First Amendment News

Hiding the scientific basis for pandemic policies weakens the fight against the virus. In WIRED, November 16, 2020, Roxanne Khamsi cites the example of restrictions in New York state for quarantine of out-of-state visitors. “When health authorities present one rule after another without clear, science-based substantiation,” writes Khamsi, “their advice ends up seeming arbitrary and capricious. That erodes public trust and makes it harder to implement rules that do make sense—for this pandemic and any

The Los Angeles City Attorney filed a complaint that board members of a Crenshaw area development agency violated the Brown Act, the state’s open meeting law. The attorney alleges that the board members colluded in private to engender an appearance of pubic support for a buyer of a shopping mall. (City Watch, November 16, 2020, by Donald Byers and David Odusanya) The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education announced that after more than a year

National Public Radio sued the Department of Health and Human Services on November 12 for public records concerning the knowing distribution of flawed Covid-19 test kits in early February to labs across the U.S. The flawed kits slowed the fight against the disease leading to deaths that could have been prevented. When confronted with reports of the flawed test kits, Center for Disease Control Director Robert Redfield said there was a manufacturing problem, but CDC

Conservative are deserting Twitter for Parler, as it becomes one of the most downloaded apps since the election. They want to escape the censorship they ascribe to Twitter and enjoy free speech in a venue without what they call “agenda-driven fact checking.” Critics fear it’s a haven for hate and incitement to violence. (kbps, November 16, 2020, by Jacob Aere) Before the election, Facebook put the hammer to violent militias and banned QAnon and post-election

Faced with the Trump phenomenon, the social media, Facebook, Google and others, have become gatekeepers to information. They stepped up during the election to curtail false or harmful information, for example that the election was stolen from Trump. (The New York Times, November 7, 2020, by Shira Ovide) CNN’s Brian Stelter thinks that the news media’s hiring of fact-checkers is a good thing to help dispute the alternative realities generated by Trump. The emergence of