First Amendment News

A federal judge dealt a blow to a Texas law that banned state agencies from doing business with contractors boycotting Israel. A Texas speech pathologist contested the law after her school contract required her to sign an agreement not to boycott Israel. She claimed the law violated her free speech rights. (The Texas Tribune, April 26, 2019, by Elizabeth Byrne) In issuing a temporary injunction against the law, Judge Robert Pittman found that since a boycott was

Customs and Border Protection (CBP) is employing a new procedure, trolling public social media for threats to the agency’s personnel, operations and facilities. The federal agency was under fire recently for its databases on activists, attorneys and journalists working for immigrant rights. (FCW, March 27, 2019, by Adam Mazmanian) Brennan Center researcher Rayua Koreh in Just Security, April 26, 2019, writes, “Collecting information in emergency situations and to ensure public safety undoubtedly are important, but CBP

Prominent Los Angeles physician and entrepreneur Patrick Soon-Shiong is gradually revealing his plan to resurrect the Los Angeles Times that suffered losses of $50 million over the last year. But rather than cut the newsroom, the new owner added almost 100 new reporters this last year. The new hires are essential in maximizing core reporting with a transmedia operation, “video, TV, audio, VR, games, and plain old-fashioned social media management…” The Times this week is

Kathleen Hall Jamieson in the Boston Globe, April 23, 2019, argues that the media erred in reporting hacked information from the Democrats during the 2016 presidential election without including enough details of the hacking. There should have been more pointed references to the illegality of the hacks obtained by Russian cyber attack. And rather than accrediting the information to WikiLeaks, it should have been attributed more specifically to Julian Assange and Russian operatives. Given that context,

The National Security Archive at The George Washington University, April 22, 2019, finds fault with the excessive redactions made by the Justice Department of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. The archive points to the example of Robert Stone, references to whom are meticulously omitted. The archive writes that it is most troubling that the report reveals that President Donald Trump is dismissive of record-keeping in general, a dangerous practice