A Idaho law marking it a crime for doctors to assist in the procurement of an abortion hit a roadblock as a district federal judge found that the law would chill speech. The law would require the revocation of a doctor’s medical license. (ABC News, August 1, 2023, by Gene Johnson and Ed Komenda of The Associated Press) The judge ruled that the Idaho attorney general’s interpretation of the law violated health care professionals’ First

A federal district judge placed a temporary injunction against an Arkansas law allowing criminal charges against booksellers and librarians who provide “harmful” materials to children. At record levels, states with conservative leadership have been introducing laws to ban or restrict books. (The Associated Press, July 29, 2023) “Harmful” was defined in the law as “as containing nudity or sexual content, appealing to a ‘prurient interest in sex,’ lacking ‘serious literary, scientific, medical, artistic, or political

Fox News is citing the First Amendment as it girds itself to fight the challenge to its license renewal in Philadelphia brought by the Media and Democracy Project. Fox lawyers claimed the challenge was asking the Federal Communications Commission to decide the renewal on the basis of content which should be protected by the First Amendment. (Deadline, August 3, 2023, by Ted Johnson) The challenge rests on the finding in the Dominion defamation lawsuit and

A Freedom Forum survey shows that 93 percent of Americans think the First Amendment is central in their rights as citizens. The survey also showed that they misunderstood or lacked knowledge of First Amendment protections. A third did not know that the First Amendment protects books, movies, music, and art. (The Free Speech Center, July 24, 2023, by Dennis Hetzel)

Federal agencies have begun to use artificial intelligence to deal with the crush of Freedom of Information Act requests. Adam Marshall for the Reporters Committee of the Press welcomes the possibility of getting information to the public in a timely manner but questions whether AI can make the legal analysis needed in some cases. (NBC News, August 1, 2023, by Lewis Kamb) The Justice Department, State Department and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are