The First Amendment for the Press Only? NO!

A federal judge in Oregon ruled that Crystal Cox, a blogger who was sued for defamation after she accused the founder of an investment group of acting illegally and unethically, cannot claim protections afforded to journalists under state shield laws. 

Cox runs several law-centric blogs, like industrywhistleblower.com, judicialhellhole.com, and obsidianfinancesucks.com, and was sued by investment firm Obsidian Finance Group in January for defamation, to the tune of $10 million, for writing several blog posts that were highly critical of the firm and its co-founder Kevin Padrick. In his ruling, the judge noted that Ms. Cox was not affiliated with a “newspaper, magazine, periodical, book, pamphlet, news service, wire service, news or feature syndicate, broadcast station or network, or cable television system.”

The question is, does the First Amendment protect your right to speech or must you qualify as a journalist by the state's Shield Laws?

The First Amendment of the Constitution says, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

The US Constitution supersedes any state law and therefore free speech and freedom of the press are not limited to so called, "Journalists".  All citizens of the U.S. are entitled to the protections of the Constitution, whether your a Journalist or not.  We should demand that free speech apply to us when we are in the public square, our home or online.  I do not forgo my right to free speech when I start typing on a computer.

Crystal Cox may have been wrong to criticize the Obsidian group but I don't support her because I agree with her opinion, I support her First Amendment right to express herself.  The writers of the constitution understood that the First Amendment was important in order to protect the citizen's right to express an opinion that was different or even offensive to those in power. Because we have this right the government cannot treat any speech they find threatening to their power illegal.

As a reminder, in America we don't serve a king or any man in authority.  We "all" submit to the written law and are "all" protected by this written law, removing the opinion of men on our rights.