A Cape Coral\u00a0ordinance<\/a> and\u00a0logo policy<\/a> prohibit individuals from using the city\u2019s seal or logo without permission. No exceptions. The policy even bans symbols that so much as resemble the city\u2019s logos, including\u00a0fictional ones. So the city sent a\u00a0cease-and-desist letter<\/a> to the watchdog group, threatening to pursue \u201cappropriate legal action\u201d that could result in a fine or jail time. Several other residents who run websites or online community forums\u00a0reportedly received<\/a> similar letters.<\/p>\n But that\u2019s not how the First Amendment works. FIRE has\u00a0stepped in<\/a> to tell the city that its threats are out of sync with the Constitution. And we\u2019re calling on the city to immediately bring its policies and actions in line with the First Amendment. City ordinances don\u2019t trump the Constitution, and Americans don\u2019t need the government\u2019s permission to speak. Or to use government symbols in that speech, including \u2014 if not especially \u2014 when criticizing the government itself. That\u2019s why the Supreme Court has upheld the right to\u00a0burn the American flag<\/a> or\u00a0display it upside down<\/a> with a peace symbol attached.<\/p>\n Cape Coral\u2019s ban is a classic regulation of the content of speech. The Supreme Court has\u00a0said<\/a> that content-based speech restrictions are \u201cpresumptively unconstitutional.\u201d And as FIRE\u00a0has explained<\/a>, the city has no trademark rights in its seal or logos.\u00a0<\/p>\n Besides, the watchdog\u2019s website makes it amply clear that it\u2019s a private organization, and nothing about its use of the city\u2019s symbols suggests that the city itself endorsed any of this.\u00a0<\/p>\n And yet, under Cape Coral\u2019s overly broad rules, not only is a group like Take Out The Trash barred from using such symbols, even\u00a0this blog post violates the ordinance because we included images of the logos without the city\u2019s permission!<\/p>\n Cape Coral\u2019s rule forcing private citizens to ask for permission to speak is also a classic example of prior restraint, which the Supreme Court has\u00a0called<\/a> the \u201cmost serious and the least tolerable infringement on First Amendment rights.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n On top of all this, the city\u2019s actions raise concerns that it is selectively targeting who to let speak and who to silence. L\u2019Hommedieu says other groups used the logo \u201cfor ages\u201d without issue, but once his group used it, they were told to stop. That would amount to viewpoint discrimination, which the Supreme Court has called an \u201cegregious<\/a>\u201d form of censorship.\u00a0<\/p>\n The First Amendment means the government doesn\u2019t get to decide who can criticize it \u2014 or which images they use to do so.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Imagine you are engaging in the time-honored American tradition of criticizing your local government. You air your complaints…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":212109,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210],"class_list":["post-212108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=212108"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/212108\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/212109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=212108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=212108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=212108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Take](\"https:\/\/www.fire.org\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/417xy\/public\/2026\/03\/TOTTC%20Facebook%20Page.png.webp?itok=krMwgVct\")
<\/p>\n