First Amendment News

A federal appeals court ruled that employees at the Allegheny County Port Authority could wear Black Lives Matter masks at work, stating that “the government may limit the speech of its employees more than it may limit the speech of the public, but those limits must still comport with the protections of the First Amendment.” They ruled the port authority shouldered the burden of proving that the policy did not violate free speech rights and

With the world awash in lies, fact-checking projects have increased dramatically from 168 in 2016 to 391 in 2021. Leader of the International Fact-Checking Network, Baybars Orsek, noted the importance of fact-checking, “Our collective trust in reliable and authoritative information is being attacked by people in power. Their manipulation of truth makes people vulnerable to bad actors capitalizing on their lack of access to quality information for their own benefits. Autocratic governments and strongmen around

Its content-neutral nature did not save Fort Myers Beach ordinance from an 11th Circuit Court of Appeals decision that the law violated freedom of speech. A street preacher sued the town after he was fined for displaying signs with religious messages. The court found the ordinance too restrictive in eliminating a traditional American practice. (Courthouse News Service, June 28, 2022, by Megan Butler) The court noted, “a Fort Myers Beach resident may not hold a

In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, pro-choice advocates are concerned that states will use online postings in criminal prosecutions. The National Right to Life Committee has written model legislation prohibiting “instructions over the telephone, the internet, or any other medium of communication” or “hosting or maintaining a website, or providing internet service, that encourages or facilitates efforts to obtain an illegal abortion.” (The Verge, June 25, 2022, by

Journalists covering the school massacre in Uvalde, Texas have been treated as enemies by police, threatened with arrest and harassed by self-appointed “Guradians of the Children.” In attempting to get at the details of the poor police response to the shootings, reporters have been barred from public meetings and refused information about how the police conducted themselves on May 24. (The Washington Post, June 28, 2022, by Arelis R. Hernandez and Paul Farhi) Reporters are