First Amendment News

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, was happy to sign a contract with documentary filmmakers who were recording the country’s immigration enforcement under the Trump administration. But then uncomfortable scenes surfaced: An ICE spokesperson claiming in town hall meetings that they were only going after criminals then officers receiving instructions to arrest as many people as possible, criminal or not; border agents measuring success not on numbers of arrests but on the number of

Reporters have been arrested and assaulted at an unprecedented rate during the recent protests over racial justice. The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker recorded over 500 incidents since the May 25 killing of George Floyd including 114 attacks. (Voice of America, July 20, 2020, by Eric Neugeboren) A coalition of news news media organizations is asking Congress to revive the Journalist Protection Act that would “make it a federal crime to intentionally cause bodily injury or

Former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen will return to home confinement after a federal judge ordered his release from prison where he was returned after it surfaced that he intended to publish a book critical of the president. The federal government ended Cohen’s home confinement when he refused to sign away his rights to talk about Trump or publish a book critical of him. (NBC News, July 23, 2020, by Pete Williams and Tom Winter) The

Nearly 300 Wall Street Journal employees sent a letter to their publisher calling out the opinion section editors for not practicing fact-checking and transparency, thereby losing credibility with reporters’ sources. The letter cited several instances including a column by a conservative commentator, “The Myth of Systemic Police Racism,” that the employees said “selectively presented facts and drew an erroneous conclusion from the underlying data.” (The Hill, July 21, 2020, by J. Edward Moreno) The letter said

A State Department employee gained little traction in filing a whistleblower complaint alleging ‘questionable activities’ by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. The department is blocking any questions about the matter and has ordered staff to continue the activities that have so far not been described in any detail. (ABC News, July 20, 2020, by Conor Finnegan) The whistleblower complaint came to light as a watchdog American Oversight sued the State Department for information about the