August 12, 2024

The Courts

Consortium News: CN Condemns FBI Raid on CN Columnist’s Home

.....Consortium News condemns in the strongest terms the F.B.I. raid on the home of CN columnist Scott Ritter. 

Federal agents removed Ritter’s electronic equipment and numerous boxes of paper files from his Albany, N.Y. area home Thursday on suspicion that the former U.N. weapons inspector is violating the U.S. Foreign Agents Registration Act.

In a video posted to his Substack page, Ritter said that normally in alleged FARA violation cases the authorities send a letter to the subject of the inquiry informing them of the investigation. They do not send numerous F.B.I. agents to the door with a warrant to search and remove potential evidence.

The warrant, a copy of which Ritter posted, only called for electronic devices to be removed, but the agents, whom Ritter said acted professionally, also removed boxes of paper United Nations files from his days as a U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq in the 1990s. As Ritter says in the video, U.N. documents are never classified and could have nothing to do with the alleged FARA case against him.

“So the idea that, this is normal procedure is absurd in the extreme. I’m not a foreign agent. What I am is a journalist. And this is how we need to couch this entire thing. What the F.B.I. did yesterday, what the United States government did yesterday, was a frontal assault not only on free speech, but a free press,” Ritter said in the video. 

Center Square Illinois: Lawsuit: Illinois ‘Worker Freedom of Speech Act’ violates employers’ free speech rights

By Catrina Petersen

.....The Liberty Justice Center filed a First Amendment lawsuit to challenge a recently enacted Illinois law that would prohibit companies from holding mandatory meetings where “religious or political matters” are discussed.  

Congress

Just the News: House investigating whether foreign money flowing into Democrat coffers

By John Solomon

.....The chairman of the powerful House Administration Committee says his investigation into one of the Democrats' most successful political action committees has pivoted to whether foreigners may be laundering money into the 2024 election.

Rep. Bryan Steil, W-Wis., said his committee has identified individuals who claim they did not make the donations attributed to them in Federal Election Commission (FEC) reports filed by ActBlue. His committee, which oversees election integrity issues, has “activated a full investigation.”

“My concern is that individuals are outside the jurisdiction in the United States who may be engaged in this,” Steil told the "Just the News, No Noise" television show.

Online Speech Platforms

National Review: The Threat to Free Speech Posed by AI Bias Isn’t Artificial

By Lathan Watts

.....Google’s auto-complete feature for the search engine is hiding factual information about one of the biggest news events in American political history. This includes omitting keyword prompts on “assassination attempt on President Trump” from search engines. Google has admitted to the problem, which is the first step to recovery. Meta AI’s chatbot provides evasive answers to basic questions about the event and falsely flagged iconic images as “altered” on Facebook and Instagram.

We are witnessing the censorship–industrial complex in overdrive. When online search tools powered by AI-driven auto-complete algorithms cannot or will not provide factually relevant answers, it raises the specter that these companies are intentionally trying to manipulate public opinion. George Orwell coined the phrase “memory hole” for situations like these. It is as if the oligarchs of technology read Orwell’s dystopian prophecies not as cautionary tales warning against the dangers of concentrated power but as instruction manuals.

Daily Wire: Exclusive: Free Speech Alliance Warns Big Tech Not to Interfere In 2024 Election

By Luke Rosiak

.....A coalition of conservative groups is warning Big Tech companies to heed the lessons of 2020, and avoid interfering in the upcoming presidential election.

“In the 2020 election, we saw tech platforms bamboozled into performing extreme acts of censorship after a coordinated pressure campaign from government officials,” a coalition of more than 30 groups wrote to America’s 50 largest tech firms on Thursday. The coalition, led by the Media Research Center’s Free Speech Alliance, pointed in particular to tech platforms’ censorship of the Hunter Biden laptop story.

Candidates and Campaigns

The Hill: A Harris-Walz administration would be a nightmare for free speech

By Jonathan Turley

.....For over three years, the Biden-Harris administration has sustained an unrelenting attack on the freedom of speech, from supporting a massive censorship system (described by a federal court as an “Orwellian Ministry of Truth“) to funding blacklisting operations targeting groups and individuals with opposing views.  

President Biden made censorship a central part of his legacy, even accusing social media companies of “killing people” for failing to increase levels of censorship. Democrats in Congress pushed that agenda by demanding censorship on subjects ranging from climate change to gender identity — even to banking policy — in the name of combatting “disinformation.”

National Review: Actually, Tim Walz, the First Amendment Does Protect Misinformation and ‘Hate Speech’

By David Inserra and Jennifer Huddleston

.....While policy-makers and individuals may think they are protecting the public from potential harm or propaganda, laws that would allow the government to regulate misinformation would quickly risk trampling on the ability to discuss a wide array of political and social issues. The consensus about what is true regarding sensitive topics such as abortion, the Middle East, and the Covid-19 pandemic can change rapidly. In terms of misinformation, so much of what is called “misinformation” is simply information that individuals may disagree about or that may not be fully understood.

Donor Privacy

Townhall: In Today’s Climate of Angry Division, the Right to Donor Privacy Is More Important Than Ever

By Andrew Langer

.....In today’s political climate, the need to protect donor privacy is as critical as ever. We live in an era where even a small donation to a controversial cause can lead to severe personal consequences. The case of the paramedic whose $10 donation to a legal defense fund resulted in media harassment is a stark reminder of the dangers of donor disclosure. Such incidents create a chilling effect, discouraging individuals from supporting causes they believe in due to fear of retaliation.

The States

Colorado Politics: Divided appeals court strikes down campaign disclosure requirement in Colorado law

By Michael Karlik 

.....Colorado's second-highest court on Thursday concluded the state's requirement that ballot issue advocacy groups disclose the name of their legal representative on their election communications violates the First Amendment.

By 2-1, a three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals believed there was no material benefit to the public from knowing who the registered agents are for groups that advocate for or against ballot measures. Judge Jerry N. Jones, writing for the majority, noted Colorado is the only state with such a requirement in its campaign finance laws.

"The registered agent doesn’t have to be an organizer, officer, or employee of the issue committee," he wrote in the Aug. 1 opinion. The state's arguments "don’t even try to explain how knowing the name of the registered agent — as opposed to some other person with a closer connection to the issue committee — will actually assist voters."