Question of Truth For The Times: The Meme of Bloomberg as Champion of the First Amendment & Free Speech, Firmly Planted Before OWS Eviction

You know the old axiom for watching politicians: “Watch what he DOES, not what he SAYS”? Well, here is the axiom that Michael Bloomberg watchers ought to employ: “Listen to what he SAYS and then figure the OPPOSITE.” One opposite to figure: The notion Bloomberg wishes to promote that he is a big `defender of free speech.' But if you are reporting for the New York Times these days maybe you would just like to report Bloomberg's assertion as fact.

Planning (and Planting?) In Advance?

According to one of the articles appearing in the New York Times the day that Bloomberg moved to evict the Occupy Wall Street protesters from Zucotti Park, the police raid that effected the eviction was planned in advance, carefully, minutely and in secrecy at the very highest levels with the intention that it be a surprise. (See: After an Earlier Misstep, a Minutely Planned Raid/Operation to Clear Zucotti Park, Carefully Planned, Unfolded Without Warning- the second headline is the Times print edition’s, by Al Baker and Joseph Goldstein, Published: November 15, 2011.
That article focused principally on police associated logistics, the day and time of night chosen. (Was even the weather watched?) One thing we didn’t learn from the article was about other the planning that took place at the highest levels of the Bloomberg administration, including one thing we will now direct Noticing New York attention to: the planting in the media of a meme. On November 4, 2011, ten days before police were ordered into action for their 1:00 AM November 15th, raid, the front page of the Friday New York Times carried a story with a headline and content laudatory of Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s esteem for “Free Speech.” Quoting that article:

Mr. Bloomberg’s evolving response to the protest has come to embody a central tension in his third term, between his celebration of free, and at times cacophonous, speech as a hallmark of New York, and his emphasis on bolstering the city’s economy by improving its appeal to residents, employers and tourists.

* * * *

Mr. Bloomberg has managed simultaneously to be less sympathetic to the protesters’ point of view, and more sympathetic to their right to protest, than some other elected officials around the nation. “There’s nobody that’s more of a defender of the First Amendment than I am,” he has often said.

(See: Demonstrators Test Mayor, a Backer of Wall St. and Free Speech, by Kate Taylor, November 3, 2011.)

Where Do Quotes Come From?

As for the Bloomberg quote, “There’s nobody that’s more of a defender of the First Amendment than I am,” which the Times article describes as frequently stated: I can’t find it anywhere on the web and it appears nowhere on the Times own site except in that same article.

The article was written by Times reporter Kate Taylor. As pointed out in an earlier Noticing New York article, Kate Taylor was one of the two Times reporters who dutifully reported what looked like a direct pass-along for the Bloomberg administration, that the mayor’s staff was “under strict orders from Mr. Bloomberg” not to “lobby the owner of the park, Brookfield Office Properties, about whether to push ahead, leaving the decision up to the company’s management, according to several people involved in the discussions” while simultaneously failing to mention what had been in the Times just the day before, that Diana Taylor, the Mayor’s girlfriend and live-in companion, was on the board of Brookfield.

While reporter Kate Taylor did not let the Bloomberg/Diana Taylor relationship go unmentioned in her new article about Bloomberg as the `backer of free speech,' her reporting makes it sound as if her sympathies are with the mayor, that she considers it a sorrowful misfortune that the very small world of the rich and powerful necessitates uncomfortable disclosures: “At one point, he felt compelled to disclose that he did not talk about Zuccotti Park while in bed with his girlfriend.”

The morning following the eviction of the protesters Bloomberg said in his press conference that throughout the crisis he had been in constant contact with Brookfield Properties. Interesting . . . . Square that with Ms. Tayor’s reporting that staff contact was proscribed and that pillow talk was also avoided. It's possible.

Meme Gets Rolling

Did Ms. Taylor write her front page story because Bloomberg held a press conference the day of her story where he stated he was concerned about “free speech” or was this a theme Ms. Taylor was already working on and getting attached to it before that? No matter, once this story appeared on the front page of the Times the meme was up and running despite the fact that Bloomberg had already been saying that he did not think that what the protesters were doing in Zucotti Park constituted free speech. The meme was even picked up right away in a Times editorial that was otherwise complementary about how the message of the Occupy Wall Street protesters was getting through to the public.

As such, the meme was prophylactically in place and the following wound up embedded in one of the major stories the Times immediately ran covering the eviction.

For the mayor, a champion of the First Amendment who made a fortune on Wall Street and defends its virtues, the decision was even more freighted: just a month ago, he announced that the city would clear the park for cleaning, but backed down after a chorus of political protest and an influx of new demonstrators.

* * * *

Facing mounting criticism from the city’s tabloids and from some business interests for his tolerance of an encampment they found increasingly noxious, he spoke increasingly of the need to balance free speech with public safety.

(See: Jolted, Wall St. Protesters Face Challenge for Future, By David M. Halbfinger and Michael Barbaro, November 15, 2011.)

And the meme was similarly picked up by the Times in another story that day here: City Reopens Park After Protesters Are Evicted, by James Barron and Colin Moynihan, November 15, 2011.

In fact, Michael Barbaro, one of the reporters writing the article with the paragraphs quoted above, let the meme peek through a few days before in an article about how Bloomberg was developing new oratorical skills and was increasingly being inspired to do his own authoring as he addressed grand issues. The puffy article is made up of quotes and information supplied by Bloomberg staff:

Again and again, Mr. Bloomberg celebrates New York’s public disputes, even the two-month-old Occupy Wall Street protest, though he has struggled over how to balance the free-speech rights of demonstrators in Lower Manhattan with the concerns of annoyed neighbors.

(Data-Crunching Mayor Now Sees Power in Words, by Michael Barbaro, November 12, 2011.)

Within days of Kate Taylor’s front page article, the meme was even picked up and incorporated in WNYC’s Brian Lehrer show when Lehrer introduced a segment on the “Mayor and the Occupiers” with Joyce Purnick and Matt Taibbi guesting. Lehrer said “he’s been supportive of their free speech rights, maybe more than some other mayors” and Bloomberg biographer Purnick moments later emphatically stated that “he is a firm supporter of the First Amendment.” (See: What OWS Tells Us About Mike Bloomberg, Monday, November 07, 2011.) Item of disclosure and interest: I can be heard during that segment phoning in to venture my disbelief that Bloomberg is a true supporter of free speech as opposed to merely being an ostensible one.

Better To Accompany Eviction With a “Mayor Loves Free Speech Story” Than a “Mayor Tolerates Dogs Story”

Is it true that Mayor Bloomberg is the “backer” of “free speech,” the “champion of the First Amendment”? Certainly the press that Bloomberg is now getting to this effect is lot better than the press Bloomberg might have been getting for his tone deafness if his originally planned eviction of the protesters had gone through, as scheduled, the day the Times ran its `Mayor tolerates dogs’ (“Bonnie and Clyde”) story. (See: Saturday, October 22, 2011, Occupy Wall Street and the Banks- Messages From Bonnie & Clyde, “They’ve Got Too Much Money”: Ownership of the Public Forum by the Wealthy?)

Are reporters doing their job, are they worth their salt if the report that Bloomberg is a “backer” of “free speech,” the “champion of the First Amendment”?

Testing the Times. . . Against the Record That Appears in the Times

Since the media buy-in to the meme that Bloomberg is a “champion of the First Amendment” probably originated or was significantly bolstered by the Times front page article promoting that idea, the best place I could think of to put that notion to the test was . . . the Times itself. What did the Times report about Bloomberg’s positions on free speech and the First Amendment before the Occupiers Occupied Zucotti Park?

Much of it could be summed up by these words from a Times editorial in the spring of 2006:

Mr. Bloomberg's record on free speech took a beating in his first term after he moved aggressively to limit protests, most notably those surrounding the Republican National Convention in New York two years ago. And as a report in yesterday's Times by Jim Dwyer made clear, the Police Department's willingness to subvert free speech in the name of security appears to have gone beyond that one event to an ongoing strategy that included "proactive arrests" of political demonstrators who were spotted as potential troublemakers.

(See: Editorial: The Mayor and the Imam, March 18, 2006.)

Donations From the Wealthy Are Said To Privatize a Great Public Space And Curtail Free Speech

One year later, another Times editorial prompted by a First Amendment lawsuit criticized Bloomberg for his selectivity in denying “the right to demonstrate on Central Park’s Great Lawn” mainly because the wealthy in New York had paid to refurbish its lawn. Apparently, if you want to privatize public space and make it off-limits for political expression (and there is a lot of that going on in New York City) it is no longer necessary for the wealthiest to actually acquire and take legal title to that space. Said the Times:

In the heart of the nation’s largest and arguably most opinionated city, there is no place to hold a large rally. Central Park has long been the site of such gatherings, but the Bloomberg administration insists that its grass is too fragile to permit them now. It’s an inadequate and distressing rationale . .

. . Central Park, at 843 acres of green, is often called the city's lungs. But it is also its vocal cords. The Great Lawn, with 13 acres of open space, is the most suitable site for large rallies in Manhattan. It has been the site of some spectacular events, like the 1982 "No Nukes" rally and the 1995 Mass with the pope, both of which drew more than a hundred thousand people.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg wants to put an end to such gatherings. Since around the time of the 2004 Republican convention, when the city repeatedly denied protesters the right to gather in Central Park, his administration seems to have had a wild fixation on saving every blade of the Great Lawn.

* * * *

The lawsuit also calls attention to the uneven way the city applies its rules. It’s telling that while the New York Philharmonic and its well-heeled subscribers have had no problem securing the Great Lawn for concerts, there hasn’t been a rally there in years. Classical music fans are just as capable of flattening grass as critics of the White House.

* * * *

The mayor’s solution might make tending the grass in Central Park easier. But turning Manhattan into a rally-free zone is too high a price to pay.

(See: Editorial: The Perfect Lawn, Mowed and Muted, March 12, 2007.)

Bloomberg Politically Motivated As He Curtails Speech

The Times editorial could have been even harsher if it had looked back to evidence of the calculated and politically motivated way that Bloomberg had suppressed speech as reported only months before in its own pages. Here is just the beginning of a very long article presenting such documentation:

When city officials denied demonstrators access to the Great Lawn in Central Park during the 2004 Republican National Convention, political advocates and ordinary New Yorkers accused Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of squelching demonstrations that could embarrass fellow Republicans during their gathering.

Documents Regarding Use of Great Lawn (justiceonline.org) The Bloomberg administration denied being guided by politics in banning the protests. Instead, officials said they were motivated by a concern for the condition of the expensively renovated Great Lawn or by law enforcement’s ability to secure the crowd.

But documents that have surfaced in a federal lawsuit over the use of the Great Lawn paint a different picture, of both the rationale for the administration’s policy and the degree of Mr. Bloomberg’s role in enforcing it.

Those documents, which include internal e-mail messages and depositions in the court case, show that Mr. Bloomberg’s involvement in the deliberations over the protests may have been different from how he and his aides have portrayed it. They also suggest that officials were indeed motivated by political concerns over how the protests would play out while the Republican delegates were in town, and how the events could affect the mayor’s re-election campaign the following year.

(See: In Court Papers, a Political Note on ’04 Protests, by Diane Cardwell, July 31, 2006.)

Rewriting and De-Righting the Constitution

Back at the time of the Republican Convention protests the Times reported that Bloomberg was saying that the protesters instead of having a right of free speech only benefitted from a privilege to speak that would be lost by them if they were, in Bloomberg’s opinion, unreasonable. One person quoted in that article commented that it was as if “the mayor paid someone to rewrite the Constitution.” (See: Behavior May Cost Protesters 'Privileges,' Bloomberg Says, by Jennifer Steinhauer, August 17, 2004.)

Bloomberg: "Let Me Tell You How I Want You To Protest"

For Bloomberg free speech is ideally exercised by others in the fashion he prescribes which is also likely to be less effective. This is pointed out in Times columnist Clyde Haberman’s most recent column:

In February 2003, a few weeks before the start of the Iraq war, antiwar organizers wanted to march along First Avenue past the United Nations as part of a worldwide day of protest. Citing security risks, the city said no. Instead, with a federal judge’s approval, it forced the antiwar groups to accept a visually less engaging rally in Dag Hammarskjold Plaza.

(See: November 16, 2011, It’s Not Just What You Protest, It’s Where, by Clyde Haberman and also Critical of Judge's Ruling, Antiwar Protesters Brace for Rally, by James Barron, February 15, 2003)

This notion of dictating that protest be in the `less noticeable, less offensive, and less effective’ modes that the powers-that-be prescribe is a variation on what Bill Maher has talked about: That the plutocrats want the 99% to stay off the streets and do things the plutocratic way with “lobbyists and suits” because then they will certainly lose (and can be ignored) given that all the “lobbyists and suits” are on the side of the plutocrats. (See: Wednesday, October 26, 2011, Bill Maher: Right Wing, Wanting It THEIR Way, Yearns To Get Occupy Wall Street On THEIR Unlevel Playing Field of Lobbyists and Suits and Wednesday, November 9, 2011, Bill Maher Reiterates Theme of Plutocrats Favored By Unlevel Playing Field of "Lobbyists & Suits": Glenn Greenwald Dittos Advantaging Rules For Elite.

Protesters Likened To Terrorists

It is not that Bloomberg never invokes the concept of “free speech” at all. Right after the Republican Convention left town Times columnist Clyde Haberman commented on some strange Bloombergian rhetoric. Bloomberg extolling free speech rights (of the Republicans) likened the protesters to terrorists. Haberman referred to the “less-than-edifying moments on the part of some anti-Bush types who cornered convention delegates on the street, haranguing them with tirades of the four-lettered variety”:

That these protesters were ill-mannered, at best, seems beyond question.

But does that put them in the same league with terrorists? Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg seems to think so. "A handful of people have tried to destroy our city by going up and yelling at visitors here because they don't agree with their views," Mr. Bloomberg said yesterday.

This, he continued, is "the city for free speech if there ever was one, and some people think that we shouldn't allow people to express themselves."

"That's exactly what the terrorists did, if you think about it, on 9/11. Now this is not the same kind of terrorism, but there's no question that these anarchists are afraid to let people speak out."

(See: It's Safe to Return, Girlie Men, by Clyde Haberman, September 3, 2004.)

Bloomberg Ostensibly In favor of What He takes Away

The few times when Bloomberg is extolling the First Amendment or free speech for its own sake have to be distinguished from the times when Bloomberg extolls free speech while at the same time cracking down on its exercise by others. (The OWS-related media management essentially reprises this tactic except for Bloomberg's adroit PR move of getting out the meme about his believing in the First Amendment somewhat before he moved on the eviction.) Bloomberg exercised his own free speech rights as mayor (and soon-to-be-richest New Yorker) by likening protesters at the Republican Convention to terrorists. Thereafter, when the City Correction Department's top chaplain complained that the Bush White House, which had launched a pre-emptive war in Iraq, was “occupied by terrorists” Bloomberg penalized the chaplain, suspending him without pay for two weeks, while at the same time defending his free speech rights. Is that a “political” straddle or is it “Solomonic”? The suspended jail chaplain had also attacked “Zionists of the media.” (See: Mayor Suspends Top Jail Chaplain While Defending Free Speech, by Sewell Chan, March 15, 2006.)

Deliberately Provoking Protesters To Do What Bloomberg Says Will Lose Them Their Rights

After relegating protesters to those protest locations he prefers and warning them that he will take their rights away if he doesn’t consider their protesting reasonably conducted it might be nice if Bloomberg at least let the protesters retain control of their own message without manufacturing interference to make them look bad. He doesn't. In 2005 the Times editorial page chastised Bloomberg for doing the the very opposite, for using agent provocateurs and “underhanded” tactics as the Times said, “to spy on and even distort political protests and mass rallies.” The editorial was based on the “sorry tale" that was " laid out by Jim Dwyer” in the previous day’s Times, a story that was, in turn, based on a forensically analyzed archive of civilian and police videotapes that showed among other things “a sham arrest of a man secretly working with the police” designed by “New York City police officers or people working with them” to “set off a bruising confrontation with demonstrators.” Not pulling any punches the Times editorial said:

Protesters were put on the ground, and at least two were arrested. Meanwhile, the blond-haired man spoke quietly with the police and was quickly led away. The same man was videotaped at an arrest scene a day earlier calling out words that seemed intended to rile the bystanders.

This was a deliberate effort to incite violence that would in turn justify a tough police response.

And it concluded (after describing other objectionable police conduct involving surveillance):

Mayor Michael Bloomberg's record on free speech is already pretty poor. Unless he wants to make a disregard for New Yorkers' rights part of his legacy, he should make sure that the police understand what civil liberties mean in a democracy.

(See: Editorial: Surveillance, New York Style, December 23, 2005.)

No one that I am aware of has yet reported that agent provocateur tactics were used again against Occupy Wall Street but one thing that may need to be investigated is reports that police sent young men being booked for crimes in the direction of Zucotti Park because the park was a place to sleep and get some free food from the protesters. Remember that at his press conference the day of the eviction the mayor said one reason he felt compelled to move in was that there ostensibly issues with safety due to the way some fringe individuals were conducting themselves in the park.

Free Speech Messes at Columbia?

Bloomberg got involved offering a somewhat rambling `rebuke’ to Columbia University about protesters interrupting the free speech of others on the campus. That involved a speech by Jim Gilchrist of the Minuteman Project, which mounts armed patrols to curb illegal immigration. The statement about the free speech right to speak or speak while not being interrupted versus the free speech right to harangue would hardly qualify Bloomberg as a free speech champion. Bloomberg might have been attracted to comment about free speech issues at Columbia University because there had been so much recent high-profile focus at the university respecting free speech issues of interest to the city’s Jewish electorate, harassment of Jewish students by pro-Palestinian faculty members and the question of whether Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, should speak there. After being disinvited Ahmadinejad ultimately did come to speak at Columbia. While the head of Bloomberg's Police Department didn't want Ahmadinejad laying a wreath at Ground Zero, Bloomberg said that Ahmadinejad speaking was free speech but that he personally wouldn't be in the audience.

Another reason for Bloomberg to snipe at Columbia's president Bollinger about free speech issues in the educational environment?: Bollinger had already sniped at the handling of such issues by Bloomberg's City Education Department being run by Joel Klien.

Which First Amendment Rights?

Since the First Amendment to the Constitution also encompasses the prohibitions against Congress establishing religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, it is technically correct to say that Bloomberg is defending the First Amendment when on David Letterman he says that “government shouldn’t be involved” in prohibiting a mosque or Muslim Community Center near Ground Zero. It's true that is championing the First Amendment, but when the Times calls Bloomberg a “champion of the First Amendment” in the context of removing the Occupy Wall Street protesters from Zucotti Park it naturally implies that the Times is talking about the protesters’ free speech rights not their right to freely practice their religion.

Controlling Speech

Bloomberg a free speech champion? Bloomberg likes control. Had the New York City hosted the 2012 Olympic the Bloomberg administration planned to control the content of advertising and control who was going to be allowed to advertise while the Olympics were in town. (See: City Demands the Final Word If It Wins 2012 Olympics Bid, by Jennifer Steinhauer, May 1, 2004.)

In 2006 Bloomberg sought to change the rules respecting public assembly. Rather than just required permits for amplified sound or marching in a public roadway it was proposed to require “police permits for every sidewalk procession involving 35 or more people, every roadway procession with 20 or more vehicles or bicycles, and every procession of two or more people using a roadway.” (See: Op-Ed Contributor: License to Stroll, by Christopher Dunn and Donna Lieberman, August 13, 2006.)

Free Speech of the Sort That Benefits Bloomberg

Bloomberg does champion the way that the First Amendment protects free speech that only he can exercise: Bloomberg is mayor because of the personal fortune he has spent in campaign and other funds to secure that office. The term “personal fortune” should be used advisedly because Bloomberg accrued most of his wealth after going into politics and became the wealthiest New Yorker while mayor and while his company, Bloomberg, L.P. was doing business and selling Bloomberg terminals to almost every company in the city with which the City of New York has significant interactions. When in 2003 two city councilmen introduced a bill to “prevent Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg from using his personal fortune on an advertising campaign asking New Yorkers to abolish party labels and party primaries in city elections,” Edward Skyler, a spokesman for Bloomberg, said: “Such legislation would be illegal, since it would violate the First Amendment.” From Bloomberg’s point of view he can regard the law as safely protecting all of the spending that put him into and kept him in political power as protected “free speech”

Something You Learn In Journalism School: Bloomberg's Money Speaks

Consider this free speech tangle with respect to Bloomberg’s expenditures of money to control how his image is perceived. Understand first that Patti Harris, Bloomberg’s First Deputy Mayor and top political strategist, controls the disbursement, annually, of hundreds of thousands of dollars in “charitable” contributions by Bloomberg’s Bloomberg, L.P. Against that background Bloomberg L.P. hired Tom Goldstein, then the dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia, “to help ensure impartiality in the company's coverage of Mayor Bloomberg.” Mark Crispin Miller, a professor at New York University’s education school quoted in a New York Observer article “called the hiring troublesome because of the conflicts Mr. Goldstein's relationship might pose for Columbia, which has business with the city government.” The Observer article misidentified Miller as an NYU journalism professor: He was actually “a media critic and a professor of media ecology at the Steinhardt School of Education.” Miller “also called a news media tour of the renovated City Hall `improper'’ because it had resulted in front-page pictures that included Bloomberg terminals, which he described as ''product placement.” (This was before Bloomberg’s wealth from terminal sales really skyrocketed.)

The result of this (perfectly fair) criticism of Bloomberg by NYU Professor Miller? Here’s the lead-in to the Times story from which the quotes in the paragraph above are taken:

Bloomberg L.P., a financial information service that prides itself on philanthropic activity, told officials at New York University last year that the company would no longer support a business journalism program because a professor in its education school had criticized the company and its founder, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, the university said yesterday.

Bloomberg terminated the $26,000 per annum it was contributing to the two fellowships. (See: Bloomberg L.P. Stops Aiding N.Y.U. Fellows After Criticism, by Stephanie Strom, February 21, 2003.)

Prof. Stephen D. Solomon, the founder and director of NYU’s business journalism program, saw a free speech issue in all of this:

''This whole thing is ironic because in addition to running the business and economic journalism program, I also teach First Amendment law to undergraduate and graduate students''

Bloomberg’s defense?:

Edward Skyler, a spokesman for Mayor Bloomberg, said, “The donation of Bloomberg terminals to the mayor's office was cleared by the conflict of interest board, and any pictures of the mayor at his desk are meant to illustrate his work environment and aren't intended to promote that product.”

Stacking Up The Rights of the Monied Individual vs. the Public

How do Bloomberg’s protected free speech rights stack up against the rights of the public not to be overpowered by the expenditures of the vast sums he controls? Bloomberg would not be in office right now had he not, in the middle of the election cycle, changed the City Charter to allow himself a third term. When he made that change to the City Charter a lawsuit was brought where one of the arguments of the plaintiffs’ lawyers was that the public’s “free speech” rights were violated, that:

by changing the limits legislatively, the city had violated voters’ constitutional rights to free speech and due process. They charged, in essence, that the new term limits law annulled a decision that had been twice endorsed at the polls and gave an unfair advantage to two-term incumbents over political newcomers who might have wished to challenge them

The courts did not uphold the proposition that the "free speech" rights of the public had been violated. (See: Judge Rejects Suit Over Term Limits, by Fernanda Santos, January 13, 2009.)

The change to the City Charter in 2009 might have been successfully headed off if, in 2003, a proposed law had been adopted that was “meant to discourage wealthy New Yorkers from using their money to sway public opinion on proposals to revise the City Charter.” The problem with that bill?: It was considered that such prohibitions respecting the wealthy and the spending of their wealth to charge the charter, as Bloomberg eventually did, would have been a violation of their First Amendment's free speech protections. A substitute bill that was proposed but it would have had no effect on Bloomberg because Bloomberg has never needed to take public “matching funds” to promote his causes. (See: Bill Seeks to Discourage Wealthy From Swaying Charter Changes, by Jonathan P. Hicks, September 30, 2003.)

Every Benefit That Goes Around, Comes Around- If You're Rich Enough

It’s funny how things can get turned around in terms of who needs protection from whom and what laws should be resorted to in this regard. When the U.S. Supreme Court decided in Bush v. Gore to intervene and prevent the statewide recount ordered by the Florida's highest court (that ballot counts show, in retrospect, would have given the state’s electoral votes and the election to Al Gore), the justices deciding for Bush ironically cited the equal protection provisions under the Constitution that one would have thought were intended to protect minorities. Thus the justices did the opposite. The same sort of unfortunate irony presented itself in a lawsuit brought in 2008 by the “real estate industry and lobbyists, who together provide millions in campaign cash for city candidates, are trying to overturn a new law that would vastly reduce how much they can donate.” They said that the law's prohibition of their ability to contribute those vast sums “violated free speech and equal protection provisions of the Constitution and discriminated against minorities.” (See: Suit Against New Campaign Finance Law Claims Racial Bias, by Ray Rivera, February 12, 2008.)

Bloomberg Support For The Free Speech That Works For Big Business

What does the future hold for free speech and protection of the public? Assertion of the right to free speech of the particular variety that Bloomberg extols seems to be working well for big business even when weighed against public protection, safety health and welfare. Bloomberg, L.P. was among the companies that aligned itself with Big Pharma asserting the free speech rights of the drug companies to overturn Vermont’s law that was to keep doctors’ prescription records confidential to prevent the doctors from being marketed to with that information. The law got overturned. So, in this regard maybe Bloomberg is a champion of First Amendment free speech rights. But free speech for the rest of us? (See: A Fight Over How Drugs Are Pitched, by Natasha Singer, April 24, 2011.)

Miscellany of Legal Cases and Disputes Involving Bloomberg and Free Speech

As should be expected, you can find in the Times for the period that Bloomberg has been in office a very long list of stories about all the lawsuits, issues and disputes involving the city and Bloomberg as mayor, many of which would inevitably come up no matter who was in office (things like what city employees can say and to whom). None of these stories is individually that important or nor probably determinative in providing insight with respect to Bloomberg as a potential defender of free speech rights. Collectively, you can note that more or less across the board in all these stories the Bloomberg administration is on the opposing side of free speech rights. A certain amount of this is to be expected.

You are welcome to comb these links as I have done already. You won’t find anything in them that would cause one to believe that Bloomberg is a defender of “free speech.” You are likely to find a number that cause you to think otherwise and, depending where you draw your own personal lines with respect to the right to free speech, the number may be greater. They involve things like: artists and book vendors being kicked out of public parks, union disputes over “exorbitant” fines on transit workers who walk out, whether a coalition to stop school closings can protest outside the mayor’s residence, whether artists can carry all their art supplies on the subway, how stingy or not the city can be in “credentialing” those who they wish to treat as having journalist privileges, how tightly shops that sell sexually oriented material can be regulated, shutting down a controversial art exhibit, restrictions on street begging, restrictions on street boxes to dispense newspapers, etc.

• Judge Blocks City’s Crisis Pregnancy Center Law
By David W. Chen, July 13, 2011

• July 8, 2010, Artists Challenge City’s Limit on Vendors
By Javier C. Hernandez

• Metro Briefing | New York: Manhattan: Transit Union Sues City
By Sewell Chan (NYT); Compiled by John Sullivan, November 24, 2005

• Manhattan: Principal of Arabic School Sues City
By Jennifer Medina, November 20, 2007

• Metro Briefing | New York: Queens: Rehiring Ordered In Blackface Case
By Julia Preston (NYT); Compiled by George James, December 1, 2004

• November 23, 2009, Artist Arrested for 42nd Time, This Time on the High Line
By Jennifer 8. Lee

• Hearing on Limits for Vendors Gets Creative Response
By Javier C. Hernandez, April 23, 2010

• January 15, 2010, Protesters Win Right to March Outside Mayor’s House
By Sharon Otterman

• Federal Panel Finds Bias in Ouster of Principal
By Andrea Elliott, March 12, 2010

• NYC: Labeled by Their Own Markers
By Clyde Haberman, April 28, 2006

• November 12, 2008, N.Y.P.D. Is Sued Over Denial of Press Credentials
By Sewell Chan

• Judges Back New York City's Effort to Curb Sex Shops
By Sabrina Tavernise, April 13, 2005

• Comments on TV Are Issue in Police Captain's Conduct
By Al Baker, February 22, 2006

• Brooklyn Art Exhibition Comes Down Amid Protest
By Randy Kennedy and Janon Fisher, May 9, 2006

• Judge Orders End to Arrest of Beggars
By Jim Dwyer, June 11, 2005

• Neighborhood Report: New York up Close; News Box Law Walks a Line Between First Amendment and Public Safety
By Erika Kinetz, August 25, 2002

2006 Bloomberg Says Criticizing Government Is Patriotic: Say Again?

Is the Times record totally devoid of Bloomberg statements that promote the idea of free speech in the traditional sense? No. I found one story (but only one) where Bloomberg sounds almost exactly like the protesters of Occupy Wall Street. He made the statement in question when he was lobbying the Bush administration for a greater share of Department of Homeland Security aid. That money is often spent on security measures that make citizens feel more constricted with respect to their civil liberties. The remark was made in 2006 when the Bush administration was very unpopular in New York. Also, from a variety of stories in the Times at the time it looks as if Bloomberg may have wanted in 2006, with there being a safe remove in time from memories of the 2004 Republican convention, to rehabilitate the way he was perceived on the issue of free speech. Bloomberg said:

"There is nothing — absolutely nothing — wrong with criticizing our government, on any topic, and challenging it to live up to the democratic ideals."

The mayor added: "It is not unpatriotic; in fact, what could be more patriotic?"

(See: Bloomberg Denounces the Pressure Not to Question Leaders, by Winnie Hu, June 11, 2006.)

That's All The Grey Lady Wrote. . .

All of the forgoing is what a review of Times’ own reporting of Bloomberg’s history reveals when it comes to free speech. So where is the record that justifies the recent reports in the New York Times furnished in connection with the eviction of the Occupy Wall Street protesters that Bloomberg, notwithstanding the protesters' eviction, is confirmed, in any way, to be more than moderate or minimal supporter of free speech rights? Don’t the all the most important things in the record show the situation to be precisely the contrary?

. . . . Except “Bloomberg now wants to dominate a new sphere — the world of opinion.”

Noting that Bloomberg has no receptivity to the views of Occupy Wall Street and doesn’t think that Occupy Wall Street should be promoting their views in the streets, using street demonstration tactics as their figurative public megaphone, and that Bloomberg apparently also would aver that the Occupy Wall Street protesters should be promoting their views the same way he does, I thought I would leave you with the telling information in this New York Times article:

Over the last year, representatives of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg quietly reached out to a handful of the country’s top journalists with an intriguing job offer: Divine and distill his singular brand of political philosophy and disseminate it around the globe for an annual salary of close to $500,000.

After conquering Wall Street in the 1970s, crushing competitors in the information-technology industry in the ’80s and reigning over New York City politics for the past decade, the ever-ambitious Mr. Bloomberg now wants to dominate a new sphere — the world of opinion.

At the mayor’s urging, his giant media company will soon make a splashy foray into opinion, churning out columns and essays on issues as varied as gun control and deficit spending. At the center: up to two editorials a day that channel the views of Mr. Bloomberg himself.

(March 1, 2011, Morning Buzz | Bloomberg’s New Venture, by Daniel E. Slotnik.)

The article above comes up when you do a search of the Times web site for “Bloomberg” + “free speech” but only because of the coincidence that there is another story reporting about free speech that appears on the same page.