In a scene in a new fictional movie about Scientology called Until Nothing Remains, one of the group's leaders is giving an impassioned speech to followers in Germany. The camera pulls in tighter on the man's face and, all of a sudden, he cries out "Clear Germany!" to a round of rapturous applause. No, he's not talking about pushing all nonbelievers out of the country — he's referring to the state of "clear," a condition characterized by ...

Do students have a First Amendment right to make fun of their principals and teachers on Facebook and other social-media sites? Or can schools discipline them for talking out of school? In a pair of free-speech rulings, a federal appeals court in Pennsylvania last week came down on the side of the students. In both cases, the court said that schools were wrong to suspend students for posting parodies of ...

Israel is bracing for more Arab Spring showers this Sunday, as Palestinians plan to mark the June 5 anniversary of the 1967 war with a new round of protests. That war left Israel occupying East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza , which could be the focus of Sunday's actions. Just two weeks ago, on May 15, "Nakba Day' demonstrations saw Palestinian refugees trying to breach Israel's borders in protest against the confiscation of their families' homes ...

As they do at countless collegiate parties everywhere, the couples wriggled to the watusi and gyrated to the jerk, while recorded drums and saxophones resounded in the dimly lit apartment of a University of California student in Berkeley. Unlike parties most anywhere, however, the boys and girls were naked. After a while some of the couples drifted into bedrooms. Some embraced in darkened corners. First it was free speech, then filthy speech. Now it is free love, as students, former ...

In 1985, when the first rumblings of Gorbachev's thunder disturbed the moldy Soviet silence, the holy fools on the street--the people who always gather at flea markets and around churches--predicted that the new Czar would rule seven years. They assured anyone interested in listening that Gorbachev was "foretold in the Bible," that he was an apocalyptic figure: he had a mark on his forehead. Everyone had searched for signs in previous leaders as well, but Lenin's speech defect, Stalin's mustache, ...

If the hacker attacks that hit Russia's top blogging service, LiveJournal, this week are anything to go by, the unwritten rules of cyber warfare no longer apply. Instead of the focused assaults hackers often used to force down the websites of their ideological enemies, these attacks look more like online carpet bombing. Their victim is not one voice but the entire cacophonous world of the Russian blogosphere. And the motive, as close as experts have been able ...

It's not as if President Bashar al-Assad didn't have time to go through a few revisions of his much anticipated, much delayed speech before he finally delivered it to Syria's pliant parliamentarians on Wednesday. It fell well short of the expectations of many, but the MPs gushed over their 45-year-old leader, rising to their feet several times to cheer and chant "with our souls and with our blood we will sacrifice for you Bashar!" and "God, Syria, ...

There's usually not much common ground between a boy band singer and a far-right politician who would like to ban Muslim immigrants from his country. But in Britain this week, both have been at the center of fierce debates over freedom of speech. First, the pop idol. Stephen Gately was a star in Irish band Boyzone, which has sold about 30 million records since forming in 1993. Gately, 33, died on Oct. 10 of an acute pulmonary edema ...

Days after a court allowed him entry into Britain, controversial Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders said his arrival Friday marked "a victory for the freedom of speech." "I hope, once again, that the UK government will never, never turn back somebody for political reasons because they don't like what they are saying," Wilders said at a news conference at the Houses of Parliament. Wilders, known for his much-criticized film about Islam, was denied entry into Britain in February when he flew ...

After flying through the night for seven hours aboard Air Force One, nobody would blame President Obama for being at least slightly groggy when he arrived in Copenhagen, Denmark, for a quick four hours to make the final pitch for Chicago to host the 2016 Olympics. Maybe that explains why the president seemed to snag the silver medal while first lady Michelle Obama, who's been in Copenhagen a couple of days, clearly took the gold with an emotional speech focused ...