The Latest News from the Institute for Free Speech October 19, 2023 Click here to subscribe to the Daily Media Update. This is the Daily Media Update published by the Institute for Free Speech. For press inquiries, please contact [email protected]. Ed. note: The Daily Media Update will return Tuesday, October 24. In the News "Short Circuit" Podcast: Short Circuit 294 | A Blast from the Past .....IJ attorney Paul Sherman joins us to share his campaign finance expertise in a case that we don’t see much of anymore: a campaign finance case. It’s a Tenth Circuit opinion that updates the law a bit on campaign finance matters and also features a radio ad that Paul does his best to emulate. Ed. note: Discussion of IFS case Wyoming Gun Owners v. Gray begins at 24:39. The Courts ABC News: Twitter influencer sentenced for trying to trick Clinton supporters into voting by text By Aaron Katersky .....Douglass Mackey, the social media influencer known as "Ricky Vaughn," was sentenced Wednesday to seven months in prison for falsely assuring supporters of Hillary Clinton they could cast their vote in the 2016 presidential election through text messages or social media posts. Mackey was prosecuted under the Ku Klux Klan Act that was enacted during the Reconstruction era in response to efforts by the KKK to prevent recently emancipated Blacks from voting... Federal prosecutors in New York said Mackey was intent on originating hashtags designed to "cause as much chaos as possible" by creating "controversy ... for the sole purpose of disparaging Hillary Clinton." ... According to court records, one tweet featured an image of a Black woman in front of a poster for "African Americans for Hillary," with a message saying, "Avoid the line. Vote from home," along with a number to text. Reuters: Sam Bankman-Fried directed political donations despite $13 bln 'hole', ex-colleague testified By Luc Cohen .....Sam Bankman-Fried directed that money from his Alameda Research hedge fund be used to make political donations after he learned the fund owed $13 billion to customers of his FTX cryptocurrency exchange, a former executive testified on Monday. Nishad Singh, the third former member of Bankman-Fried's inner circle to testify against him at his fraud trial, said he learned about the shortfall in September 2022 and confronted Bankman-Fried in an hourlong conversation on the balcony of the $35 million Bahamas penthouse they shared. Singh said Bankman-Fried assured him he would raise more funds and cut costs. But in the meantime, Singh said he continued to receive transfers from Alameda and allow Bankman-Fried associates to use the money to donate to U.S. Democratic candidates and causes in what he called a "straw donor" scheme. Washington Post: Lawyers, Trump and money: Ex-president spends millions in donor cash on attorneys as legal woes grow By Richard Lardner, Trenton Daniel, and Aaron Kessler .....Donald Trump’s political fundraising machine is raking in donations at a prodigious pace, but he’s spending tens of millions of dollars he’s bringing in to pay attorneys to deal with the escalating costs of the various criminal cases he is contending with as he moves further into the 2024 presidential campaign. Campaign finance experts say using the money to pay for lawyers in cases not related to the campaign or officeholder duties appears to conflict with a federal ban on the personal use of donor dollars, even though the Federal Election Commission has ruled the prohibition doesn’t apply to so-called leadership political action committees. Congress Washington Post: Lawmakers demand answers from Bezos about election misinformation on Alexa By Cat Zakrzewski and Caroline O'Donovan .....Lawmakers on Wednesday pressed Amazon founder Jeff Bezos on the company’s plans to prevent the spread of misinformation ahead of the 2024 election, citing a Washington Post report that the company’s voice assistant Alexa spread false claims that the 2020 election was stolen. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, the Senate Rules and Administration Committee chair, and Rep. Joseph Morelle, the top Democrat on the House Administration Committee, asked Bezos in a letter to explain what steps have been taken to improve the accuracy of Alexa’s responses. The Minnesota and New York Democrats also pressed Bezos on how the company is vetting responses that cite Alexa users as source material — especially when the inquiries are related to elections. Free Expression New York Post: With new declaration, luminaries warn that online censorship is destroying freedom By Miranda Devine .....[A] group of 136 academics, historians and journalists from the left, right and center of the political spectrum have come together to warn President Biden that this rapidly growing censorship regime “undermines the foundational principles of representative democracy.” In their “Westminster Declaration,” released Wednesday, the international group points out that the best way to combat actual disinformation is with free speech. “Open discourse is the central pillar of a free society, and is essential for holding governments accountable, empowering vulnerable groups, and reducing the risk of tyranny … We do not want our children to grow up in a world where they live in fear of speaking their minds.” The eclectic group that has signed the declaration to fight censorship includes Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson, UK biologist Richard Dawkins, NYU social psychologist Jonathan Haidt, Julian Assange, the Australian founder of WikiLeaks, actor Tim Robbins, evolutionary biologist Bret Weinstein, economist Glenn Loury, filmmaker Oliver Stone, whistleblower Edward Snowden, British comedian John Cleese, Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek, British journalist Matt Ridley, Stanford professor Jay Bhattacharya, Harvard professor of medicine Martin Kulldorf, Australian journalist Adam Creighton, French science journalist Xavier Azalbert and German filmmaker Robert Cibis. New York Times: After Writing an Anti-Israel Letter, Harvard Students Are Doxxed By Anemona Hartocollis .....A coalition of more than 30 student groups posted an open letter on the night of the Hamas attack, saying that Israel was “entirely responsible” for the violence that ended up killing more than 1,400 people, most of them civilians. The letter, posted on social media before the extent of the killings was known, did not include the names of individual students. But within days, students affiliated with those groups were being doxxed, their personal information posted online. Siblings back home were threatened. Wall Street executives demanded a list of student names to ban their hiring. And a truck with a digital billboard — paid for by a conservative group — circled Harvard Square, flashing student photos and names, under the headline, “Harvard’s Leading Antisemites.” ... Complicating it all: outside groups, influential alumni and big-money donors, who are putting maximum pressure on students and administrators. Reason (Volokh Conspiracy): My Move to Yale Law School By Keith E. Whittington .....After spending more than two decades in the Department of Politics at Princeton University, I'm pleased to announce that I will joining the faculty of Yale Law School in the fall of 2024. At YLS, I also expect to be the faculty director of a new center focused on academic freedom and free speech issues. First Amendment News: What’s wrong with First Amendment casebooks? Where to begin? First Amendment News 399 By Ronald K.L. Collins .....Below are seven reasons, among others, why I think most First Amendment casebooks are inadequate in preparing law students to practice in this area of law, which is expanding. The States Reason: Defamation Lawsuit Against Afroman Filed by Ohio Cops Will Partially Proceed By C.J. Ciaramella .....The rapper Afroman will have to continue to defend himself against a defamation lawsuit filed by Ohio sheriff's deputies who raided his house after a judge allowed some of the deputies' claims to proceed. In a ruling last week, an Ohio county judge dismissed two of the deputies' claims against Afroman, best known for his 2000 hit "Because I Got High," finding that the rapper's commentary was protected artistic speech. However, the judge allowed three other claims to proceed, finding that it was not outside the realm of possibility that the deputies could prove they were entitled to relief. People United for Privacy: Fighting for Privacy Reform in Kansas By Luke Wachob .....On October 3, People United for Privacy (PUFP) urged the Kansas Legislature to reform state law to better protect privacy and free speech for nonprofits and their supporters. In public comments submitted to the Special Committee on Governmental Ethics Reform, Campaign Finance Law, PUFP recommended improvements to three areas of the state’s campaign finance law that impact personal privacy rights. “The issues that we focus on in these recommendations concern requirements for organizations to publicly report their donors. Donors to nonprofit organizations have a First Amendment-protected right to associational privacy,” explained PUFP Vice President Matt Nese and Counsel Eric Wang. Nantucket Current: Nantucket Reps Take Aim At "Dark Money" Influencing Town Meetings By Jason Graziadei .....Nantucket's state representatives are taking aim at so-called "dark money" that they say is influencing voters at Town Meetings on Cape Cod and the islands. The legislation filed by state Sen. Julian Cyr and state Rep. Dylan Fernandes would close a longstanding loophole in state campaign and political finance law that allows "unfettered political influence on warrant articles before voters at Town Meetings," the lawmakers stated on Tuesday as they announced the bill. Read an article you think we would be interested in? Send it to Tiffany Donnelly at [email protected]. For email filters, the subject of this email will always begin with "Institute for Free Speech Media Update." 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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