Portside

Daniel McGowan is now serving the last six months of his seven-year sentence for an environmentally motivated arson at a halfway house in Brooklyn. The Bureau of Prisons has retaliated against McGowan for writing constitutionally protected political blogs by placing him in a special prison unit and then after he was released, re-imprisoned him when he exercised his free speech rights by writing an article complaining about it. Kafka is twirling in his grave.

Bang! Now what?

Holocaust scholar and pro-Palestine activist Norman Finkelstein expresses his support for the student protests, insisting on the importance of free speech and uniting the majority of Americans around solidarity with Gaza.

A moral panic overruns free speech

"I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice," William Lloyd Garrison once said. "On this subject, I do not wish to think, or to speak, or write, with moderation."

After reading of actions at UC Berkeley to prevent a speaker from addressing a meeting, and disrupting a dean’s backyard party, as a veteran of the Free Speech Movement, the first thing that comes to my mind is "What was the goal of the protest?"

Students and faculty members in solidarity with the Palestinian people have found the campus environment alarmingly constrained.

Prosecuting Assange gives a green light to countries around the world that it is possible to protect their government secrets by charging international reporters or editors with crimes.

After a year of fierce battles over the judicial coup, Israel’s Supreme Court seems totally subservient to the state’s policies since Oct. 7. What's changed?