This is the Daily Media Update published by the Institute for Free Speech. For press inquiries, please contact [email protected].
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New from the Institute for Free Speech
.....The U.S. Supreme Court has long recognized that the First Amendment allows pro bono lawyers to associate with clients for the purpose of litigating civil rights claims against the government. It shouldn’t matter whether free legal services happen to be offered by a nonprofit corporation.
Unfortunately, the Texas Ethics Commission (TEC) disagrees.
That’s why the Institute for Free Speech (IFS) filed a federal lawsuit against the TEC’s commissioners and executive director last week over the TEC’s ban on pro bono legal services for candidates and political committees. This ban stops organizations like IFS from advocating for the civil rights of such clients, imposing stiff civil and criminal penalties for violations. Attorneys for IFS, along with local counsel Tony McDonald and Connor Ellington of the Law Offices of Tony McDonald in Fort Worth, seek to overturn this ban.
IFS, a nonpartisan, nonprofit corporation, provides free legal representation to clients and litigates cases to promote and defend the political rights to free speech, press, assembly, and petition guaranteed by the First Amendment. However, Texas law prohibits corporations—including nonprofits like IFS—from making “in-kind contributions” to candidates and political committees. The TEC recently interpreted this ban to extend to pro bono litigation services, even when such services aim to challenge the constitutionality of state laws.
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The Courts
By Debra Vitagliano
.....Imagine being arrested, prosecuted, and thrown in prison for having a peaceful conversation on a public sidewalk in a free country. Most Americans probably don't think that could happen in their country, let alone their own neighborhood.
Unfortunately, that's a real possibility for life-affirming speakers in Westchester County, New York. A new law threatens to put people like me behind bars for speaking to vulnerable women about alternatives to abortion within 100 feet of an abortion clinic. I recently asked the Supreme Court to strike down that law and protect those who wish to serve women in crisis.
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By Jorja Siemons
.....Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. sued Google LLC for taking down YouTube videos of his comments that question the safety of Covid-19 vaccines.
The prominent anti-vaccine activist called the company’s medical misinformation policies “impermissibly vague” and said its video removal is “unconstitutional,” impeding his First Amendment right to free speech.
Kennedy filed a complaint against YouTube LLC and its parent company Google Wednesday in the US District Court for the Northern District of California. His lawsuit heavily criticized the Biden Administration, alleging officials worked with tech companies to “censor dissenting views"—including his—on the Covid-19 pandemic.
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By Brie Stimson
.....A federal judge Thursday temporarily blocked a new Illinois law that targeted crisis pregnancy centers, saying it violated free speech.
U.S. District Judge Iain Johnston, who was appointed by former President Trump, called the law "painfully and blatantly a violation of the First Amendment."
The ruling came after four hours of testimony from pro-life advocates who said the law had infringed on their free speech and ability to hand out literature that gives alternatives to abortion.
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By Elizabeth Nolan Brown
.....Idaho can't start prosecuting doctors for referring women to out-of-state clinics where they can get abortions, according to a new federal court ruling.
Judge B. Lynn Winmill of the U.S. District Court for the District of Idaho has granted a preliminary injunction against the state enforcing the law in this way…
Winmill agreed that criminalizing out-of-state referrals would violate the First Amendment. Doctors and clinics would "be forced to choose between facing criminal penalties themselves and offering referrals and information about legal out-of-state medicinal services to their patients," he wrote. "Simply put, their speech will be chilled."
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Trump Indictment
By Alan Feuer and Maggie Haberman
.....The federal prosecutors overseeing the indictment of former President Donald J. Trump on charges of seeking to overturn the 2020 election asked a judge on Friday night to impose a protective order over the discovery evidence in the case, citing a threatening message that Mr. Trump had posted on social media.
By mentioning the incendiary post in an otherwise routine request seeking to keep Mr. Trump from making evidence public, the prosecutors in the office of the special counsel, Jack Smith, were drawing the attention of the judge, Tanya S. Chutkan, to Mr. Trump’s longstanding habit of attacking those involved in criminal cases against him.
Hours later, Mr. Trump’s campaign responded with a statement calling the post “the definition of political speech.” The statement suggested that the post had not been directed at anyone involved in the election interference case, saying it was meant for Mr. Trump’s political adversaries.
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By Jonathan Turley
.....In order to secure convictions for this, Special Counsel Jack Smith would need to bulldoze through not just the First Amendment but also existing case law holding that even false statements are protected.
The government acknowledges that the Constitution protects false statements made in campaigns, but it insists that Trump must have known that his statements were false and therefore was engaged in fraudulent statements to obstruct or challenge electoral results.
As a threshold matter, one problem is immediately evident. If Trump actually did (or does) believe that he did not lose the election, the indictment collapses.
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Free Expression
By Shannon Dawson
.....Members of the ACLU, the NAACP and various civil rights organizations are calling on the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to change the way they investigate and classify individuals protesting the controversial Cop City training center in Atlanta.
On July 27, the social and civil justice groups sent a letter to the DHS demanding for the department to change its “domestic violence extremism label” for protestors. They also urged for the agency to review its standards for “collecting and disseminating information” about those involved in the ongoing fight to stop Cop City.
In the letter, which was written to DHS director Alejandro Mayorkas, the organizations argued that the department’s “inadequate” protocols could hurt protestors, particularly those who already come from heavily policed communities.
“These events are the latest example of inadequate DHS protections for people’s constitutional rights as they starkly illustrate the dangers of DHS’s use of vague, overbroad, and stigmatizing terms like “domestic violent extremist” and “militant” to describe individuals who may be engaged in protected First Amendment activity,” the letter read.
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By Robert Klemko
.....With varying degrees of antagonism and legal expertise, the online movement known as cop-watching or First Amendment auditing has swelled in popularity in recent years, capturing the imaginations of millions of Americans who are examining their relationship with policing after George Floyd’s murder at the hands of police in Minneapolis in 2020.
Cop-watchers and auditors say they’re waking up an over-policed nation to its plight. They’re forcing police and government agencies to train their workers to respect First Amendment rights and are willing to risk arrest in the process. A few also are cashing in — experts say the most popular auditors can earn more than $150,000 a month through ads and subscriptions on YouTube, Facebook and TikTok.
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The States
By Lena Geller
.....At the request of several elected officials, Durham city attorney Kimberly Rehberg last month asked Wikipedia to unmask the identities of users who have published accurate but unfavorable information about said officials to the crowdsourced encyclopedia—a move that experts call inappropriate and troubling.
In a certified letter to the Wikimedia Foundation dated June 29 and obtained by the INDY last week, Rehberg explained that she was writing at the “express request” of Mayor Elaine O’Neal and city council members DeDreana Freeman and Monique Holsey-Hyman, each of whom took issues with content on their Wikipedia pages.
Rehberg said the three officials wanted the real names of volunteer contributors “Willthacheerleader18,” “Mako001,” and “Johnson524” and asked Wikipedia to permanently prohibit an image of O’Neal’s facsimile signature from appearing on the site.
O’Neal is not seeking a second term. But for Freeman, who recently announced a mayoral run, and Holsey-Hyman, who was appointed to the council last year and is running to keep her seat, the unmasking requests appear to be a pre-election attempt to clean up web pages that prominently feature allegations of misconduct.
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By Amber Carlson
.....A judge on the Colorado Court of Appeals issued a decision Thursday on a high-profile defamation lawsuit that parties have said may have consequences for free speech.
Steven Rosenblum filed the original 2021 lawsuit in Boulder District Court, claiming that a number of local political organizers conspired to defame him while he campaigned for a seat on Boulder City Council that fall.
Attorneys on behalf of the organizers have argued the lawsuit was meant to silence Rosenblum’s adversaries, and they filed a special motion to dismiss the case based on a 2019 Colorado law targeting strategic lawsuits against public participation, or SLAPP suits. However, the Boulder District Court denied the motion to dismiss the lawsuit, and the case went to the state Court of Appeals in March 2022.
In Thursday’s opinion, Judge Terry Fox ruled that Rosenblum had established a “reasonable probability of success at trial” on his claims of misappropriation and defamation against Eric Budd, one of the organizers, but had failed to do so for his third claim of civil conspiracy against Budd and other organizers.
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By Rob Borkowski
“First, I’d like to congratulate Councilwoman Donna Travis. Another front page of the Providence Journal,” Cote said during the first two sentences into his public comment time. The article concerned a property dispute Travis is involved in.
“You will be talking about city government, or you will be leaving,” said Travis.
“This is about city government,” Cote said.
“Stick to a topic about city government or else you’ll be escorted out,” Travis said.
“This is about city government. It’s actually mentioned about the Warwick City Council…”
“Did you hear what I just said?” Travis interrupted.
“OK,” Cote replied.
“I don’t care, any one of the council people, you do not take attack to, stick to a city government issue, and then we’ll go forward.” Travis said.
“This is about city government issues. We have an elected official…”
“OK, somebody want to take him out?” Travis said.
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The Institute for Free Speech is a nonpartisan, nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization that promotes and defends the political rights to free speech, press, assembly, and petition guaranteed by the First Amendment. Please support the Institute's mission by clicking here. For further information, visit www.ifs.org.
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