First Amendment News

A federal appeals court upheld a California law challenged by freelance journalists that limits employers in classifying workers as contractors. The court ruled that the law regulates economic activity without restricting free speech and press. (San Francisco Chronicle, October 6, 2021, by Bob Egelko) Freelance journalists and photographers were upset when the law took effect for 2020 claiming it would curtail opportunity as employers would not want to shoulder the costs of employing them. The

The Washington Post writes that the federal Office of Legal Counsel OLC), a division of the Justice Department, provides opinions that sanction important government policies and actions but operates with little public scrutiny. Says the Post, “…while ordinary citizens may be unaware of how this powerful office operates, they would probably agree on a basic principle: Critical decisions underlying our governance shouldn’t be withheld from the governed.” (The Washington Post, October 3, 2021, by the

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear the case of a man denied the privilege of flying a Christian flag during an event on the City Hall Plaza. The man sued saying the city violated his First Amendment rights by content discrimination, allowing non-secular flags but not secular ones. (Boston Globe, September 30, 2021, by Travis Andersen and Danny McDonald) The federal appeals court ruled that the flag pole was not a public forum so that

A world-wide consortium of journalists found that the rich and powerful have been hiding investments in mansions, yachts, beach property and other assets for the last 25 years. While offshore accounts are legal in some cases, many were set up to evade taxes and conceal assets for questionable motives as in the need to launder money. (The Associated Press, October 4, 2021, by Michael Liedtke and Jonathan Mattise) The rich and powerful including politicians, celebrities,

A Texan leader of the neo-Nazi group Atomwaffen was convicted in a Seattle federal court of threatening journalists. Kaleb Cole and three associates mailed or glued posters to doors of journalists of color with statements such as “You have been visited by your local Nazis” and “Death to Pigs.”(Courthouse News Service, September 30, 2021, by Jared Brown) The defense argued the group never intended to commit violence. The prosecution contended that the messages was not