After arresting a man for a Facebook post under an unconstitutional flag desecration law, police in Urbana, Illinois, claimed on Monday that they did so to “assure the safety” of him and his coworkers, The Washington Post reports.

Investigative reporter Shea Allen of the Huntsville, Alabama-based ABC affiliate WAAY-TV got a bit too free with her speech for her employer's comfort late last week when she posted a series of candid "confessions" to her private blog.

Cameron D’Ambrosio is the Massachusetts teenager and amateur rapper who was rather outrageously charged with terroristic threats last month after referencing the Boston Marathon Bombing in lyrics he’d posted on Facebook. On Wednesday, a Grand Jury declined to indict D’Ambrosio; yesterday, the high-school senior was finally released to his family on his own personal recognizance. This was after the 18-year-old spent more than a month locked up and less than 10 days after a Massachusetts Superior Court judge denied a bail request.

That's Cameron D'Ambrosio in the photo above, flashing cash that, all told, probably totals $100. An 18-year-old pale goof from Methuen, Massachusetts, "Killa" Cam goes to the local public high school, plays videogames, and harbors rap dreams. His YouTube channel hosts two relatively recent videos of his musical exercises, one of which has "CammyDee" practicing lines about reefer, doubters ("chomping on you haters like an alligator"), and suburban ennui (he rhymes "Don't know what I'm doing" with "Living in Methuen").

Danish dunderhead and director of occasionally great films Lars von Trier says he's being investigated by French authorities for saying (jokingly) that he's a Nazi. (The video is here.)

The owner of a Beirut bargain store closed up shop earlier than usual on Friday after a crowd began protesting his sale of some cheap-ass flip-flops featuring this Halloweenish design: a bat-haunted graveyard dotted with cross-shaped tombstones. The crosses made the shoes offensive to Christians, the protesters said.

The Saturday shooting of U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords and several others is the kind of tragedy it takes time to process. But it's not an excuse to be a idiot. Not that it stopped certain members of Congress.

New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg says Pastor Terry Jones has the right to burn Korans on 9/11! (Even though Mike finds it "distasteful"). What is with Bloomberg these days, throwing his weight behind unpopular things, like "the Constitution"?

Did you know that the First Amendment gives every American the right to a nationally-syndicated radio show? I sure didn't! But I learned that it's true on Wednesday, when former governor of Alaska Sarah Palin told me.

A federal court ruled that the FCC's "unconstitutionally vague" indecency policies violate the First Amendment.

Seattle cartoonist Molly Norris created "Everybody Draw Mohammed" day earlier this year as a humorous way to stand up for free speech. Didn't go over so well. Live and learn. Now, Al Qaeda wants her dead for it. Unacceptable.