Law in Popular Culture
Fearless Media Lawyer Mellows in HBO Documentary Filmed by Daughter
Posted Jun 29, 2009 4:09 PM CST
By Martha Neil
A documentary that highlights milestones in First Amendment history during the past century premieres tonight on HBO.
Directed and produced by Liz Garbus, the movie, Shouting Fire: Stories from the Edge of Free Speech, also offers an unusually intimate view of her father, attorney Martin Garbus of Eaton & Van Winkle, who appears in the documentary, reports the Blog of Legal Times.
The fierce free speech advocate mellows a bit in front of his daughter's camera, the blog recounts. Asked by his daughter what lessons he wanted to teach her as a child, Garbus replies "If you don't fight for it every day, you're going to lose it."
Lenny Bruce, Daniel Ellsberg and Don Imus are among the well-known clients he has represented.
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Comments
salvatore citino
Jul 1, 2009 7:26 AM CST
There remains a defect in Amendent I of the Amendments to the Constitution of the USA in that it does not provide for the right of its citizens to be HEARD with equal force and effect as do the mass media giants and the press are able to enjoy. Therefore, without this quality one may as well talk to the wall, unless the press is willing to share its venue or it may ignore the speech and with its power suppress the citizen’s views which, in effect, rings of an abridgement of the freedom of speech doctrine.
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B. McLeod
Jul 2, 2009 12:41 AM CST
The problem with a “right to be heard,” if pitched as a right to be heard by all society, is that it imposes on free persons a correlative “duty” to listen. I believe people have, and should have, a right to select what they will listen to. Nobody should be required to “hear” the drivel generated by persons who are fundamentally ignorant, mad, inherently uninteresting or otherwise incapable of generating content of any value to an audience.
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aka Gregor Samsa
Jul 3, 2009 11:05 AM CST
Mass media giants and the press only have as much power as we give them. I agree, there is no “right to be heard.” In an age of information overload, as individuals, we each need to exercise and protect our right to privacy, that is, our right to be left alone. We need to be able to ignore the din, so we can discern what information is worthwhile and distill its meaning. In today’s glass bead game, speech that provides insights can always find an audience, even if it is a limited one. I, for one, worry far more about insidious governmental and private invasions of our privacy.
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