First Amendment News

The website-hosting company DreamHost is contesting a D.C. Superior Court search warrant for the identities of those who posted or visited the website direuptj20.org before the Inauguration Day protests. The Justice Department is investigating events surrounding the arrests of hundreds some of whom committed acts of violence during the inauguration. DreamHost claims the warrant is overbroad and designed to identify political opponents of the current administration. (Courthouse News Service, August 15, 2017, by Tim Ryan)

Three U.S. Supreme Court decisions provide rules for groups wanting to speak and demonstrate in public spaces on highly charged issues such as racial discrimination. In the 1969 Brandenburg v Ohio decision, the justices said,  “Freedoms of speech and press do not permit a State to forbid advocacy of the use of force or of law violation except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite

The American Civil Liberties Union is suing the Washington Area Transit Authority on behalf of a right-wing activist, an abortion provider and an animal rights group contesting that their ban on offensive ads was viewpoint-based and unconstitutional. (Courthouse News Service, August 10, 2010, by Laura Bittner) The Metro also rejected an ad by the ACLU itself, the text of the First Amendment in three languages including Arabic. The Metro claimed it had changed its ad

A bid to find Minnesota restriction on robocalls unconstitutional suffered a setback in the Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals when the court rejected a request for an injunction. The court said that the exceptions to the law did not constitute viewpoint discrimination but were based on an assumption of implied consent.” (Constitutional Law Prof Blog, August 6, 2017, by Steven D. Schwinn) Bringing the lawsuit against Minnesota, a political consultant, whose company used robocalls

The alt-right is fuming at Google’s firing of an employee who wrote a 10-page memo on womens’ deficiencies in performing certain tech jobs. The man said he was told he was fired for “perpetuating gender stereotypes.” Conservative critics are protesting the move as a violation of free speech. (Forbes, August 8, 2017, by Clare O”Connor) Under current U.S. legal practice, employers can fire employees on any grounds so long as it is not discriminatory or