According to a recent press release from the NH ACLU, Alton town selectmen had a local activist arrested for daring to speak out at a meeting. Jeffrey Clay was supposedly given five minutes to address the board, but two minutes in was interrupted by the rude selectmen who voted to close public input when they did not like what Clay had to say to them. He was demanding they resign, accusing them of corruption, so they proved his claim and had him arrested:
The Laconia district court threw out the obviously illegal charge of “disorderly conduct”, and the ACLU has filed suit in civil court. As NH ACLU head attorney Gilles Bissonnette points out in their press release announcing the suit,
Sadly, these types of free speech violations still occur in 2015. In a free society, governmental officials are required to tolerate harsh criticism and even a demeaning attitude towards them—including viewpoints that can feel like “character assassination”—and cannot discriminate based on these critical viewpoints. As the U.S. Supreme Court has held, “[a]s a general matter, … in public debate, our own citizens must tolerate insulting, and even outrageous, speech in order to provide adequate breathing space to the freedoms protected by the First Amendment.” Thus, speech directed to and about the government is singled out for protection because speech—including opinions about how well or badly officials carry out their duties—lies at the very heart of the First Amendment.
