#Professor Michael Volz

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Professor Michael Volz casually sitting next to a man with a sign that says: “Save Hamas.” At the University of Missouri, @mizzou they host a weekly anti-Israel protest.  There is a man who joins the protests almost every week who holds a sign that says: “Save Hamas.” They also regularly hold a sign that says: “Negotiate with Hamas.”  If the people holding signs that say “Save Hamas” do not represent them, then why do they let him march with them every week? If someone showed up to a Pro-Israel event with a sign that declared: “Save Hamas,” then we would not let him march in our group. But, they never kick out people who hold signs praising Hamas.  Drew McCausland is a Methodist Minister in my town who joins the protests. I asked him why he marches with a guy that holds a sign proclaiming: “Save Hamas.” Minister McCausland responded that it was fine, because the sign also states: “Save Israel,” at the bottom. But, when I tried to speak with the man who carries the sign, he started screaming at me. Obviously the message of the sign is that Hamas are the legitimate representatives of the Palestinian people.  Professor Michael Volz is the Director of the MU International Studies Program. Hamas calls for murdering every Jew on earth. The Hamas Charter declares: “The Day of Judgement will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews. When the Jew will hide behind stones and trees, the stones and trees will say, ‘O Muslims, O Abdullah, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him.’” On Saturdays, Professor Michael Volz just likes to join protests where people show up to support a group that calls for murdering every Jewish student on campus.

[sciencespies]

Earth science mission named after former NASA official

https://sciencespies.com/space/earth-science-mission-named-after-former-nasa-official/

Earth science mission named after former NASA official

WASHINGTON — NASA and its domestic and European partners have renamed an upcoming Earth science satellite after the agency’s former Earth science director.

At a Jan. 28 ceremony at NASA Headquarters, officials from NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, European Space Agency, Eumetsat and European Commission announced the latest in a series of spacecraft to measure sea level height will be named after Michael Freilich, who retired last year from NASA after more than a decade as the director of the agency’s Earth science mission.

The spacecraft, which has previously been known as both Sentinel-6A and Jason-CS, will now be called Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich. It will launch in November on a SpaceX Falcon 9 from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

“This is really coming from all of our hearts. It is to you, Mike, for what you have done in order to make Sentinel-6 happen,” said Josef Aschbacher, director of ESA’s Earth observation programs, who announced the name change. “Sentinel-6 would not exist without Mike Freilich’s contribution.”

Sentinel-6 will continue space-based measurements of changes in sea-level height that date back to Topex-Poseidon, a joint mission between NASA and the French space agency CNES launched in 1992. It was followed by Jason-1 in 2001, Jason-2 in 2008 and Jason-3 in 2016. The last two missions included NOAA and Eumetsat as partners.

With the upcoming mission, ESA and the European Commission became involved through their joint Copernicus program for Earth observation. ESA is responsible for the satellite, being built by Airbus Defence and Space. Both ESA and NASA are providing instruments, with NASA responsible for launch services. Eumetsat and NOAA will support ground stations, operations and data dissemination. The partnership includes a second spacecraft, Sentinel-6B, scheduled for launch in 2025.

Michael Freilich, who retired in 2019 after more than a decade as director of NASA’s Earth science division, speaks at a Jan. 28 event where the Sentinel-6A spacecraft was named after him. Credit: NASA/Aubrey Gemignani

NASA used the event to emphasize its continued commitment to Earth science. “We know the Earth is changing constantly,” NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine said, with human activities responsible “at least in part” for those changes. “We know there is a whole lot more to learn about each of the systems that comprise the entirety of the Earth.”

The ceremony was also an opportunity to honor Freilich, who retired from NASA nearly a year ago after serving as director of NASA’s Earth science division since 2006. Officials from both the United States and Europe praised Freilich’s career in the Earth sciences and his leadership while running NASA’s Earth science programs.

Stephen Volz, assistant administrator for NOAA’s satellite and information service, said that the offer by European partners to name the spacecraft after Freilich “is a suitable recognition of Dr. Freilich’s career and lifetime of contributions, not just to altimetry but to Earth science in general.”

“I’m more than humbled by this great honor,” Freilich said at the ceremony. Measurements of sea-level heights, he said are among the “most robust” measurements of climate change, and why it was important to continue such measurements with international collaboration.

“Our ability to do precision altimetry over the decades, and to implement Sentinel-6 now, is possible only because of the vision and the contributions of thousands of scientists, engineers, managers, and diplomats from both sides of the Atlantic,” he said.

In an interview after the event, Freilich said he heard about the offer by ESA to name the satellite after him a couple months earlier, shortly after ESA contacted NASA. “It’s pretty overwhelming,” he said.

The spacecraft is only the second time that a mission involving NASA has been named after a living person. In 2017, NASA renamed the Solar Probe Plus spacecraft the Parker Solar Probe after Eugene Parker, a professor emeritus at the University of Chicago who correctly predicted the existence of the solar wind. The spacecraft successfully launched in August 2018, with Parker among those in attendance.

#Space

[virginiaprelawland]

Trump Versus The People Of Twitter; Viewing the President’s Tweets through The Lense Of The First Amendment

By Kelvin Deng, University of Virginia Class of 2020

June 15, 2017

Twitter; the notoriously buzzing social media platform, where a user can find a vast collection of daily headlines, memes, and tweets from their favorite profiles and personalities, all of which functions within a conservative character-limit. And for our President of the United States, Twitter serves as his own personalized diary, tweeting barrages of outbursts, opinions, and criticisms at the touch of a screen. But when President Trump began blocking users after they constantly and deliberately mocked and criticized him with tweets that included his handle1, thereby negating any form of communication and exposure to view his profile or tweets from that point forward, that is when the legal world took notice.

Late this past May, and early this month, two twitter users by the names of Holly O’Reilly and Joe Papp, were blocked from Donald Trump’s personal twitter account (@realDonaldTrump), after tweeting critical opinions pertaining to his alleged involvement in Russia’s meddling of the U.S presidential election, and his seemingly weightless support for the people of America. At one point, the tweet even mentioned President Trump as being a “#fakeleader”2. Within days of these two incidents, backlash ensued from across the web. The most high-profile response, however, came in the form of a letter written to the White House by the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, a legal institute that uses their own team of attorneys and staff members to conduct research and litigation that will advance First Amendment rights through speech and the press in a modern context.

In the three page letter, the representatives of the Knight First Amendment Institute called on the President to cease the blocking of users3 who have mocked or opposed his viewpoints on twitter, calling the action “unconstitutional” for reasons that will be discussed, and vowing to take legal action if the blockings continue to occur.

So how did legality get into the fray, and why is it so important to recognize the context of clauses in this situation? Well, it helps if we understand the premise of the First Amendment and its application within this scenario.

The First Amendment, under the Bill of Rights, gives the citizens the right to free speech, religion, and press, as well as the freedom to peacefully assemble and petition the Government. Over the course of the years that this Amendment was first put into governance, there has been much debate about the specificity as to what constitutes free speech. In essence, the freedom of speech allows for citizens to voice themselves within a public forum, which can range anywhere from a public speech at a park, to a town hall meeting, to even a rally down Pennsylvania Avenue. In the new era of digital dominance and instant information, however, there comes a recontextualisation of the First Amendment, which may redefine the meaning of a public forum altogether.

In the letter by the Knight First Amendment Institute, their representatives explicitly recognize Donald Trump’s twitter account as a public space, on the basis that it serves as an outlet for public discourse where the public can engage with each other, and with Trump to share their opinions and viewpoints. The President cannot, however, banish these views from public discourse simply because he finds them objectionable4. And more often now, is Twitter and other social media platforms being used by the people to voice themselves to their public officials. With that, arises a new-age issue of this access being denied by public officials, especially in an age where town hall meetings are becoming less common-place, and in its place are Facebook Live Q&A streams, and live tweeting sessions on a certain matter of discussion.

So the question remains, do Donald Trump’s tweets constitute as a public forum? Some experts seem to agree that they do.

Lead director Alex Abdo, as well as his team of senior attorneys from the Knight First Amendment Institute that helped him write the letter, states that “Your [Donald Trump] account constitutes a designated public forum. It is a forum for expression in which you share information and opinions relating to government policy with the public at large and in which members of the public can engage you, engage one another, and sometimes elicit responses from you. Your Twitter account is a designated public forum for essentially the same reasons that open city council meetings and school board meetings are.”5 This argument carries substantial weight, since it serves as the foundation to which the First Amendment is supposed to protect; the freedom to express and engage in a setting where all of one’s constituents can gather and offer their opinion without restriction or barricade. But in other contexts, the case finds certain instances of Internet law that may lead to complications.

Other experts are more hesitant to join in on the public forum argument, as they skepticize the context that a public forum is allowed to fall under. Michael Overing, a lawyer and adjunct professor at USC who specializes in First Amendment law, argues that Twitter doesn’t necessarily deem itself as a public forum6 for safety and privacy reasons, especially with the increased monitoring and regulation as to what can be said on social media platforms that remain within its user policy enacted by the host site or the account holder. Overing also argues that the courts will most likely recognize a public forum as a physical venue like a park or a town hall, and not a social media platform. Other experts, like Ken Paulson, dean of the college of mass communication at Middle Tennessee State University, questions if the president’s account counts as a public forum. Donald Trump’s tweets are characterized more often than not as brief outbursts of opinion that are substantiated by little to no evidence or scholarly analysis of the matter, and differentiates itself with purposefully-setup forums, where citizens are free to give their input7.

Quite possibly the most compelling argument happens to come from Eugene Volokh, a constitutional law professor at the UCLA School of Law. He describes social media accounts as limited public forums, thereby placing his stance as nothing short of middleground. He argues that “once they open it up to public comments, they can’t then impose viewpoint-based restrictions on it,” for instance allowing only supportive comments while deleting critical ones.”8 This argument sways with pro-public forum scholars like Abdo. The limited aspect, however, comes with its nuances, as well.Volokh argues that elected officials are entitled to private speech, because although they are government officials, they do not necessarily represent government speech, but rather the voice of someone who may just be a government official.

In the midst of all these arguments and dissents, it remains crucial to remember that preserving the right to exchange one’s opinion is just as important as a government official proclaiming their self-right to choose the audience they publicize to on their social media accounts. People will always have that certain right to do something, it’s just up to the reader to internalize and interpret how they want that right to be represented.

If Donald Trump does not end up lifting the ban on these users, the Knight First Amendment Institute will almost certainly take this matter to court, as this letter serves as a sure warning for Donald Trump to check his social media powers, because it could land him into serious litigation troubles. The precedent of most of these cases that end up in court end with a settlement. But I predict that the Abdo won’t stop until they find that the First Amendment rights are protected for every single tweeter.

________________________________________________________________

[1] Volz, Dustin. "Trump's Blocking of Twitter Users Violates U.S. Constitution: Rights Institute." Reuters June 6, 2017. Web. <https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-twitter-idUSKBN18X2LR>.`

[2,5] Andrews, M. T. "Trump Blocked some People from His Twitter Account. is that Unconstitutional?" The Washington Post June 7, 2017. Web. <https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/06/07/trump-blocked-some-people-from-his-twitter-account-is-that-unconstitutional-as-they-say/?utm_term=.aac5b1753e67>.

[3,4,6] David Pierson. "Blocked by Trump on Twitter? Lawyers Say He's Violating Your 1st Amendment Rights." Los Angeles Times (Online)June 6, 2017. Global News Stream. Web. <http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-tn-trump-twitter-unblock-20170606-story.html>.

[7] Weiss, C. Debra. "Blocked Trump Twitter Followers Claim First Amendment Violation." American Bar Association (2017)Web.

[8] Ornstein, Charles. "Trump’s Not the Only One Blocking Constituents on Twitter." Propublica (2017)Web.

[9] Abdo, Alex, Katherine Fallow, and Jameel Jaffer. "White House Twitter Letter - Knight First Amendment." documentcloud.org. June 6, 2017. Web. <https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3859560-White-House-Twitter-Letter-Knight-First-Amendment.html>.

Picture credit goes to AFP/Getty Images, The Washington Post, and the Knight First Amendment Institute, respectively.