September 12, 2023

The Courts

Wall Street Journal: A Rebuke to Biden-Tech Censorship

By The Editorial Board

.....The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Friday against federal officials for colluding with tech platforms to suppress speech, but you’d hardly know it from the limited press coverage. The decision in Missouri v. Biden deserves more attention because it defines the constitutional limits to coordination between government and private actors and may be headed to the Supreme Court.

Center Square: Lawsuit challenges Minnesota election speech code

By Scott McClallen

.....A lawsuit challenges a new law allowing civil fines for certain speech within 60 days of an election. 

The Liberty Justice Center and the Upper Midwest Law Center, national public interest law firms, filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court of Minnesota.

The lawsuit targeting Attorney General Keith Ellison says a new state law active June 15, allegedly criminalizes political speech.

The plaintiffs argue House File 28 violates Minnesotans’ free speech rights by outlawing speech about undecided legal questions, such as whether the state’s constitution allows felons the right to vote before their sentences have ended, rather than afterward.

WPRI: Consent order issued in 1st Amendment fight with Warwick City Council

By Kate Wilkinson

.....The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Rhode Island has announced that the Warwick City Council has agreed to let a resident speak during its Sept. 18 meeting after he was escorted out by police during a previous public comment period.

But the organization told Target 12 it plans to see the lawsuit through until it gets “permanent relief” for resident Rob Cote.

Video of the July 17 city council meeting gained the attention of First Amendment advocates after it took Councilwoman Donna Travis less than a minute to decide to kick out Cote.

Cote is seen walking up to the podium and showing a newspaper.

“Just a little about some local politics and I have some official city documents I’d like to share, but first I’d like to congratulate Councilwoman Travis,” Cote said. “Another front page of the Providence Journal.”

Cote was planning to discuss a Providence Journal article about a property dispute involving Travis, but the councilwoman stopped him.

“You will be talking about city government, or you’ll be leaving,” she stated.

There was a brief back-and-forth before Travis called over a police officer, who walked Cote out of the room.

Ed.note: Read the consent order here.

Congress

Philanthropy Roundtable: Philanthropy Roundtable Submits Response to House Ways and Means Committee Inquiry

By Cameron Gambini

.....On September 7, 2023, Philanthropy Roundtable provided information in response to the House Ways and Means Committee’s “Request for Information: Understanding and Examining the Political Activities of Tax-Exempt Organizations.” 

While we understand the serious concerns raised by recent media reports about the interference by foreign nationals in American politics, the Roundtable wrote to urge the committee to exercise caution when considering disclosure-based policy solutions that may very well hurt the generous charitable community. Our nation’s vibrant landscape of nonprofit organizations includes everything from local food banks and nationwide housing charities to international disaster relief groups. This vast network has long represented a tradition of American citizens voluntarily joining hand in hand to address concerns and uplift communities throughout our country.  

Fox Business: Lawmakers back Google policy to require AI disclosures from political advertisers

By Adam Shaw and Elizabeth Elkind 

.....Some lawmakers in the House and Senate are backing a move by Google announced last week that will require political campaigns to disclose if they are using artificial intelligence in their political advertisements…

Google announced an updated political content policy on Wednesday that will take place in November and require election advertisers on YouTube and other Google platforms to prominently disclose when their ads "contain synthetic content that inauthentically depicts real or realistic-looking people or events."

Free Expression

National Review: The ACLU’s Free-Speech Sophistry Comes to Princeton

By Matthew Wilson

.....Today’s enemies of free speech and civil liberties, [ACLU executive director Anthony] Romero told Princeton freshmen, are those who deny the “right to gender-affirming health care,” those “attacking critical race theory,” and proponents of Florida’s so-called Don’t Say Gay law. According to Romero, these are the real “freedom-of-expression issues” of our day — the work of right-wing villains who want our society to “go back to the medieval period.”...

He also bragged — to cheers and applause from students — about the ACLU’s record, under his leadership, of “suing the Trump administration 434 times.” When Eisgruber asked him about his position on “cancel culture,” Romero declined to offer an unqualified repudiation, instead telling students that there is “an element of the response of cancel culture” that is “positive” because “we shouldn’t put up with,” among other things, oppressive structures of “heteronormativity” and “the patriarchy that’s just bludgeoning people’s gender identities.”

Where even to begin? Romero’s purported defense of free speech was chock-full of pure sophistry and was altogether tainted by his naked ideological commitments. In associating the value of free speech with its perceived ability to serve his progressive social agenda, Romero butchered the real importance of preserving a robust free-speech culture on college campuses.

AI

Washington Post: Nvidia, Palantir and more companies join White House AI pledge

By Cat Zakrzewski

.....Eight tech companies, including Salesforce and Nvidia, are signing on to the White House’s voluntary artificial intelligence pledge, joining a roster of prominent firms that have agreed to mitigate the risks of AI, as Washington policymakers continue to debate new regulation of the emerging technology.

Fifteen of the most influential companies in the United States have now taken the commitments, which include a promise to develop technology to identify AI-generated images and a vow to share data about safety with the government and academics...

The White House meeting comes a day before Schumer is scheduled to meet with Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and a host of other technologists and civil liberties advocates about the Senate’s plans to regulate AI. IBM and Palantir are expected to attend both the White House meeting and the summit with Schumer.

Politico: Prepare yourself. A Donald Trump chatbot is about to be unleashed.

By Ben Schreckinger

.....On Wednesday, [a project called Chat2024] will officially unveil the AI-powered avatars of 17 leading presidential candidates. Each one is a chatbot trained on reams of data generated from at least a hundred sources, like candidates’ video appearances and writings. Users can query the bots individually, ask the same question of all 17 at once, or set any two of them against each other in one-on-one debates directed by user input.

Based on DFD’s preliminary testing of the avatars on Chat2024.com, which has gone live ahead of the project’s official launch, the bots aren’t exactly the AI overlords that some tech critics fear could soon rule humanity. But credible AI replicas of society’s would-be leaders do amount to a step in that direction.

The States

Boston Globe: Attorney general in settlement negotiations with state GOP, senator over alleged campaign finance violations

By Matt Stout and Emma Platoff

.....Attorney General Andrea J. Campbell‘s office is negotiating a potential settlement with the Massachusetts Republican Party, its former leader, and a GOP state senator, among others, over alleged campaign finance violations, according to two people familiar with the discussions, signaling the years-long probe could be nearing a close.

Campaign finance regulators first referred evidence to prosecutors in the spring of 2021 that then-MassGOP chair Jim Lyons, as well as state Senator Ryan Fattman and Worcester County register of probate Stephanie Fattman, both Sutton Republicans, may have violated various campaign finance laws during the 2020 election, including those barring people from disguising the true source of donations.

Regulators have not publicly stated which donations they were scrutinizing, but during the timeline they identified as containing the alleged violations, Ryan Fattman made a series of rapid-fire donations from his campaign account to the state party totaling roughly $137,000. Then, the state GOP spent similar if not identical amounts to help Stephanie Fattman, his wife, in her successful reelection bid.