First Amendment News

Federal appeals court judges in New York City heard arguments in a key First Amendment case last week on whether President Donald Trump can ban people from his personal Twitter account he uses to conduct presidential business. The plaintiffs say in their complaint that the president has established a public forum that would make “viewpoint-based exclusion” unconstitutional. Justice Department lawyers are representing Trump in this personal matter. The appeals court will have to decide the

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

Even if Attorney General William Barr releases the report from Special Counsel Robert Mueller on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, expect heavy redactions, Most prominent would be content from grand jury proceedings, restricted by law. Rule 6(e) of the Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure obstacle, makes it a criminal act to reveal grand jury information. Other Freedom of Information Act obstacles;  Exemption 1 covers national security and in this case a counter-intelligence investigation;

A recent study showed that government workers charged with processing Freedom of Information Act requests are inundated by the numbers of requests. The study in the American Review of Public Administration analyzed data from 102 agencies from 2008 and 2016. ICE reported that each analyst dealt with 35 to 50 FOIA requests a week. The Office Of Government Information Services has asked Congress to allocate sufficient funds to meet federal obligations for transparency. Six agencies

President Donald Trump is looking hungrily at the Mueller report finding of no Russian collusion, relishing the opportunity to strike back. Trump’s communications director promptly warned TV producers against giving Democrats air time who had claimed there was evidence of Trump campaign collusion with Russia to throw the 2016 presidential election. (The Associated Press, March 25, 2019, by Jonathan Lemire and Zeke Miller with contributions from Hunter Woodall) Conservative columnist Ross Douthat of The New York