"Defending freedom of speech" definitely sounds a lot better than the unabridged version for this situation, which is "Defending freedom of speech with regards to illegal messed up stuff and the organisation and execution of said illegal messed up stuff." It's quite telling which kinds of speech people come out of the woodwork for, hence why its usually preferred to avoid references to the actual speech and just be as general and vague as possible. Man, I love rights. Free speech, yeehaw. Speech.