In the News
South Dakota Public Broadcasting: Ban On Out-Of-State Money To Ballot Questions Overturned
By Lee Strubinger
A federal judge is overturning a ban on out-of-state money for South Dakota ballot questions…
IM 24 sought to ban out-of-state people and groups from sending money to ballot question committees…
Cory Heidelberger is a blogger for Dakota Free Press. He initially brought a lawsuit against the state over IM24. Shortly there after, several groups like the South Dakota Newspaper Association and Americans for Prosperity filed a separate suit against the measure.
Heidelberger says it’s good to know South Dakota is still subject to the US constitution.
“I was confident throughout that the judge would see the merits of our argument that banning the participation and political activities of 99.7 percent of Americans just because they happen to live on the wrong side of the state line is unconstitutional, not to mention unworkable,” Heidelberger says.
Heidelberger says the ban on out-of-state money to ballot questions was another attempt by the legislature to undermine grassroots ballot questions.
Federal judge Charles Kornmann says Initiated Measure 24 is unconstitutional because it violates First Amendment rights to engage in political speech and to associate with others to fund political speech.
[Ed. Note: Learn more here.]
Free Speech
The Intercept: Border Official Admits Targeting Journalists And Human Rights Advocates With Smuggling Investigations
By Ryan Devereaux
When first confronted with evidence that it was collaborating with Mexican law enforcement in a sweeping intelligence-gathering operation targeting journalists, activists and attorneys along the U.S.-Mexico divide, Customs and Border Protection was silent. When still more evidence emerged, in the form of documents leaked by a Department of Homeland Security whistleblower, the agency dismissed the significance of the revelations as routine law enforcement work.
Now, more than four months after the story broke, CBP is owning up to its operations – in a way – and raising new questions about its treatment of the press and immigrant rights advocates on the border.
A summary of CBP’s review of its own operations, detailed in a letter from the head of the Office of Field Operations and obtained by The Intercept, now confirms several components of the motivations behind the controversial border crackdown…
Earlier this month, [the Center for Democracy and Technology] led a coalition of more than 100 groups seeking answers regarding CBP’s targeting of journalists. “It cannot be a crime to advise asylum-seekers about their rights, or to report the government’s abuse of those rights,” [Mana Azarmi, an attorney at the Center for Democracy and Technology] told The Intercept…
“Lawyers, activists, and journalists who associate with asylum-seekers have every right to do so,” she said. “Surveilling them and searching their computers and cellphones could chill lawyers from providing necessary legal services and chill journalists who are reporting on the asylum system.”
CALmatters: Feds’ harassment of journalists threatens coverage at the border
By Bruce D. Brown and Simon Kilmurry
In January, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and the International Documentary Association started hearing worrying reports from journalists and documentarians covering developments related to migrants arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border from Central America.
The journalists and documentarians were being hassled by border agents and immigration investigators in the U.S. and denied entry back into Mexico to continue their coverage, with vague indications that the denial was at the behest of the “Americans.”
It seemed like the Department of Homeland Security and its agents may have been deliberately targeting journalists and documentarians because of their work. We didn’t want to be paranoid, but we were concerned that this wasn’t a coincidence.
As it turns out, that paranoia was warranted.
Less than two months later in early March, NBC 7 in San Diego reported that the U.S. government has been tracking journalists reporting from the border in a secret database maintained by Customs and Border Protection…
The mere existence of this database, which includes in it several photojournalists and documentarians, raises serious questions about whether Customs and Border Protection is violating constitutional protections for the press.
It also poses unique concerns for the public, which relies on photojournalists and documentarians for visual coverage of newsworthy events.
The Courts
Politico: 9th Circuit rejects challenge to foreign-donation ban
By Josh Gerstein
A federal appeals court has rejected a legal challenge to Congress’ ban on most foreign nationals donating to state and local election campaigns.
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the ban Thursday, saying that a “summary” Supreme Court ruling in 2012 upholding the foreign-donation ban left lower-court judges obliged to turn down all First Amendment challenges to the statute.
However, that high-court decision – issued without briefing or argument – dealt with a lawsuit focused on federal elections…
Writing for a unanimous three-judge panel, Judge Milan Smith Jr. said Congress’ constitutional authority extends to setting rules for financial participation in state and local elections.
“As donations and contributions have grown more important to the campaign process, so too has concern over foreign influence in American elections,” wrote Smith, an appointee of President George W. Bush.
“A prohibition on campaign donations and contributions by foreign nationals is necessary and proper to the exercise of the immigration and foreign relations powers. … Accordingly, Congress was within its power when it acted to protect the country’s political processes after recognizing the susceptibility of the elections process to foreign interference,” added Smith in a 50-page opinion joined by Judges Paul Watford and Andrew Hurwitz, both appointees of President Barack Obama.
The decision on Thursday arose from the prosecution of American political consultant Ravi Singh over campaign-related work he did in San Diego that was bankrolled by a Mexican national and real estate developer, Jose Azano. Azano spent long periods in the U.S. and owned homes here but was not a permanent U.S. resident, which would have exempted him from the ban.
Congress
NBC 7 San Diego: Lawmakers Renew Call for Answers on Secret Database, Other Border Surveillance Tactics
By Tom Jones
In a letter sent to DHS [last] Friday, U.S. Senators Kamala Harris (D-CA), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Tom Udall (D-NM), and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) demanded answers from DHS Acting Secretary Kevin McAleenan on the database program, as well as the department’s use of a private intelligence company that documented protests nationwide of the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” and child separation policies.
The Intercept obtained documents that show “LookingGlass Cyber Solutions” of Virginia documented the locations of more than 600 demonstrations across the country as well as Facebook pages tied to the events.
The company then shared that information with DHS and other state-level law enforcement agencies. A spokesperson for DHS told The Intercept on background that the information was “unsolicited.”
Lawmakers said those surveillance tactics could violate the Privacy Act of 1974, which established “fair information practices” governing the “collection, maintenance, use, and dissemination of information about individuals that is maintained in systems of records by federal agencies,” according to the Department of Justice’s website.
[To read the letter from lawmakers, click here.]
In addition to answering their questions, Senators want DHS officials to release guideline, handbooks and other documents that show how DHS gathers intelligence on U.S. citizens. NBC 7 and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press filed a lawsuit seeking these records after border agencies missed a deadline for release under a Freedom of Information Act request.
Fundraising
By Katelyn Caralle
New Jersey Senator Cory Booker’s deputy 2020 campaign manager said she donated to his Democratic primary opponent, New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, because she was trying to help get her on stage for the party’s primary debate in June.
“I just donated to ensure @SenGillibrand’s important perspective is on the debate stage. Join me!” the campaign official, Jenna Lowenstein, wrote on Twitter late Wednesday night.
Lowenstein was responding to a tweet from Gillibrand’s deputy communications director, Emma Bengtson, that claimed the New York senator would ‘fiercely’ defend a woman’s ability to seek an abortion.
“It is not a given that abortion will come up at the 2020 primary debates,” Bengtson wrote on Twitter Wednesday. “It is not a given that every candidate will defend reproductive rights as fiercely as @SenGillibrand.”
“We need her on that stage. If you agree, make sure her spot is guaranteed,” she continued, adding a link to donate to the campaign and help the candidate qualify for the Democratic debates…
The Democratic National Committee has capped the debates in June and July at 20 candidates, and has created qualifications for which candidates can participate…
To qualify by polling, candidates much reach 1 per cent in at least three national or early-state polls from qualifying polling organizations. To qualify via donors, candidates must obtain at least 65,000 unique donors, including a minimum of 200 donors coming from at least 20 different states…
The Democratic National Committee updated its debate qualification rules on how it will handle ties if more than 20 candidates qualify, which includes meeting both the polling and fundraising quota.
Dallas Morning News: Rep. Colin Allred is using an online app to to reform the campaign finance system, not undermine it
By Tiffany Muller
Last fall, Rep. Colin Allred helped organize a letter with over 100 House challengers demanding congressional leaders make reforming our broken campaign finance system the first priority of the 116th Congress…
Allred co-sponsored and voted for H.R. 1, the For the People Act, aimed at ending the dominance of big money in politics, making it easier to vote, and ensuring public officials are working in the public interest…
Unlike a lot of politicians Texas voters are used to, Allred made a promise and he’s delivering on it. And that’s why he’s starting to face false attacks. In a recent Dallas Morning News op-ed, Allred was criticized for using the online fundraising nonprofit called ActBlue.
ActBlue is simply a service provider. Modern campaigns must be able to raise money online and ActBlue is the best way for candidates to do that. The organization focuses on increasing participation of small-dollar donors in our political and nonprofit landscapes. Through the company’s years of experience and nonstop testing, ActBlue has made its donation forms as fast and efficient as possible without sacrificing safety and security.
ActBlue runs its own anti-fraud program, balancing external data from the credit card industry and fraud scoring service, with a continually-updating internal algorithm. ActBlue is an externally audited PCI certified Level 1 service provider.
Committed activists making small donations online to politicians that inspire them isn’t the problem in our democracy. The problem is the wealthy donors and corporate interests who can bend politicians and public policy to their will.
Online Speech Platforms
Mother Jones: The Facebook Loophole That Makes Political Ads Look Like Regular Content
By Pema Levy
If a user shares a political ad, the disclaimer disappears for anyone who sees the shared ad, as does the ability to click through it to the ad library … Several experts on campaign finance expressed surprise when Mother Jones asked them about it, and concern that this loophole could lead to viral, misleading content paid for by undisclosed political actors.
“The public has a right to know who is trying to influence their vote,” says Brendan Fischer, an expert on campaign finance and ethics issues at the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center. “For political actors that want to influence the public without detection, creating posts that are designed to go viral would be an obvious way to do so, and perhaps to do so legally.”
At the top of each ad on Facebook is two lines of text. First, the ad is labeled with the name of entity that paid for it. Below that is the disclaimer line, which states “Sponsored” and then “Paid for by,” followed by the name of the entity. When an ad is shared, the first line continues to be displayed, but the disclaimer line goes away…
This creates an incentive for political groups and perhaps even hostile nations to design ads that will go viral. Facebook users will see a disclaimer if an ad is displayed in their feed directly from its creator, but the more people share an ad, the likelier it is that a given user will get it via a friend and won’t see the disclaimer. The name of the page behind the ad will still be displayed…
The company argues that the disclaimer should tell users only whether they are seeing an ad because someone paid to promote it. When an ad is reposted, its funder is not paying for the ad to be shown to anyone who views it as a result of that share.
Reason: To Fight ‘Extremism,’ Journalists Are Praising Online Censorship
By Nick Gillespie
At the same time journalists are warning about the threat posed by the White House’s Tech Bias Story Sharing Tool, which collects complaints against social-media platforms that are mean to conservatives, they are also beside themselves because the Trump administration is refusing to sign The Christchurch Call, a non-binding pledge “to eliminate terrorist and violent extremist content online” that’s been signed by online service providers and the governments of New Zealand, France, and 16 other countries.
Let’s be unambiguous: Trump’s online complaint department is stupid and worthless, especially because, as Elizabeth Nolan Brown has pointed out, it is likely to become a dumping ground for dubious claims of being “shadowbanned.” It’s not good to have the government collecting political complaints in the name of protecting free speech. At the same time, it’s absolutely terrifying to see governments and tech giants such as Amazon, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Twitter sign even non-binding agreements to, among other things, “prevent the upload of terrorist and violent extremist content and to prevent its dissemination on social media and similar content-sharing services, including its immediate and permanent removal.”
Judging by the recent permanent bans at Facebook leveled against Louis Farrakhan and Alex Jones, the signers of the Christchurch Call effectively conflate the delusional rants of idiots with live streams of mass shootings…
We need to rebuild a consensus and a culture that answers bad speech with more and better speech, not voluntary “bans” and fear that our neighbors are too easily gulled into hatred and violence.
The Media
Center for Responsive Politics: Foreign media broadcasters get mixed signals on new transparency rules
By Anna Massoglia
Producers and distributors of video programming for foreign media outlets that may otherwise fall under an exemption to the Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA) are required to submit information on their structure to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) every six months pursuant to the National Defense Authorization Act passed last year.
As of when the FCC issued its second semi-annual report to Congress and weeks after foreign media outlets were required to submit their disclosures to the FCC, only two outlets’ disclosures have been made public. Both outlets submitted their disclosures following the April 12 deadline after inquiries from the FCC…
While the new rules were intended to increase the transparency of foreign operations exploiting FARA’s exemption for media and journalistic outlets to skirt disclosing requirements, that does not appear to be how it has played out. Instead, at least one entity has abandoned FARA for the less stringent requirements of the FCC’s foreign media rules…
Uncertainty around the issue may be further complicated by a federal judge’s decision handed down just days before the FCC’s report to Congress, DOJ’s first successful civil enforcement action in a FARA case since 1991.
In the May decision, U.S. District Court Judge Robin Rosenberg found that a Florida-based company called RM Broadcasting LLC is required to register as a foreign agent due to its relationship with Rossiya Segodnya, the Russian government’s media enterprise that owns Sputnik International…
The role of FARA and other foreign influence disclosure regulations in the foreign media space continues to be hotly contested. Potential repercussions like retaliatory measures restricting American media abroad, a risk heightened by the vague language used in current rules opening the door for a variety of different interpretations and applications, raise the stakes even higher.
