First Amendment News

San Diego County supervisors stiffened their policies on public participation at meetings after a citizen said he wanted three supervisors dead and hurled a racial slur at a county public health officer. (Times of San Diego, November 10, 2021, by Elizabeth Ireland) The San Diego Project for Open Government took exception to the new policies, promising litigation if the council failed to make changes, particularly to the limits in minutes allowed speakers at board meetings.

A House of Representatives committee is seeking White House records on the January 6 insurrection as former President Donald Trump claims executive privilege in a bid in federal courts to block the committee’s request. Trump’s maneuvers seem ill-fated as the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1977 in a case involving former President Richard Nixon, “The privilege [executive privilege] is not for the benefit of the President as an individual, but for the benefit of the

The 2,740 page federal infrastructure bill that just passed included provisions shielding information the public needs to evaluate its programs. One of the nine exemptions under the Freedom of Information Act exempts records required to be withheld under other statues. (Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, November 8, 2021, by Adam A. Marshall) The bill would allow distribution of broadband funds to telecommunications companies and the spending of that money without public scrutiny. (The

The Supreme Court will decide if an Austin, Texas sign ordinance violates the First Amendment. The ordinance allows signs that advertise “on premises” businesses with a connection to the site where the sign is located but prohibits signs that are “off premises.” The city claims the ban is constitutional since it is based on the relationship of a sign to its location rather than to its content. (SCOTUS/blog, November 10, 2021, by Amy Howe) The

Freelance journalist Priscilla Villarreal won a round in the 5th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals when it reversed a district court ruling granting the police qualified immunity for arresting Villarreal for violating a state law in soliciting information about a suicide later posted online. The Texas law forbade profiting from such information. A judge in the majority said Villarreal was jailed unconstitutionally for asking a question, and the U.S. Supreme Court has held police could