First Amendment News

Deutsche Bank and Capital One must surrender President Donald Trump’s financial records to Congressional committees, ruled the 2nd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals. The court noted that the public interest was far greater in supporting legitimate legislature purpose than in risking the president’s distraction from having his private finances on display. (The Washington Post, December 3, 2019, by Ann E. Marimow and Renae Merle) In partial dissent, Judge Debra Ann Livingston disagreed with the two

Norcal Outdoor media is suing Caltrans for its ban on freeway political ads 90 days before an election. Norcal wants to run an ad Trump 2020 in Tracy. (Billboard Insider, November 25, 2019, by Dave Westburg) Filed in federal court, the lawsuit contends that the ban in the Outdoor Advertising Act is unconstitutional in restricting speech according to a timeframe. (Fox 40, November 22, 2019, by Lonnie Wong)

China’s big brother apparatus is extending its censorship to American citizens. Owned by a Chinese company, WeChat is censoring political messages and support for the Hong Kong freedom movement including posts by Chinese Americans. WeChat users have been sending messages to representatives in Washington D.C. to ask them to prevent Chinese companies from violating Americans’ free speech rights. (The Verge, November 25, 2019, by Zoe Schiffer) Many users in the U.S. have been banned from

CNN is asking a federal judge to prevent the Justice Department from withholding records from the Mueller investigation. Ordered to produce the documents on a reasonable schedule, the DOJ is releasing them at a snail’s pace by mail rather than electronic delivery. The judge ordered the DOJ to expedite delivery. (Courthouse News Service, November 25, 2019, by Megan Mineiro) Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) filed a lawsuit in October over similar stonewalling

The Supreme Court refused to take up an appeal by the National Review and the Competitive Enterprise Institute of a defamation lawsuit brought by the Penn State climate scientist Michael Mann. The magazine compared Mann to the convicted pedophile Jerry Sandusky and said instead of molesting children he molested and tortured data. (The Hill, November 25, 2-19, by John Kruzel) The National Review claimed it was legitimately contesting Mann’s climate change graph, a matter of