Federal judge blasts RDU effort to thwart newspapers

"It must be remembered that a newsrack ban like the one in place primarily restricts political speech and that political speech, of course, is at the core of what the First Amendment is designed to protect,"

So now a judge, a former newsie (how does that happen anyway?), finally admits that the primary purpose of the N&O is political speech rather than, errrr, news. But we've all known better for a long time.

I'm hoping that the newspaper vending machines, if they are the old fashioned kind with a door that opens, will be kept well away from the terminal. Seems like an ideal place to plant a bomb in a way that an ATM and the like would not.

Raleigh-Durham International Airport is governed by the Raleigh-Durham Airport Authority, an eight-member board. The cities of Durham and Raleigh and the counties of Durham and Wake appoint two members each to the Airport Authority board of directors. The Airport Authority is a governmental body responsible for the development, operation and maintenance of the airport.

As such, this is a case of a government employee trying to restrict the free press for the profit of a government organization, as the Authority makes a higher % profit on products sold inside the terminal shops than it would in the vending machines.  This is THE reason they do not let food/drinks through security anymore.  The TSA's directive that it is a safety issue is a complete lie fabricated to create higher profits for shop operators and the airport authorities across the nation.

Also, since the judge was apparently most angered by the director's allegedly insufficient reasons for the ban, it should be mentioned that it's not the judge's role to evaluate whether or not the director's reasoning is "speculation" or not, but rather if it actually violates Federal law. Plenty of administrators make stupid decisions every day, but they are not illegal, and the courts should not invent legal means to rectify what they see as shoddy reasoning.

Speaking of shoddy reasoning and speculation, it's amazing that the judge blows off security concerns as not being valid, especially in an age of increased public violence and sophisticated terrorists. If the judge had relied on careful analysis rather than emotional overreaction when weighing this case, he would have realized that there is a major difference between newspaper racks and the litany of other installations he mentioned (vending machines, shoe shine stations, etc.); that is that newspaper racks can be opened and used to hold a bomb much more easily and covertly than any of the other items he mentions. If the racks are not being used much, are in the way, and newspapers can be purchased at a store 20 yards away, then it's best to mitigate the problem.

The judge might not like all of those reasons, but I imagine that since the courts would not accept the obvious security concerns as being valid and started haranguing the airport about fictitious Constitutional violations, the airport had to muster every rationale it could think of to weather the storm of legal proceedings and irrationality.

By the way, I would like to sell political pamphlets at the N&O office downtown. Perhaps now I have precedent to work with!

Three things: 1) This case is completely and utterly about money and perception. The N&O doesn't want to lose potential revenue and seem irrelevant in the marketplace and the airport doesn't want to deal with the newspaper stands, which are increasingly irrelevant these days as more people get news electronically. For either party to pretend this is a First Amendment issue is laughable, although understandable when it's hard to make a case that another party is somehow required by to sell your product in the manner you see fit ("hey, let's claim a violation of the Bill of Rights!"). This ban did not in any way restrict the paper's speech or any employee of the paper's speech. They can still say what they want, and citizens can still buy the paper (even at the airport!).

The airport is under no onus to provide people with access TO political speech (even though they do, at their book stores and stands), they are conceivably only required to not BAN access to or expression of speech (for example, if they banned newspapers altogether or confiscated them, which they do not), although that restriction would not apply to their employees, who could be prohibited from saying certain things. Also, this is the first time in recent memory that a judge had admitted that political or ideological speech is the focus of the First Amendment, not some spurious "right" to sell obscenity or use vulgar language on TV, for instance.

2) It's frightening that the judge is castigating the airport director for not seeing that the First Amendment was not a "good reason" to allow the stands, when most people familiar with Constitutional law (not to mention those unfamiliar with law, such as the director) would not have imagined that the airport was in any way infringing on people's First Amendment rights . Since the judge is the one who created the imaginary link between newspaper stands on private property and the First Amendment, perhaps he shouldn't be so surprised that it didn't occur to others not so-well trained in Constitutional gymnastics.

3) Finally, it's hilarious that in order to win the case, preserve potential sales, and save face. the N&O basically had to acknowledge that it is "political speech" (presumably advocating preferred positions on social and economic issues), rather than a neutral arbiter of news updates.