Freedom of speech-- it allows us to say things like,
"My boss is a giant dimple on legs,"
without having to fear any consequences, right?
Is that right?
And sometimes the fight
for our First Amendment freedoms is fought
by the unlikeliest heroes.
My name's Andrea Dick.
And back on May, the weekend
of Memorial Day weekend, I... On that Friday,
I put flags up, as you can see, that say, "(bleep) Biden."
NEWSMAN: Andrea Dick, who lives near a school, decked her home
in profanity-laced signs critical of President Biden.
KOSTA: After Mrs. Dick was fined by the Roselle Park
code officer, she took the town to court,
lost, and then appealed--
a legal battle that cost both sides
thousands of dollars and led to a lot of mean
Facebook comments.
I see six flags, seven if you count the
"Yes, I'm a Trump girl, get over it."
Why are... why are these seven signs so important to you?
Because I feel, honestly, that Trump won this election in 2020.
I literally think it was totally stolen from him.
You know, I kind of knew you were a Trump supporter
because I see that, uh, you have the bust
of his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani
on your front step there.
What has Biden done to you?
Let me tell you something.
In the last four years-- well, now it's passed--
we were making money at my job, everything was going great.
We had tariffs on China, Canada, all over.
So then why don't the signs say Trump won the election?
Because I can't find anything with the election.
-Unless I go and have it made. -I see. Okay.
-So you didn't have these printed? -No.
-Where were they printed? -Believe it or not, China.
So maybe Mrs. Dick's free speech
was imported from Communist China,
but how could the mayor of Roselle Park,
Joseph Signorello, an American,
justify trying to silence her?
I mean, I would say less silencing,
more try to make sure people are good neighbors,
especially around children.
If she had posted a sign up that said,
"I disagree strongly with Joe Biden,"
would you have come after her?
She's had up, like, pro-Trump signs
plastered all over her house for the last three years,
which is totally allowable by our local ordinances,
but the code states that you can't have
explicit or offensive material,
a poster or any kind of signage outside of your house.
Wait, so the issue you have isn't with the message,
(bleep) Biden, it's with the actual word (bleep).
Yes. It's inappropriate, you know?
So you got curse words in front of little kids,
-Mm-hmm. -and you got families that need to explain
-what the F-bomb means. -I mean, I got to be honest with you.
First time I heard the word (bleep) was
from a third grade New Jersey elementary school student.
Roselle Park's snowflake mayor
might be afraid of adult expression,
but Mrs. Dick was determined to keep fighting
for the use of her favorite four-letter word.
Well, the judge asked me to take down--
one, two, three-- three of the signs.
-KOSTA: Yeah. -Anything that had (bleep) in it,
-he wanted me to take down. -Yeah.
And, of course, I didn't.
One of the complaints is that these kids,
these poor elementary school students,
they're seeing such profanity here.
Come on. They hear it at the park.
They got the trash music going.
Trash music like-like Stomp when they play the garbage cans?
No, when they start cursing.
-You know what I'm talking about. -Oh, okay, good.
-That rap shit they listen to, okay? -Okay, got it. Okay.
DJ Karen's deep knowledge of rap music was unexpected,
but would she be willing to do
what many successful rap artists do
and put out a clean version of her signs?
How would you feel,
in order to protect your neighbors' kids,
if we hung this one up instead?
No.
-I don't want that on my fence. -Why not?
'Cause I'd rather it say "(bleep) Biden"
'cause that's how I feel about him.
So, why would I lose my first amendment right
and give in to them?
That's why I fought it,
'cause it was my first amendment right.
KOSTA: After a local heavyweight lawyer
got behind her case, Mrs. D. won her appeal.
But what kind of wise guy-defending,
fast-talking Jersey law shark had she found to represent her?
The ACLU is the American Civil Liberties Union,
and we serve to defend
everybody's constitutional rights
regardless of the views they hold
and regardless of who they are.
KOSTA: Oh, shit! It's the mother(bleep) ACLU?
But why would they take this case?
We're worried about the implications
for everybody else. Right?
If you can't say "(bleep) Biden,"
then you won't be able to say "(bleep) Trump."
"(bleep) the future president."
"(bleep) Ted Cruz." "(bleep) Don Jr."
"(bleep) Ivanka Trump."
That's right. And-and, you know,
usually in our work,
the people that we're representing
are disfavored speakers or marginalized groups--
Black Lives Matter protesters,
immigrants' rights protesters--
and we recognize that, in order to protect that speech,
we also need to protect speech that we disagree with.
KOSTA: So the F-word plus "Biden" was protected speech
but the town's rules were actually equating the F-word
to the idea of people F-wording each other.
Was that also protected?
The ordinance that the city was trying to enforce here
deals with obscene content,
pornography, right, and-and nudity and things like that.
But it can't be attached to something
that has political value.
The test is about making sure
that we are protecting political speech every step of the way.
So, I can't display a video of myself
in Roselle Park having sex.
That would be a violation of obscenity.
But what if now I'm wearing a Joe Biden mask?
Is that protected now because it's the government?
You'd have to ask an expert to look at the video
before you put it up to determine whether or not
it would violate the law.
I have the video in my pocket right now.
Do y-- Do we want to-- Do you want to watch it?
And we can figure that out right now?
Uh, maybe off camera.
KOSTA: So just like my satirical and arousing video,
Mrs. Dick's sexually inappropriate
but clearly political language was protected
by our beloved American freedom of speech.
You know, the fact that you can even hang this up
and be protected legally,
I think, is a sign that this country's still kicking some...
(bleep) ass.
But I'm still not taking 'em down till Biden's out of office.
-2024. -Okay.
Then you can come back to me.
Are you being a little bit of a dick?
If that's what you want to call it, yeah. (laughs)
Thank you. Okay.