First Amendment News

The Defense Department has not devoted the resources to adequately account for its spending as required by the bipartisan 2014 Digital Accountability and Transparency Act (DATA Act). The Trump administration has made compliance a priority, but the Pentagon’s inspector general said, “Specifically, for the second quarter of fiscal 2017, the [Defense] comptroller did not certify and submit complete award data, timely award data, accurate financial and award data, and quality financial and award data for

A report by Freedom House, November 14, 2017, reveals that online manipulations and lies influenced elections in at least 18 countries during the last year, hurting the  electorates’ ability to decide on issues and candidates on the basis of truthful information and legitimate debate. The 2016 presidential elections in the U.S. was marred by fake news articles, partisan vitriol and harassment of journalists. Paid commenters and bloggers are spreading fake news through the social media

The U.S. Supreme Court just added three First Amendment cases to its docket this term. It will consider a California case in which a state law required crisis pregnancy centers to inform clients that the state provides access to free or minimal cost abortions. In Lozman v. Riviera Beach the court will rule on whether a person arrested on probable cause for committing a crime can sue on grounds that the real reason for the

The Maine Secretary of State Matthew Dunlap is suing the voter fraud commission for not living up to its legislature mandate in the Federal Advisory Committee Act requiring it be bipartisan and transparent.  Dunlap claims he did not receive all documents in advance that were part of  a July meeting. Subsequently he was not asked to participate in fact gathering or analysis or for input on agendas or issues. Members of Congress have also been

In a notable departure from the give and take of academic debate, Stanford professor Mark Jacobson is suing fellow climate scientist Clark Clack and the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) for defamation. Jacobson was upset that after PNAS, Proceedings of NAS, ran a article written by Clack and others critical of Jacobson’s research, NAS failed to comply with Jacobson’s editorial suggestion. (techdirt, November 8, 2017, by Mike Masnick) The lawsuit filed on September 29 asks