First Amendment News

Washington state’s cyberbullying law may stray into prohibiting criticism of politicians central to democracy with its provision banning obscene or anonymous electronic communications intended to embarrass someone. (Electronic Frontier Foundation, August 22, 2017, by Rebecca Jeshke) EFF opposes the law for being over-broad and criminalizing speech on the internet. It filed an amicus brief in a case, State v. Boyajian, seeking the end to the cyberbullying law. (Electronic Frontier Foundation, December 16, 2015, by Adam

Margaret Sullivan of The Washington Post, August 16, 2017, argues that in its drive to appear even-handed, during the 2016 presidential election, the press too often equated Hillary Clinton’s failings with those of Donald Trump, a false equivalency. Trump’s recent attempt to find equivalence between the white supremacists and the leftest opposition further highlights the perils of even-handed reporting. Sullivan writes that reporters need to worry less about “objectivity” and concentrate on truth-telling wherever that

The editor of a legal blog has sued the Department of Justice to verify his conviction that President Donald Trump lied before a joint session of Congress when he said, “According to data provided by the Department of Justice, the vast majority of individuals convicted of terrorism and terrorism-related offenses since 9/11 came here from outside of our country.” Benjamin Wittes filed a Freedom of Information Act request in April for any communications between the

In the wake of the Charlottesville car attack, Reddit and Facebook are removing hate groups from their venues. Reddit removed r/Physical_Removal, a site that advocates concentration camps, racial segregation and included the wish that CNN would be bombed and the threat that if Trump is impeached people would be massacred and maimed and left to die in the streets. This year Facebook   banned eight hate groups and this weekend removed the Charlottesville Unite the Right

Suspecting that the Energy Department study of energy sources is primed to undermine  the position of renewable energy such as wind and solar, the Sierra Club is suing the department for ignoring its Freedom of Information Act request last May for the identities of groups they spoke with in conducting their study. (Reuters, August 14, 2017, by Timothy Gardner) The Sierra Club wants to demonstrate that the Energy Department study was biased in claiming that