The Latest News from the Institute for Free Speech August 13, 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]. New from the Institute for Free Speech Institute for Free Speech Fights to Safeguard Attorney Fees for Civil Rights Plaintiffs .....The Institute for Free Speech has filed an amicus brief in Lackey v. Stinnie urging the Supreme Court to affirm that civil rights plaintiffs who obtain precedent-setting preliminary relief are “prevailing parties” entitled to attorney fees under federal law, even if their cases later become moot. The Institute argues that denying fees in such cases contradicts Congress’s intent to encourage civil rights litigation through fee-shifting statutes. The Institute is joined in its brief by several other prominent public-interest organizations, including the Cato Institute, Southeastern Legal Foundation, New Civil Liberties Alliance, Liberty Justice Center, Second Amendment Foundation, and the National Rifle Association of America. Biden Administration The Hill: Want more freedom of speech? Try less government. By Jonathan Turley .....The Biden Administration has made speech regulation a priority in targeting disinformation, misinformation or malinformation. President Joe Biden even said that companies refusing to censor citizens were “killing people.” His administration has now created an anti-free speech record that is only rivaled by the Adams Administration, which used the Alien and Sedition Acts to arrest political opponents. Jen Easterly, who heads the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, is an example of how speech controls and censorship have become mainstream. Her agency was created to work on our critical infrastructure, but Easterly declared that the mandate would now include policing “our cognitive infrastructure.” That includes combating “malinformation,” or information “based on fact, but used out of context to mislead, harm, or manipulate.” The Hill: It’s time for Biden to stop the mass collection of travelers’ social media information By Anna Diakun .....That program includes the State Department’s dragnet social media disclosure requirement, which mandates that nearly 15 million immigrant and non-immigrant visa applicants a year disclose their social media handles to the government — including pseudonymous handles that applicants use to protect their identities online. Intelligence officials have privately acknowledged that the requirement adds “no value” to visa screening and vetting, yet it remains in place. It’s time for the Biden administration to do the right thing and rescind the requirement. Social media surveillance chills speech and association and infringes upon the privacy of visa applicants and everyone who interacts with them online. Visa applicants change how and with whom they engage, concerned that their political or social views would affect their likelihood of getting a visa. The disclosure requirement is especially dangerous for activists who post online about controversial topics, like political corruption or human rights, under a pseudonym to avoid retribution from their government or communities. The Courts Reason (Volokh Conspiracy): Empty Threats to Sue Donors of Entity That Allegedly Defamed You Could Be Tortious By Eugene Volokh .....American Muckrakers PAC, Inc. v. Boebert (D. Colo. June 9, 2024) (just recently posted on Westlaw) stemmed from the PAC and journalist David Wheeler making various allegations about Rep. Lauren Boebert. Rep. Boebert said they were all lies, threatened to sue Wheeler (which she did), and also "threatened donors to Plaintiff American Muckrakers PAC, Inc., in a … statement to the media," saying "Muckrakers' sloppy, reckless, and wildly irresponsible actions have created substantial legal liability for Muckrakers, David Wheeler in his personal capacity, and each donor to the organization who chose to fund the effort knowing it would result in defamation." Bloomberg Law: Guard Fired for ‘All Lives Splatter’ Post Wins Free Speech Claim By Robert Iafolla .....A Cincinnati public library violated a security guard’s free speech rights when it fired him for sharing an “insensitive meme” related to Black Lives Matter protesters on his Facebook page, a divided appeals court ruled. Eric Noble’s interest in commenting on the protests over racial justice and police brutality that swept across the nation after the murder of George Floyd in 2020 outweighed the Cincinnati & Hamilton County Public Library’s interests in managing its workplace, the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit held Friday. Reason (Volokh Conspiracy): Judges' Boycott of Columbia in Clerk Hiring Is Permissible Under Judicial Ethics Rules By Eugene Volokh .....From Fifth Circuit Chief Judge Priscilla Richman's June 24 opinion, which was affirmed earlier this month by an Appellate Review Panel of the Judicial Council for the Fifth Circuit (in an order signed by Judge Jennifer Elrod): Police 1: Conn. police violated free-speech rights of man who warned drivers with ‘Cops Ahead’ sign, judge rules By Alex Wood .....A city police lieutenant violated a local man’s free-speech rights by arresting him in 2018 for holding up signs reading “Cops Ahead” a few blocks from a law enforcement operation targeting people talking on cellphones while driving, a federal judge ruled. The ruling last week by Judge Omar A. Williams, who sits in U.S. District Court in Hartford, is a win for Michael Friend, a food delivery driver and occasional protester of government actions, in his lawsuit against Lt. Richard Gasparino of the Stamford Police Department. Carolina Journal: Federal judge orders NC election officials to certify Justice for All Party .....A federal judge is ordering North Carolina’s State Board of Elections to certify the Justice for All Party and to add its candidates to the state’s November ballot. That means voters would have the chance to choose left-of-center activist and academic Cornel West in the race for president. The elections board denied JFA ballot access last month in a party-line 3-2 vote. The board’s Democratic majority rejected party certification. Republican board members supported JFA’s bid. US District Judge Terrence Boyle ruled Monday that plaintiffs representing JFA are likely to win their argument that the elections board violated the First Amendment by denying the party ballot access. FEC FEC Weekly Digest: Week of August 5 – 9, 2024 .....Advisory Opinion Request 2024-12 (McCutcheon) On August 7, the Commission made public an advisory opinion request from Shaun McCutcheon. The requestor asks whether for purposes of the Federal Election Campaign Act’s contribution limits, the first round of Maine’s 2024 election for U.S. Senate, which involves ranked-choice voting, constitutes a general election, and each subsequent round, if any, is a distinct runoff election and entitled to its own contribution limit. The Commission will accept written comments on the request during the 10-day period following publication of the request (no later than August 19) and must issue a response no later than 60 days after the receipt of the complete request, that is, by September 21, 2024. Free Expression The Free Press: Our Friend Douglas Murray By The Editors .....But the United Kingdom, which lacks a First Amendment equivalent, has opted for a different strategy: a campaign of suppression that includes criminal charges for speech. On Thursday, a 55-year-old woman named Bernadette Spofforth was arrested “on suspicion of publishing written material to stir up racial hatred” and “false communications” after she spread the false rumor that the man who killed three girls in Southport was an asylum seeker. Spofforth is just one example of how the United Kingdom is prioritizing jailing its people for social media posts rather than addressing the causes of the violence. The director of public prosecutions of England and Wales, Stephen Parkinson, said this week that even retweeting a post “which is insulting or abusive, which is intended to or likely to start racial hatred” makes one liable for arrest. Worse yet, in the same interview, Parkinson spoke about “dedicated police officers who are scouring social media. Their job is to look for this material and then follow up with identification, arrests, and so forth.” Online Speech Platforms Wall Street Journal: Foreign TikTok Networks Are Pushing Political Lies to Americans By Georgia Wells, John West, Dustin Volz and Jack Gillum .....Intelligence officials have warned that the 2024 presidential contest could face an unprecedented flood of fake news, fueled by AI, from foreign actors. A Journal analysis of videos on TikTok has found it’s already happening. Amid all the general political news and lighthearted election memes on TikTok, the Journal found thousands of videos with political lies and hyperbole. Further analysis led the Journal to identify 91 accounts that pushed these videos from China, Nigeria, Iran and Vietnam—and were tied together in complex ways. Racket News: FOIA Files: How Feds, Press, and Academia "Coordinate" on Speech By James Rushmore .....In March 2023, the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public (CIP) put out an article asserting that the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP) — comprised of the CIP, the Stanford Internet Observatory (SIO), Graphika, and the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab) — was not a “government cut-out” controlled by the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). Racket has sent out numerous Freedom of Information (FOIA) requests about the Election Integrity Partnership. Recently, we received several new batches of results from the University of Washington that cast doubt on their earlier assertions. These disclosures, which have been added to the Racket FOIA Library, hint at a dynamic perhaps more intimate than reported. This is the first of a series of disclosures we’ll be publishing this week. The States Nashville Tennessean: Nashville leaders should condemn neo-Nazis but avoid new laws that will stifle free speech By Jacob Mchangama .....A recent spate of neo-Nazi demonstrations in Nashville has heightened tensions in an already polarized political environment. Fortunately, there has been bipartisan condemnation of these vile and obscene efforts to promote hatred in our community. However, some Tennessee public officials want to go beyond condemnation, claiming that “hate speech is not free speech.” This would both be unconstitutional and bad policy. The Supreme Court has consistently upheld “freedom for the thought we hate” excepting narrow categories such as incitement to imminent lawless action or true threats. Governments can also make rules that are content-neutral. The proposed bill to ban Metro Nashville Police Department officials from associating with hate groups may well pass constitutional muster since it prohibits associating with groups engaged in “criminal acts.” Alabama Reflector: Alabama legislator wants to limit power of political parties regarding campaign contributions By Ralph Chapoco .....A member of the Alabama House of Representatives has prefiled a bill for the coming legislative session that would limit the power of political parties to reject candidates for accepting donations from particular groups. HB 6, sponsored by Rep. Phillip Pettus, R-Killen, prohibits political parties from disqualifying candidates for elected office based solely on the contributions they receive from specific people or organizations. The legislation stems from a rule that the Alabama Republican Party adopted in August 2023 that prohibits GOP candidates for superintendent or school board from accepting campaign contributions from the Alabama Education Association, an organization that represents teachers in the state. “My constituents should decide if I should be taking money from a certain one, that is who I represent,” Pettus said in an interview Monday. “I don’t represent the Alabama GOP. I represent my constituents.” 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. 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