
This is a key freedom of speech case, with enormous implications far beyond this one ad. We will never give up in our fight against this flagrant attempt to suppress our most fundamental freedom.
eduardo odraude says
Talk about Orwellian! They have the chutzpah to blame Geller for censoring speech, when they are the ones who are in charge of the ads and they are the ones who are ending political speech? And why do they do it? Because they are conformists and cowards, or at best ignoramuses. The same crap would happen here in the US as is happening in Europe, were it not for our First Amendment. We have the same lunatics running things, the same cowards and conformists who won’t stand up against totalitarian Islam, and were it not for the First Amendment, Geller would probably be in jail by now, which is how things work in troglodyte Europe.
mummymovie says
Yes, it’s a very clever “flipping of the script”, isn’t it?
In blaming Pam, they are -by their own admission, nonetheless- admitting that they violation of the 1st Amendment.
So much for the right to free speech, I guess.
And who says it can’t happen in America?
The only difference between her and Tommy is -like you said Mr. Palindrome- that she is not behind bars right now, languishing in some prison ( though that’s exactly where the dhimwit, hijra & jihad-enabling powers-that-be in America would love more than anything to see her end up).
ElderlyZionist says
It’s like an abuser claiming that his wife forces him to hit her by her own bad behavior.
“I beat you because I love you!”
gravenimage says
AFDI Responds to Absurd Seattle King County Claim That We Are AGAINST Free Speech In Trying to Run Counterterror Ad
…………………..
Talk about projection!
Granddaddy says
It’s an attempt to abrogate the 1st amendment illegally. If the ad had no factual basis, that would be different: it would be libel and should go through the court system. But what the ad is saying is true and so was never given the opportunity to be heard in court. It goes to the core of what free speech is really about and what the Left is against: the truth. If the powers-that-be had asked Geller to substantiate her accusations, that would be different. But they didn’t. So it appears that the powers-that-be are not about the truth. Which is probably no great revelation to anyone who reads here regularly. But if everyone goes along with it, then there really is no free speech, no matter what the Constitution says. And for 50 million people, that’s a big part of our free speech.
Kepha says
This sad story illustrates why the US Constitution includes machinery for the impeachment of officials–and the Founders expected it to be used a lot more liberally than it historically has been. We need a few legislators at state and national levels who are willing to initiate impeachment proceedings against these sworn and proven enemies of the First Amendment.
mortimer says
So-called ‘LIBERALS’ defend the most ILLIBERAL ideology on earth and the most misogynistic ideology on earth. Makes no sense.
The so-called LIBERALS contradict their stated ‘liberal’ principles by defending SUPREMACIST, MISOGYNISTIC, INEGALITARIAN, RELIGIOUS FASCISM.
mummymovie says
And they defend it, when those thankless, godless, uncoventional left-wingers; “social justice warriors”, “protestors”, self-described non-conformists, feminists, atheists, pot smoking hippies, punks, gays, queers, scofflaws and criminals would be THE FIRST ONES TO GO under a full-scale oppressive totalitarian islamic sharia system.
They would immediately swing from cranes, be dropped from buildings, or locked in prison.
And yet they defend islam: Don’t they know that muslims will NEVER like them in return?
NEVER!
Look at everything France did for muslims: Do they get any reward? NO. JIHAD VIOLENCE AND CONQUEST ONLY.
GERMANY bending over backwards for muslims?
NO. JIHAD VIOLENCE AND CONQUEST.
How about SWEDEN?
NOPE. JIHAD VIOLENCE AND CONQUEST.
Yet “Progressives” still persist in thinking that if they just continue being nice enough, and “stand by” muslims, they will eventually reciprocate and like and befriend them. But they don’t know that this so-called religion forbids anything of the sort.
It will NEVER happen.
mummymovie says
Good way to look at things.
I always forget that.
Thanks.
Lydia Church says
So freedom of speech equals ‘censorship,’ but censoring equals ‘freedom of speech’?
Only a liberal could have come up with that illogical and orwellian idea!
Jack Holan says
This is Fascism at its core. flip the argument, turn the accuser into the accused and the argument into strawman-Argument and the proposition a new one under the guise of the old one.
Mark Berlinger says
Know what else is in alignment with Islamic principles?
Sharia is the goal. Jihad is the way. Islam must dominate all other religions and governments. Takbeer!
Norger says
Calling attention to the identities of some of the world’s most dangerous terrorists is not acceptable to King County Washington because the vast majority of these terrorists are obviously Muslim. That’s a fact that we aren’t permitted to notice. Better to pretend that the threat is “violent extremism” and that the most dangerous terrorists adhere to no political or religious ideology unless it’s “right wing.” You can’t make this stuff up.
TWG says
What do people expect from a city that proudly displays it’s very own 17 foot tall bronze statue of LENIN, who they adore.
I was born and raised in Seattle (King County, WA) and abandoned that shithole back in 2009, after several horrific events involving islammunists. People in Seattle walk around in hammer & sickle t-shirts, smoking pot and pissing in the streets, daring anyone with decency to say anything in protest. And if you even THINK about wearing a tshirt with an American Flag, or a pro-2A cap, you better be ready for a fight. Seattle’s downfall began in the late ’80’s, and culminated with the WTO riots, when Soros and his ilk bussed in (via one-way tickets) thousands of islammunists to riot and destroy the city. All of this, combined with the multi-millionaires working at Microsoft, Amazon or any other high tech corporation, makes for a nasty brew.
Seattle IS a shithole today. Be sure to thank an “educator”.
I was born and raised there, but an army couldn’t drag me back there. Good riddance to that islammunist shithole.