First Amendment News

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled decisively that President Donald Trump had no basis for withholding his tax returns to evade New York state criminal proceedings while in office. The case involved payment of hush money before the 2016 presidential election to adult film actress Stormy Daniels who said she had an affair with Trump in 2006. (Courthouse News Service, July 7, 2020, by Tim Ryan) Prosecutors and the public will not see the returns before

The FBI agents questioning a freelance journalist in his San Francisco home failed to follow Justice Department protocols according to a Reporters Committee legal filing in a public records lawsuit against the department. The FBI and Justice Department also did not search adequately for records related to the questioning, and the FBI illegally withheld the names of the agents questioning reporter Brian Carmody. the FBI agents were attempting to learn the identity of Carmody’s source

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a law banning automated calls to cellphones could stand while eliminating the exception of calls for debt collection from those owing the government money on the grounds that it was based on the content of speech. In its decision the court acknowledged the public’s dislike of robocalls. (USA TODAY, July 6, 2020, by Richard Wolf) (Eugene Volokh of The Volokh Conspiracy, Reason, July 6, 2020, thought the decision significant

Mary Trump’s book with the subtitle, “How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man,” is scheduled for publication two weeks earlier on July 14 after a court released the publisher from a restraining order. Mary Trump herself is still under the order. She said she is not bound by a nondisclosure agreement with the family because they misled her about the value of family holdings. (The Washington Post, July 6, 2020, by Michael Kranish)

Critics are alarmed about a bill advancing in the U.S. Senate to combat sexual exploitation of children, arguing that it would give the Justice Department power over content on the internet. The bill would also weak Section 230 that shields internet platforms from legal responsibility for content on their sites. The law would allow individuals to sue platforms for failing to take “proper steps” prevent child exploitation and would set up a panel of un-elected