By Denise Ouellet
On Monday, June 29 at 9:00 p.m. ET, HBO will debut a new documentary “Shouting Fire: Stories from the Edge of Free Speech” about the history and evolution of free speech in the U.S. The film was created by Oscar-nominated director/producer Liz Garbus and includes insight from her father, a nationally renowned First Amendment attorney. For more on the duo read this interview from New York Magazine.
According to HBO, the film examines free speech by examining a variety of cases ranging from a with hunt to remove an Arabic-speaking teacher from a school to a boy who was suspended for wearing a t-shirt that read “Homosexuality is Shameful” on it.
Among those interviewed in the film are:
- Floyd Abrams, a prominent First Amendment attorney who defended the New York Times, among others, in the Pentagon Papers case
- David Horowitz, author of “The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in America”
- Eric Foner, a Columbia professor who is on Horowitz’s list, and the author of “The Story of American Freedom”
- Donna Lieberman, executive director, New York Civil Liberties Union
- Daniel Pipes, founder of the Middle East Forum
- The Hon. Richard Posner, U.S. Court of Appeals Judge for the 7th Circuit and author of “The Constitution Is Not a Suicide Pact”
- Kenneth Starr, First Amendment scholar and former special prosecutor during the Clinton presidency
- Josh Wolf, a client of Martin Garbus’ (producer’s father) and a blogger and journalist who served six months in jail for refusing to turn over videotapes of a San Francisco protest




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June 29, 2009 at 9:37 pm
Kristin Billera
Here’s a review of Shouting Fire from Slate.com affiliate Double X:
http://www.doublex.com/blog/xxfactor/documentary-shouting-fire-unnuanced-look-free-speech
It looks like an interesting movie. I wish I had HBO.