 So I'm not sure how many people are aware of this story. I myself am a little bit late to the party on this particular subject but I wanted to talk about this on the program because I feel like this is one of the most important stories of our generation perhaps and I Don't really think that that's hyperbolic because the outcome of this particular story the lawsuit that we're going to talk about here It has broader implications on the First Amendment on freedom of speech And I think that leftists have kind of dwelled a little bit too much on the cultural aspect When it comes to freedom of speech like we we respond to political commentators Like Steven Crowder getting demonetized and Donald Trump getting banned from Twitter and short those are Related to freedom of speech. I think tangentially, but if you truly want to reach the crux of the issue in America It is a crackdown on Political speech the criminalization or attempt to criminalize political speech that currently is not politically correct And I'm of course referring to criticism of Israel in particular BDS now Abby Martin. She is the host of the Empire Files. She's a journalist She's a documentarian honestly. I admire her so much like out of all of the leftists She's at the top of my list in terms of who I admire just her work is so crucial But she has a lawsuit that is so important so she was invited to give a speech and That speech in order for her to give that speech it was required that she sign a pro-Israel loyalty pledge That also says that she will not boycott Israel Now she refused the speech was subsequently canceled and now as a result she is suing So she recently put out a video where she spoke with her lawyer and got an update on the particular lawsuit here And I want to share some of the details here because this is so startling that every single person Should be concentrating on this because what her lawyer says the justification used to crack down on criticism of Benjamin Netanyahu's policies is honestly jaw-dropping what her lawyer says here It sent chills down the back of my spine because it is extremely troubling In February of this year. I was supposed to give a keynote speech at Georgia Southern University Before the event I refused to sign a state mandated pledge to not boycott Israel in order to speak My invitation was rescinded and the conference canceled as a result I decided to sue the state of Georgia because signing an anti BDS clause in order to work in the state is a direct violation of my constitutional rights to free speech And to participate in political boycotts similar laws exist in 28 states across the country You can watch the whole press conference with my lawyers with care and the partnership for civil justice fund on our youtube channel Which we'll link to below Joining me now is one of the main lawyers to give an update on the case Mara Verhaden Hilliard of the partnership for civil justice fund. Thank you so much for joining me Mara So I first wanted to get an update on my lawsuit filed with care and the pcjf Back in February when we had that press conference. The lawsuit was filed that day Uh, can you give us any updates on what has happened? What they've done to respond legally since then Since we filed the initial lawsuit We have filed an amended complaint in this case and which we've also been able to include some of the material That has come out since the initial filing that shows the communications going on behind the scenes In georgia where they were taking action to stop you from being able to speak In a service to the law that acts as a censor against those who Support the bds movement They defendants in this case have since moved to dismiss which is what we expected They've filed a motion to dismiss We have filed an opposition to that And there has now been an amicus brief that's been filed in support of your case By j street and by a jewish human rights organization of rabbis in the united states Who feel very strongly that the first amendment cannot tolerate this kind of censorship And so they have joined in this effort because they don't believe that the bds law is constitutional Regardless of their own feelings about bds Just days after this lawsuit was filed and widely reported in the press Netanyahu tweeted this he said whoever boycotts us will be boycotted In recent years, we've promoted laws in most us states Which determine that strong action is to be taken against whoever tries to boycott Israel so here you have a foreign country essentially threatening economic consequences to dictate the constitutional rights of americans Then you had georgia state officials essentially Citing i mean actually citing israel netanyahu as part of their defense For these laws. I mean, this is a free speech case under the u.s constitution So why is it that you have a foreign leader, you know Making veiled threats for economic consequences. Um, and then you have actual state officials in georgia citing foreign officials as their reason to Undermine the u.s constitution here It's remarkable and fundamentally distressing that you have elected officials in the united states Who actually are willing To sacrifice americans first amendment rights cherished first amendment rights at the request of a foreign country And it's demanding basically that you and anyone else sign a loyalty oath to a foreign country in order To be able to contract with the state of georgia and the situation Is so extreme that in fact one of the state legislatures debor silcox When they were seeking to amend the law and raise that limit to a hundred thousand dollars to try and moot your case Actually said in a committee meeting at the state legislature That she had been asked to take that step By the israeli consulate and apparently even brought a member of the israeli consulate to speak in that meeting Okay, so we're gonna stop it right there I want to direct you to the video itself like the link on the empire files youtube channel I want you to go watch the full video there. Um, give them the clicks and the views and the ad revenue I think we've seen enough to kind of talk about the implications here, but her lawyer literally said that the georgia state government Is citing The leader of a foreign country To justify their crackdown on political speech that they disagree with What Stop for a second and imagine that mississippi Stay, uh, they created this law And uh, they said you are not allowed to criticize the government of russia You're not allowed to criticize their anti-lgbtq plus policies or their authoritarianism You're not allowed to criticize them and the reason why we are going to pass this law is because vladimir putin himself said That you shouldn't criticize me imagine if that happened Everyone on msnbc CNN perhaps even fox news would be speaking out against this But lawmakers in georgia quite literally cited the prime minister of a foreign country as their justification as to why They are cracking down on the constitutional rights of american citizens. That is horrifying Absolutely chilling Now her lawyer goes on to explain That um the lawmakers in georgia once they saw that abby martin filed this lawsuit They tried to change the law and make it more palatable because they know that this wouldn't hold up To a legal challenge in fact just this year a law in arkansas, which is similar to the law in georgia Was just struck down by the u.s. Court of Appeals and as elliott setzer of law fair explains the u.s. Court of Appeals For the eighth circuit on february 12th ruled that in arkansas law requiring state contractors to pledge not to boycott israel Violates the first amendment in a two-to-one panel discussion The majority ruled that the arkansas law was written so broadly that it would also apply to vendors that support or promote a boycott Of israel even if they did not engage in a boycott themselves And the court explained that supporting or promoting boycotts of israel is constitutionally protected expressive activity the ruling reversed a january 2019 district court decision Which had dismissed the case and remanded the case for further proceedings And that isn't the first time that a bds law was struck down. There's been four other bds laws Struck down in courts because They're blatantly unconstitutional Which is why once georgia saw that abby martin filed this lawsuit then they tried to change it It's just honestly shocking that this is taking place And very few people are talking about it now What you'll see is that there's a correlation between an increase in popularity for bds as a movement And these types of laws intended on criminalizing bds. Now, this is from palestine legal So you can see here there has been an explosion since 2014 of efforts to criminalize bds It was struck down in four states as i stated But in 30 states currently there's some sort of anti bds legislation that's currently still intact And again, this very clearly violates the first amendment and unlike other types of legislation that gets proposed and state Legislatures across the country usually comes in waves bds legislation anti bds legislation more specifically That tends to stick out of 219 bills proposed 49 of them have passed in state legislatures across the country So there is an all-out assault on freedom of speech But the battleground isn't twitter Or social media I think that's a different conversation that we should all be having about the power of big tech And i'm right there with you these big tech companies have too much control in our lives But the real battleground the issue of our time as it relates to freedom of speech is this story right here And abby martin is actually doing what no other leftist Has done up until this point She's actually taking action to defend freedom of speech So i mean this story is incredibly important I will highly encourage you to familiarize yourself with the details of this case Because it has broader implications On freedom of speech in the united states like the fact that us lawmakers are using what a foreign leader says to justify criminalizing freedom of speech against us citizens that should absolutely Horrify every single person