First Amendment News

The Seattle police announced they will abandon efforts to subpoena five local news groups to obtain unpublished videos and photos during a demonstration on May 30. They said they needed the videos to help them solve arson and theft cases. The department said it would take until next year to obtain the visual evidence and that they arrested a suspect in one of the cases. The media groups appealed to the state Supreme Court a

The nonprofit news outlet ProPublica revealed that a conservative lawyer has been conducting private briefings with Republican state election officials. The lawyer, Hans von Spakovsky who holds that, contrary to fact, voter fraud is widespread, has not included Democratic officials in the briefings. Von Spakovsky has published essays favoring in-person voting over voting through mail and advice on how to cull voter rolls. (ProPublica, September 15, 2020, by Mike Spies, Jake Pearson and Jessica Huseman)

A settlement between plaintiffs and the UC San Diego and a student satirical publication was notable for gaining protection for student journalists against financial censorship. After objecting to an article in the Koala, a satirical newspaper, the student government withdrew funding for every student media outlet. (Student Press Law Center, September 18, 2020, by Ginny Bixby and Joe Severino) The university will pay $162,500 as part of the settlement in the case brought by the

Facebook and Twitter are suspending accounts engendered through a pro-Trump group, Turning Point Action, that pays conservative youth to adopt election talking points as their own. The messages go out like spam on social media with no mention of Turning Point Action or its youth branch Turning Point USA. (The Washington Post, September 15, 2020, by Isaac Stanley-Becker) Facebook said it removed accounts for violating policies regarding multiple accounts, and Twitter removed accounts for violating

A Washington, D.C. federal judge ruled that the Justice Department must release a part of the legal opinions it was keeping under wraps. Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson found that one class of opinions on inter-agency disputes were final opinions and as such were statements of policy and interpretations adopted by at least one of the disputing agencies and could be released. (The National Law Journal, September 14, 2020, by Jacqueline Thomsen) The opinions cited by