The Latest News from the Institute for Free Speech May 24, 2024 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]. The Courts New York Times: Political Consultant Who Orchestrated Fake Biden Robocalls Is Indicted By Maggie Astor .....Grand juries in four New Hampshire counties have indicted a Democratic consultant who admitted to orchestrating robocalls in January that used an artificial-intelligence impersonation of President Biden to urge Democrats not to vote in the state’s presidential primary. The consultant, Steven Kramer, faces about two dozen counts split between impersonating a candidate, a misdemeanor, and voter suppression, a felony. Each pair of charges is tied to a specific voter who received the robocall. The indictments were handed up over the past month, and the New Hampshire attorney general, John M. Formella, announced them on Thursday. Separately on Thursday, the Federal Communications Commission fined Mr. Kramer $6 million for trying to “defraud voters using call spoofing technology that violates the Truth in Caller ID Act.” Colorado Politics: Federal judge finds constitutional challenge to Colorado's charitable solicitation law not viable By Michael Karlik .....A company that solicits charitable donations for nonprofits cannot continue its constitutional challenge to Colorado's regulations because it no longer faces a prohibition on operating in the state, a federal judge ruled last week. InfoCision Management Corporation, located in Akron, Ohio, alleged a portion of Colorado's Charitable Solicitations Act unconstitutionally infringed upon its free speech rights as a company that is paid to make solicitations. U.S. District Court Senior Judge William J. Martínez previously sided against InfoCision, prompting an appeal. But while the appeal was pending, Secretary of State Jena Griswold allowed InfoCision to re-register as a paid solicitor in Colorado. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit sent the case back to Martínez and asked him to determine if the lawsuit was now moot. In a May 14 order, Martínez concluded it was. "In this case," he wrote, "a declaration that the Act is facially unconstitutional simply cannot affect the Secretary’s behavior toward InfoCision because she has already registered it as a charitable solicitor in Colorado." National Taxpayers Union Foundation: NTUF Brief Claims Excessive Data Collection Violates Privacy Rights By Tyler Martinez .....On May 20, we filed an amicus curiae (“friend of the court”) brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, arguing against the IRS’s use of the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA) to engage in extensive data collection... We also warn about the privacy implications of the CTA. Financial records are deeply personal, and the CTA poses significant privacy concerns by disseminating such information across multiple government departments without the stringent protections usually afforded to tax data collected by the IRS. Our brief highlights that while nonprofit organizations are exempt from disclosing their donor lists, the requirement for donors to register their activities under the CTA undermines the right to private association. We highlight that this level of data collection has historical precedence in infringing on privacy rights, impacting groups ranging from civil rights organizations to individuals like police officers. Congress KSL: Senate panels launch probe into alleged Trump 'quid pro quo' with energy execs By Valerie Volcovici, Reuters .....The U.S. Senate finance and budget committees on Thursday launched an investigation into presidential candidate Donald Trump's reported offer to roll back a slew of environmental regulations in exchange for $1 billion in campaign contributions. The announcement comes a week after the top Democratic lawmaker on a U.S. House oversight panel sought information from nine oil companies about reports about "quid pro quo propositions" made by the former president at a campaign event this spring at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. R Street: On AI and Elections, Feds Should Stick to Supporting Local Election Officials Instead of Restricting Political Speech By Chris McIsaac .....At their core, laws that regulate the use of AI in election communications are establishing a speech restriction that may violate the First Amendment. While it’s true that the U.S. Supreme Court has previously accepted the use of disclosures and disclaimers to inform the public about things like sources of funding for campaign advertisements, imposing such requirements based on the truthfulness of the communication and the technology used to generate it is a fundamentally different issue. Similarly, speech prohibitions that take the same approach of assessing truthfulness and technology should face even more constitutional scrutiny. Even if legal, there is no guarantee these laws will be effective. ACLU: ACLU Statement on Latest Congressional Attempt to Dismantle Free Speech Online .....“Section 230 has created space for social movements; enabled platforms to host the speech of activists and organizers; and allowed users and content creators on sites like Instagram, TikTok, and Twitch to reach an audience and make a living,” said Jenna Leventoff, senior policy counsel at the ACLU. “If this vital protection is taken away, people could find their voices censored, especially when talking about ideas that are under political attack today: race and racism, sexuality, and gender justice. Platforms must be able to host user speech without the threat of constant lawsuits.” Free Expression Racket News: FOIA Library: The University of Washington By Matt Taibbi .....After learning in the Twitter Files that many if not most federal contracts for anti-disinformation work are not public, in some cases not even in Inspector General reports, Racket hooked up with the Substack author UndeadFOIA to find out what we could via Freedom of Information requests. A year and hundreds of requests later, the handful of researcher names we began with proved more ubiquitous than expected. “The thing that I found shocking,” says UndeadFOIA, “is how the same people seem to be involved in every facet of the anti-disinformation space. It doesn’t matter what University you go to or what program name it’s under, it’s the same people that pop up over and over.” ... Racket readers will be able to access files in the form in which we received them at this FOIA library. Stories coming out on Racket today are based on results from two requests to UW. The full document sets are posted below. We have roughly twenty more like this and more on the way. We’re currently in litigation for two requests involving the Department of Homeland Security, and Undead believes “we’re going to get productions on those next month.” The States NBC News: Arizona lawmaker uses ChatGPT to help craft legislation to combat deepfakes By Alex Tabet .....A Republican member of the Arizona House used ChatGPT to help craft legislation on artificial intelligence-driven impersonations, which was signed into law by Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs earlier this week. State Rep. Alex Kolodin used the AI software to help define “digital impersonation” in Arizona’s new law, which aims to regulate deepfake technology. House Bill 2394, which Hobbs signed into law Tuesday, gives Arizona politicians and other residents the ability to get a court order declaring that the person in the deepfake is not them. Statehouse News Bureau: Republican leaders can't agree on bill to ban foreign money in Ohio ballot campaigns By Karen Kasler .....A Republican push to ban foreign contributions to ballot issue campaigns before a constitutional amendment on redistricting likely comes before Ohio voters this fall appears to have stalled for now - though Republicans hold supermajorities in both the House and Senate. But the leaders in those chambers aren't in agreement on how to do it. 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." 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