State Department suspends energy staffer linked to white supremacist group

tulc

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State Department suspends energy staffer linked to white supremacist group
The State Department has put on leave an employee of its energy bureau after reports that he has been an active member of a white supremacist group for more than five years, two sources familiar with the situation said on Thursday.

Matthew Gebert, a foreign affairs officer for the department’s Bureau of Energy Resources, was linked to the Washington D.C.-area chapter of a white supremacist organization and published racist propaganda online, according to a report published Wednesday by the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate speech.


In a May 2018 episode of a white nationalist podcast, Gebert, speaking under a pseudonym, called for white people to establish “a country of our own with nukes, and we will retake this thing lickety split,” according to the SPLC report.
tulc(is going to need more coffee soon) :coffee:
 

civilwarbuff

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Freedom of Association and Assembly

Freedom of Association and Assembly
The right to associate with others for the purpose of engaging in constitutionally protected activities.

The right to associate is not an independent constitutional right but is derived from and dependent on the First Amendment guarantees of Freedom of Speech and expression. It is protected only to the extent that it is asserted in conjunction with a First Amendment right. However, some legal scholars maintain that freedom of association is more fundamental than the rights enumerated in the Constitution because without it those other rights have little meaning.

One early case to recognize freedom of association was NAACP v. Alabama ex rel. Patterson, 357 U.S. 449, 78 S. Ct. 1163, 2 L. Ed. 2d 1488 (1958). In Patterson, the Supreme Court held that a lower court's order compelling the NAACP to disclose records containing the names and addresses of its Alabama members violated the group's right to associate freely. The Court recognized freedom of association as an adjunct to the NAACP's free speech rights and held that the freedom to associate for the advancement of beliefs and ideas is inseparable from the freedom of speech.
Freedom of Association and Assembly

If someone's right to freely associate with groups can be taken away....remember, so then can yours.

 
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Petunia

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". . .The right to associate with others for the purpose of engaging in constitutionally protected activities."

Has nothing to do with the right to 'associate'. The man was calling for a war against 'non-whites with the use of nukes.
 
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Willie T

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Has nothing to do with the right to 'associate'. The man was calling for a war against 'non-whites with the use of nukes.
I thought they said he was fired simply for the "association" with a group, not for threats.
 
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civilwarbuff

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The man was calling for a war against 'non-whites with the use of nukes.
There is this other little thing called 'freedom of speech'.....maybe you have heard of it? I fully support the right of the KKK to say anything, well almost anything as there are some limits, but that does not mean I agree with them. Only that they also have the right to free speech, assembly, and association as dose everyone else. Unless you are OK with the gov picking and choosing which rights they will allow?....and at that point they are no longer 'rights' just permissions.
 
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Petunia

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I thought they said he was fired simply for the "association" with a group, not for threats.


I'm not sure he was fired. The article says he was suspended. According to the article.. they would have ordinarily 'flagged' him with security screenings every five years. That he would have been screened every 5 years is proof that his suspension had nothing to do with his "simply being associated with hate groups."

Former State Department officials expressed surprise that security screenings had not flagged Gebert’s involvement with the hate groups. Gebert would have undergone a routine screening before starting his position and another at his five-year work anniversary, said Amos Hochstein, who served as special envoy and coordinator for the State Department’s international energy affairs from 2014 to 2017 and was Gebert’s boss.
 
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Petunia

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I thought they said he was fired simply for the "association" with a group, not for threats.



Now that I've reread this article. Could be that the State department wouldn't have hired this guy in the first place, had they known he was associated with hate groups. I'm pretty sure they're not in the habit of hiring known terrorists. But this guy slipped through their security screenings.
 
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Petunia

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There is this other little thing called 'freedom of speech'.....maybe you have heard of it? I fully support the right of the KKK to say anything, well almost anything as there are some limits, but that does not mean I agree with them. Only that they also have the right to free speech, assembly, and association as dose everyone else. Unless you are OK with the gov picking and choosing which rights they will allow?....and at that point they are no longer 'rights' just permissions.


You are right. Freedom of speech has limits. And threatening to kill people.. is one of those limits that isn't protected under free speech.
 
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Hank77

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If someone's right to freely associate with groups can be taken away....remember, so then can yours.
Who was trying to take away Gelbert's freedom of association?
It seems to me that someone is trying to take away the employer's right to freedom of association.
There isn't any employment law that protects the speech/association of the employee.
 
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cow451

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Freedom of Association and Assembly
Freedom of Association and Assembly
The right to associate with others for the purpose of engaging in constitutionally protected activities.

The right to associate is not an independent constitutional right but is derived from and dependent on the First Amendment guarantees of Freedom of Speech and expression. It is protected only to the extent that it is asserted in conjunction with a First Amendment right. However, some legal scholars maintain that freedom of association is more fundamental than the rights enumerated in the Constitution because without it those other rights have little meaning.

One early case to recognize freedom of association was NAACP v. Alabama ex rel. Patterson, 357 U.S. 449, 78 S. Ct. 1163, 2 L. Ed. 2d 1488 (1958). In Patterson, the Supreme Court held that a lower court's order compelling the NAACP to disclose records containing the names and addresses of its Alabama members violated the group's right to associate freely. The Court recognized freedom of association as an adjunct to the NAACP's free speech rights and held that the freedom to associate for the advancement of beliefs and ideas is inseparable from the freedom of speech.
Freedom of Association and Assembly

If someone's right to freely associate with groups can be taken away....remember, so then can yours.

He is free to do what he does. He is not free of the logical consequences of his actions. He isn’t being jailed.
 
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civilwarbuff

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You are right. Freedom of speech has limits. And threatening to kill people.. is one of those limits that isn't protected under free speech.
There is a big difference in saying you want to strangle your boss vs taking steps to do so.....
 
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civilwarbuff

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Now that I've reread this article. Could be that the State department wouldn't have hired this guy in the first place, had they known he was associated with hate groups. I'm pretty sure they're not in the habit of hiring known terrorists. But this guy slipped through their security screenings.
So are you advocating not hiring people based on their associations? What if the gov decides that Christianity is a hate group because of their stance on same sex marriage or homosexuality?....is that OK then to deny someone employment? As I stated elswhere if they can take someone else's rights away they then can also take yours.
 
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cow451

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So are you advocating not hiring people based on their associations? What if the gov decides that Christianity is a hate group because of their stance on same sex marriage or homosexuality?....is that OK then to deny someone employment? As I stated elswhere if they can take someone else's rights away they then can also take yours.
Christianity is not a group.
 
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civilwarbuff

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Who was trying to take away Gelbert's freedom of association?
It seems to me that someone is trying to take away the employer's right to freedom of association.
There isn't any employment law that protects the speech/association of the employee.
We are not talking about just any employer here....this is the US government......
 
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cow451

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We are not talking about just any employer here....this is the US government......
You mean the employer charged with the security of all it’s citizens and legal residents and visitors?
 
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cow451

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If he broke no law he should not even be detained......
“Terroristic threats” (threatening harm to others) are illegal.

The acts, as with this gentleman, don’t have to be illegal for an employer to deem them a threat to the mission of the organization. Advocating taking away civil rights is nearly always going to cause a government employee to be in hot water.
 
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