First Amendment News

Three scientists criticized the new transparency rule proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency, arguing that the rule could stifle the science needed to enact regulations protecting the public. The rule, titled “Strengthening Transparency in Regulatory Science,” would apply retroactively to regulations already in place,” wrote the scientists. “It would make it harder to enact new regulations, because many studies from the past rely on personal medical information that was collected under confidentiality agreements and include

Gretchen Carlson, Julie Roginsky and Diana Falzone, formerly of Fox News, are starting a new anti-NDA organization to prevent coverups of workplace sexual harassment and to keep companies from clamping down on criticism of working conditions. They favor a New Jersey law that limits NDAs to protecting confidential business information and practices rather than hiding a company’s dirty laundry. (Hollywood Reporter, December 19, 2019, by Rebecca Keegan) The announcement of the formation of Lift Our

President Donald Trump signed an order broadening the definition of anti-Semitism to help combat discrimination on college campuses. The new definition may include criticism of Israel. A Trump administration official said the order was not aimed at suppressing the boycott of Israeli products over Israel’s treatment of Palestine. (The Associated Press, December 11, 2019, by Matthew Lee and Jill Colvin) Free speech advocates expressed misgivings about the order. FIRE released a statement arguing that the

The Washington Post mounted a three-year battle using the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to obtain records from the Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR). The records showed that the Trump, Obama and Bush administrations lied to the public about the Afghanistan war, withholding evidence that the war was unwinnable. (The Washington Post, December 9, 2019, by Craig Whitlock) Mike Massnick of techdirt, December 10, 2019, argues that the quest for

The Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has ruled that a Maryland campaign finance law requiring newspapers and online platforms to disclose the identity of political ad buyers and the cost of the ads ran afoul of the First Amendment. While sympathetic to the state’s attempt to bring transparency to the world of tech and elections, the court felt it had overstepped. (The Baltimore Sun, December 9, 2019, by Jeff Barker) Newspapers argued that the