First Amendment News

The National Rifle Association filed a federal lawsuit against the San Francisco Board of supervisors charging that its resolution declaring the NRA a “domestic terrorist organization” breached the First Amendment. The NRA claimed the resolution created a blacklist that constituted viewpoint discrimination. The NRA lawyer said “…the government cannot apply its powers in a targeted, adverse manner against those with whom it disagrees — and the government certainly cannot do so in order to stifle

Lucy Westcott, Committee to Protect Journalists, (CPJ), September 4, 2019, found in a survey of journalists in the U.S. and Canada that female journalists deal routinely with threats and harassment in reporting the news, especially in covering politics or extremism. The journalists reported unwanted sexual advances and threats of rape and violence. The CPJ published updated safety guidelines for journalists in response to the survey findings. Courtney Radsch of the CPJ said the greatest challenge

A federal district judge ruled that San Antonio did not violate the First Amendment when it placed limits on how fire union petitioners gathering signatures at libraries and senior centers. The union claimed the city’s free speech zones were located too far from facilities making it difficult to gather signatures. (Rivard Report, September 3, 2019, by Iris Dimmick) “In a ruling dated September 1, 2019, US District Court Judge Xavier Rodriguez found that the library