Here are amicus briefs and/or letters FAC has either authored or joined since March, 2018: FAC Authored Amici ACLU 9th Circuit Appeal.  On August 3, we filed an amicus brief in support of the ACLU of Northern California’s appeal of an adverse Privacy Act ruling against their clients, two editors of the website antiwar.com.  Our amicus brief argues, in essence, that the lower court’s ruling would open the door to the FBI broadly collecting information about journalists for the mere act of publishing — just the kind of surveillance prohibited under the Privacy Act.  FAC was represented here by Cooley

Here are amicus briefs and/or letters FAC has either authored or joined since Dec. 2018: FAC Authored Amicus Briefs Brazil v. Newark Unified: On February 2, FAC filed an amicus brief that we co-authored with the ACLU in a trial court proceeding.  This was a fairly unusual move for FAC.  We have generally steered clear of trial-court amicus briefs for a number of reasons, including (a) trial court rulings have limited or no impact beyond the parties to the case; and (b) they are logistically difficult, with short time frames and unclear rules about whether and how they can be

Here are amicus briefs and/or letters FAC has joined since the last report: FAC Joined Amicus Briefs Guiffre v. Maxwell: FAC signed on to this amicus brief by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.  It asks the Second Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn an extremely overbroad sealing order that purports to require secrecy of records filed with the court as part of discovery motions in a defamation lawsuit brought by one of the alleged victims of sex trafficking committed by financier Jeffrey Epstein. In re National Security Letter: FAC signed on to this Reporters Committee amicus brief

Here are amicus briefs and/or letters FAC has either authored or joined since the last report: Amicus Briefs Authored By FAC Callaghan v. West Virginia Judicial Investigation Commission: FAC authored an amicus brief urging the United States Supreme Court to review and reverse a decision by the West Virginia Supreme Court imposing draconian penalties on a candidate for judicial office for statements he made during a political campaign. The Philadelphia firm of Schnader Harrison prepared FAC’s amicus brief, which is in support of Callaghan’s petition for review by the Court. The core argument is that political speech must receive the