First Amendment News

With the Chicago Tribune facing hedge fund takeover and gutting of newsroom personnel, the Tribune’s former editor, Ann Marie Lipinski, in Crain’s Chicago Business, February 19, 2020, writes that were the Tribune to fold, it would be a great loss to democracy and civic and business interests. Radio and TV rely on the Tribune for sources of news. She called for novel solutions and more investment from local businesses and civic-minded owners. Journalism professor Victor

The cyber security chief at the Financial Times, Ahana Datta, Columbia Journalism Review, February 17, 2020, reports that a Middle Eastern government used spyware on the cell phones of reporters investigating surveillance of journalists and activists. Datta wrote, “…in my experience the incidence has spiked since the 2016 elections in Britain and America, when such efforts came off without consequence. State actors seem to feel they can now act with impunity.” It was revealed in

A Brazilian federal judge dismissed criminal charges against Glenn Greenwald, an American journalist, who released hacked cellphone messages between prosecutors and government officials. Brazil’s laws provide strong protections for journalists. (The New York Times, February 6, 2020, by Ernesto Londono) Governments are increasingly using hacking laws to squelch political speech, writes James C. Goodale, Columbia Journalism Review, February 18, 2020. In indicting Greenwald, Brazil was following the lead of the U.S. in its pursuit of

William P. Warford, Antelope Valley Press, February 9, 2020, argues that a candidate forum at a Palmdale California mosque should not have been shut down by disruptive people “shouting despicable things.” Law enforcement gave the organizers two options, shut down or continue with the protesters. Writes Warford, “I think a third option would be better in these cases: If members of the audience refuse to allow candidates to speak, haul them out and charge them

A woman asked for clemency while serving a five-year sentence for violating the espionage act by releasing secret documents to the media, thought to be The Intercept, about Russian hacking of voting software in 2016. An attorney for Reality Winner, a former air force intelligence specialist, said “Our country was attacked by a hostile foreign power. Our national healing process cannot begin until we forgive our truth tellers and begin the job of rebuilding what