First Amendment News

First Amendment: Iowa ag-gag law suffers defeat in federal court A federal district judge ruled Iowa’s ag-gag law unconstitutional. The law imposed criminal penalties on journalists or animal rights activists going undercover to investigate animal abuse in agricultural facilities. An ACLU director hailed the decision as an important free speech victory, “It [the ag-gag law] has effectively silenced advocates and ensured that animal cruelty, unsafe food safety practices, environmental hazards, and inhumane working conditions go

The Supreme Court will hear arguments in March about gerrymandering in two states, North Carolina and Maryland, with plaintiffs claiming in each case that voting maps violated voters’ First Amendment rights. Democrats in North Carolina and Republicans in Maryland brought the lawsuits. (CNN, January 4, 2019, by Ariane de Vogue and Sophie Tatum) While hearing many gerrymandering cases in the past, the Court has never developed a standard for determining when the gerrymandering was too

The California Supreme Court will decide if law enforcement agencies can charge those seeking police body cam videos for the costs of redaction. The city of Hayward wanted to charge $2,938.58 for body cam videos after Hayward officers were involved in policing a 2014 protest in Berkeley against police violence. (San Francisco Chronicle, December 19, 2018, by Bob Egelko) A citizens group is contesting an appointment to the San Bernardino County board of supervisors claiming

The Boston Globe urged publications across the country to run editorials last week to refute President Donald Trump’s unsupported claim that the press is “the enemy of the people.” Over 300 news outlets responded, many of them arguing that the “fake news’ label endangers democracy.  (Courthouse New Service, August 16, 2018, by Britain Eakin) The U.S. Senate chose this time to unanimously passed Senate Resolution 607 that described the history of our founding fathers in