In the News
Casper Star-Tribune: Klein: More fines and imprisonment won’t reform Wyoming campaign finance
By Steve Klein
Wyoming campaign finance law, or “campaign finance reform” if you prefer, is pointless and counterproductive. It has served as nothing more than a bundle of platitudes and a dirty political tool for more than a century, since the Republican Party unreasonably accused Democrat John Kendrick of violating the state’s original Corrupt Practices Act in 1916 when he ran (successfully) for the United States Senate. The last few election cycles have been no different, with the Wyoming Gun Owners facing a complaint from a political opponent and paying an unconstitutional $500 fine under a law recently struck down in federal court. WyGO got a bit of justice, but with the passage of House Bill 49 in the recent budget session of the Wyoming Legislature, campaign finance is sure to get worse.
New Civil Liberties Alliance: Watch: The Weaponization of NLRB Against Ben Domenech’s Joke Tweet Raises Free Speech Concerns
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has made a federal case out of a joke on Twitter. FDRLST Media is under federal investigation after Ben Domenech, publisher of the online magazine, posted a satirical tweet that didn’t sit well with a random Twitter user with no connection to the company…
The case has now been argued before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Strong amicus curiae support, filed over the free speech concerns the cases raises, has come from the Cato Institute, Reason Foundation, Individual Rights Foundation, Nadine Strossen, P.J. O’Rourke, Penn and Teller, Tech Freedom, the Institute for Free Speech, Pacific Legal Foundation, prominent First Amendment scholars, and others.
[Ed. note: Read our brief here.]
The Courts
Just the News: Feds’ pressure on tech platforms to censor COVID ‘misinformation’ is unconstitutional, suit says
By Greg Piper
The government’s sustained pressure on social media platforms to censor and report purported COVID-19 misinformation amounts to “state action” that violates the First Amendment, according to a lawsuit filed Friday on behalf of three Twitter users.
Reuters: Judge blocks attorney anti-bias rule, finding free speech threat
By David Thomas
A federal judge in Pennsylvania on Thursday again blocked the state’s adoption of an anti-harassment and discrimination professional rule for lawyers that was backed by the American Bar Association, ruling it threatens attorneys’ free speech rights.
In a 78-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Chad Kenney in Philadelphia said a version of an ABA rule adopted last year by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court is overbroad and conflicts with the First Amendment.
Congress
Congressman Adam Schiff: Congressman Schiff Introduces Constitutional Amendment To Overturn Citizens United
Today, Congressman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) introduced a constitutional amendment to overturn the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, and once again allow for reasonable restrictions on corporate campaign contributions and other spending.
Right to Protest
Bolts Magazine: “Designed to End Protesting”: Louisiana Supreme Court Makes Protesters Guilty by Association
By Daniel Nichanian
A ruling by the Louisiana Supreme Court on Friday adds to a string of developments following 2020’s George Floyd protests that threaten demonstrators with harsh penalties for the actions of others.
The court ruled that an advocate who helped organize a Black Lives Matter rally could be sued for events that took place during that rally, even though he was not involved. The case arose after a police officer was injured during a protest in Baton Rouge in 2016 and filed a lawsuit against DeRay Mckesson, a national advocate who had amplified and joined the demonstration. Mckesson rejected liability, saying his actions were protected by the First Amendment, but the court ruled against him in Friday’s 6-1 opinion.
The lone dissenter was the court’s only Black judge, Justice Piper Griffin. “The finding of a duty in this case will have a chilling effect on political protests in general as nothing prevents a bad actor from attending an otherwise peaceful protest and committing acts of violence,” wrote Griffin, who is a Democrat elected in a judicial district that contains parts of New Orleans. “The flow of political speech could hinge on which viewpoints had patrons with deeper pockets.”
Free Expression
New York Times (LTE): Is Free Speech Endangered?
Re “Free Speech Is Under Threat” (editorial, Sunday Review, March 20):
To the Editor:
That your editorial defending free speech against all those who infringe it should itself be controversial tells all one needs to know about the subject. What is needed now is the recognition across the ideological spectrum that frenzied intolerance of speech with which we differ is ultimately destructive of us all.
George Orwell said it best: “If large numbers of people are interested in freedom of speech, there will be freedom of speech, even if the law forbids it; if public opinion is sluggish, inconvenient minorities will be persecuted, even if laws exist to protect them.”
Floyd Abrams
New York
The writer, a First Amendment lawyer, is the author of “The Soul of the First Amendment.” …
To the Editor:
. . . Historically, the struggle to achieve justice (e.g., civil rights, women’s rights, the labor movement, L.G.B.T.Q.+) has always depended on the right to free speech. As John Lewis said, “Without freedom of speech and the right to dissent, the civil rights movement would have been a bird without wings.”
Norman Siegel
Ira Glasser
New York
The writers are former executive directors of the New York and American Civil Liberties Unions, respectively.
Yale Law School: A Message From Dean Gerken on the March 10 Protest
Dean Heather K. Gerken sent the following message to Yale Law School students, staff, and faculty on March 28.
Online Speech Platforms
New York Times: Rumble, the Right’s Go-To Video Site, Has Much Bigger Ambitions
By Jeremy W. Peters
The story of Rumble’s success is instructive for both sides of the tense debate over balancing the right to free speech with the growing threat that disinformation poses to the stability of governments around the globe. For those who argue that Google and Facebook algorithms are blunt, deeply flawed instruments for policing discourse, Rumble offers a welcome alternative, albeit an imperfect one. And for those who fear that lawmakers and technology companies aren’t doing enough to tame false and fabricated information ahead of the next presidential election, Rumble has opened up a potentially dangerous loophole.
“There is something very significant about Rumble that I don’t think people appreciate,” said Angelo Carusone, president of Media Matters, the liberal media watchdog. Mr. Carusone said the painstaking work that went into persuading Facebook, Google and Twitter to be more aggressive about policing fake and inciting content prevented a lot of it from breaking through to a wider audience.
“Rumble basically changes that game,” he added.
Washington Post: Social media wasn’t ready for this war. It needs a plan for the next one.
By Will Oremus
A month ago, praising a neo-Nazi militia or calling for violence against Russians could get you suspended from Facebook in Ukraine. Now, both are allowed in the context of the war between the two countries…
From Google barring ads in Russia and taking down YouTube videos that trivialize the war, to Twitter refusing to recommend tweets that link to Russian state media and TikTok suspending all video uploads from the country in response to its “fake news” law — each of the largest social media platforms has taken ad hoc actions in recent weeks that go beyond or contradict its previous policies.
The moves illustrate how Internet platforms have been scrambling to adapt content policies built around notions of political neutrality to a wartime context. And they suggest that those rule books — the ones that govern who can say what online — need a new chapter on geopolitical conflicts.
The States
Denver Post: Colorado Supreme Court strikes down part of state’s cyberbullying law as unconstitutional
By Shelly Bradbury
The Colorado Supreme Court unanimously struck down part of the state’s 7-year-old cyberbullying law Monday on the grounds that the statute limits free speech and violates both the Colorado and U.S. constitutions…
As written, the law could be used to prosecute people for constitutionally-protected speech, the justices found. The law could criminalize online communication like negative restaurant reviews, social media posts about public health protocols, irate emails, diatribes posted about public figures by disgruntled constituents, or antagonistic comments left on news sites, Justice William Hood wrote in the opinion.
“The primary concern here isn’t the invasive medium the government seeks to regulate — omnipresent electronic communication — but how much the statute impinges on or potentially chills speech,” Hood wrote. “Today’s technology merely amplifies this old-fashioned problem.”
Politico (New Jersey Playbook): Princeton Physicist Zwicker Is Top Recipient Of Dark Money
By Matt Friedman
“Murder-for-hire case spotlights role of dark money in NJ elections. Will Legislature act?” by The Record’s Ashley Balcerzak and Charles Stile: “Regarding Caddle’s vast knowledge and experience within the shadowy world of dark money, however, Trenton has collectively shrugged. There is no outrage. No calls for reform. No legislative blue-ribbon panels. With the exception of a cleanup bill to replace a law struck down by a federal court two years ago, the scandal has not produced new proposals targeting dark money’s growing influence in state and local elections … there is nothing that current laws can do to limit dark money’s influence for now. Federal and state dark money groups are legal. ‘Dark money is a piece of a fabric that has really degraded the confidence in our elections,’ said Sen. Andrew Zwicker, D-Somerset, a supporter of campaign finance reform.”
