First Amendment News

The Environmental Protection Agency refused to admit the Associated Press and CNN to their summit on harmful water impurities even going to the extreme of shoving the AP reporter from the EPA building. A recent Harvard study found that 6 million Americans are drinking water containing Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl chemicals linked to thyroid defects, pregnancy problems and cancer. (Courthouse News Service, May 22, 2018, by Brad Kutner) EPA chief Scott Pruitt said drinking water purity

The attorney representing a porn star in a lawsuit against President Donald Trump may have to testify in court about how he obtained financial records of Trump lawyer Michael Cohen. Attorney Michael Avenatti obtained the records from a whistleblower in law enforcement and published them. (Legal Insurrection, May 19, 2018, by William A. Jacobson) Avenatti appears to be on shaky legal grounds in arguing he does not have to reveal his source based on the

The New Jersey state appeals court ruled that the state’s public records laws were available to any U.S. citizen. The panel concluded that the word “citizens” applied to the public nationwide not just New Jersey residents. (NJ.com, May 19, 2018, by Christopher Baxter of  NJ Advance Media) The U.S. Supreme Court weighed in on the issue in 2013 when they ruled unanimously that public records laws in Virginia could bar out-of-state citizens from obtaining government

The National Rifle Association lost a bid to keep secret the names of 19-year-olds bringing a lawsuit against the new Florida law establishing the minimum age for gun purchase at 21. A federal district judge said there were no exceptional circumstances as the teen-agers are not children or at risk of exposing sensitive personal information. (Bloomberg News,  May 15, 2018, by Erik Larson) Judge Mark Walker said harassment could be expected in any Second Amendment

A law enforcement official in the Treasury Department said he leaked Michael Cohen’s financial records after he discovered that two important reports on Cohen’s financial activity were missing from a government database. No one knows why the records are missing, and there are no set procedures for removing reports from the suspicious-activity records (SARs) database holding the Cohen financial records. (The New Yorker, May 16, 2018, by Ronan Farrow) SARs contain bank reports of suspicious