First Amendment News

In announcing The 2018 Jefferson Muzzles for 2018, in defense of free speech in the U.S., the Thomas Jefferson Center wrote, “At all levels of government, we observed actions meant to silence unpopular and unorthodox voices, often in direct contradiction of clearly established laws. This year’s awards, then, are our small act of protest against those high and petty officials determined to treat this fundamental feature of free speech as a flaw.” Out of seven

Matthew Schafer of BuzzFeed, May 7, 2018,  writes that the Trump administration has stepped up federal government’s war on transparency, highlighted by the Justice Department deleting a section, “Need for Free Press and Public Trial” from its guidelines and placing more emphasis on a presumption of secrecy. It’s expected that the changes will usher in even more  trials conducted in secrecy. Tim Cushing of Techdirt, May 7, 2018, reports that the Defense Department is not

Government watchdogs are asking Google to disable its self destruct feature on government g-mail accounts. The feature allows users to send messages that vaporize after a set time period. Government workers could use the feature to destroy public records before reporters can obtain them. (MotherBoard, May 4, 2018, by Mack DeGeurin) Google added the feature April 25 to allow users to protect confidential and sensitive content, but open government activists feared that the feature would

The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals executed an end-run on the U.S. Supreme Court 2010 Citizens United ruling in upholding a Montana law that established limits on political contributions. The Supreme Court ruled that evidence of trading money for votes was need to justify contribution limits, but the Ninth Circuit came up with a more lenient standard citing evidence in Montana of a legislator telling others to vote a certain way to keep contributions

Stormy Daniels’ libel suit against President Donald Trump for claiming that her claim she was threatened over their consensual sexual liaison was “a total con job” constitutes a unique attempt to make it easier for women to bring sexual abuse lawsuits against prominent men. The lawsuit contends that in making the charge Trump accused Daniels, aka Stephanie Clifford, of committing the crime of falsely accusing another person of a crime when there was no such