donal brown

A federal judge cited Upton Sinclair’s 1906 muckraking novel “The Jungle” in throwing out Idaho’s law forbidding undercover videos at factory farms. Judge B. Lyn Winmill said the novel led to meatpacking industry reforms and that the farming industry could counter any videos with information,”The remedy for misleading speech, or speech we do not like, is more speech, not enforced silence.” (Los Angeles Times, August 4, 2015, by Matt Pearce) It was a first legal

While placing a confederate flag on the grounds of Martin Luther King’s Atlanta church is a “dispicable act by cowards,” says Gary Stein in the Sun Sentinel, July 31, 2015, it is still an act protected by the First Amendment. It would be sufficient just to publish the names of those responsible. In July a professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, argued in Salon that displaying the confederate flag should be a hate crime

The Freedom of Press Foundation is suing the Justice Department for information on its spying on reporters. After failing with Freedom of Information Act requests, the foundation seeks the court’s help in forcing the department to release its new guidelines on how national security letters (NSLs) can be used to investigate journalists. (The District Sentinel, July 30, 2015, by San Sacks) The Justice Department published new guidelines last year raising the bar for subpoenas to

The California Supreme Court agreed to consider a lawsuit by the EFF and ACLU of Southern California asking for a week’s data of the automated license plate readers collected by Los Angeles Police and Sheriff’s departments. The two groups are also contesting a lower court  finding that license plates scans were records of ongoing investigations exempt from the California Public Records Act. (Electronic Frontier Foundation, July 29, 2015, by Jennifer Lynch) In filing the cases

The Eleventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 that Florida could enforce its law muzzling doctors who wish to speak with patients about gun ownership and safety issues. The dissenting judge thought the law violated doctors’ free speech rights. “Doctors’ jobs are hard enough when the state does not enact laws that force them to think twice about asking questions and providing information that may save lives. This law is instead designed to stop