September 18, 2024

In the News

New Hampshire Union Leader: Stephen Scaer: Flags won’t end culture war fought with scalpels and drugs

By Stephen Scaer

.....In the Union Leader article “Couple sues city over flag-display policy,” Nashua city attorney Steven Bolton dishonestly impugned our messages. “The city does not endorse anti-trans views. The city does not endorse overturning elections,” he said. The article described our “Save Women’s Sports” and “Detrans Awareness” flags as “anti-trans,” and emphasizes that the Pine Tree flag has been “adopted by the Christian nationalist movement and insurrectionists.”

Our flags say nothing to disparage trans-identifying people and we have no plans to stage an insurrection.

We asked to fly the Pine Tree Flag to commemorate the Battle of Bunker Hill, not because we were plotting to overthrow an election. Twenty-seven residents of what’s now Nashua fought under that flag at Bunker Hill. They deserve to be remembered. The flag also reminds us that the American Revolution started with the Pine Tree Riot in Weare in 1772.

The Courts

Oregon Capital Chronicle: Federal appeals court tosses damages, recommends dismissing Oregon senator’s free speech case

By Julia Shumway

.....A panel of federal judges on Tuesday tossed out a nominal $1 in damages and more than $375,000 in attorney fees awarded to a Republican Oregon state senator who argued he was retaliated against for political comments understood as threats. 

The decision by a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals is the latest twist in a long-running lawsuit filed by Sen. Brian Boquist, R-Dallas, against fellow senators who required him to give advance notice before he entered the Capitol because lawmakers and Senate staff said they feared for their safety.

U.S. District Judge Michael McShane determined last year that the Senate Conduct Committee violated Boquist’s First Amendment rights by requiring that notice, but the appeals court said neither Boquist’s arguments nor McShane’s ruling proved that Senate leaders violated clearly established laws or constitutional rights. 

Reason (Volokh Conspiracy): "Equity Training" Requirement for Public Employees Didn't Violate First Amendment, Even When Employees Were Required to "Correctly" Answer Multiple Choice Questions Based on the Training Content.

By Eugene Volokh

.....From Henderson v. Springfield R-12 School Dist., decided Friday by Eighth Circuit Chief Judge Steven Colloton, joined by Judges James Loken and Jane Kelly:

Congress

Leader McConnell: McConnell On The Judicial Bureaucracy And The First Amendment

.....“Free speech has been an animating principle for my entire career in the Senate. I am second to no one in my defense of the First Amendment. So I’ve found the recent habit of the federal judiciary’s bureaucracy to try and abridge its protections alarming, to say the least.

“The courts are where citizens go to have their free speech rights vindicated against censorious government officials. I know this from experience: I sued to stop the anti-speech campaign finance rules signed into law by President Bush, and I took it all the way to the Supreme Court.

“But where do people go when the courts decide to behave like any other branch of government? When they put other interests over the First Amendment? Even having to ask the question is troubling.

“Two of my colleagues and I recently wrote to the head of the Standing Committee on federal rules to express our opposition to a proposed amendment to the rules governing appellate courts.

“The amendment is the result of persistent bullying of Senate Democrats, and it would force parties seeking to be heard as friends of the court to disclose their donors in certain instances.

“The forced disclosure of donors is a longstanding offense against the First Amendment. This has been abundantly clear since Justice Harlan eloquently explained it in NAACP v. Alabama. The courts only tolerate forced disclosure in the case of actual candidate electioneering to ensure election integrity.

“But court cases aren’t elections, and friends of the court aren’t candidates. And the fact that the Appellate Rules Committee doesn’t understand this and wants to chill free speech by mandating donor disclosure is a shocking reversal of the NAACP v. Alabama.

Politico: Congress promised AI rules to protect elections. It’s not happening.

By Mohar Chatterjee

.....Congress appears unlikely to pass any of the laws it has been promising to safeguard this year’s election from the threat of artificial intelligence.

With experts warning about threats to democracy from AI deepfakes that mislead voters, lawmakers said they had to act — and they introduced multiple bills this year that could have banned deepfakes in elections and mandated clear labels on AI-generated content. Despite the appetite for laws and some bipartisan support, those efforts are foundering.

But interviews with lawmakers and Hill staff and a reading of fall’s brief remaining legislative schedule suggest that time has already run out for what was supposed to be a top priority — protecting elections from a powerful tool of deception.

FEC

ABC News: Conservative group asks FEC to probe effort to promote spoiler candidates

By Brian Slodysko, AP

.....A secretive group that recruited retired and disabled supporters of Donald Trump to run as third-party spoiler candidates in some of the nation's most competitive congressional districts was accused of violating campaign finance law in a complaint filed with the Federal Election Commission on Tuesday.

Free Expression

Daily Caller: Hillary Clinton Says Americans Who Engage In ‘Propaganda’ Need To Be ‘Criminally Charged’

By Nicole Silverio

.....Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Monday night that Americans spreading Russian disinformation should be civilly and criminally charged.

Clinton said there are some Americans who have “engaged” in spreading Russian misinformation and as a result must be held legally accountable during a segment on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show.” She accused an unspecified number of congressional Republicans of allegedly “parroting Russian talking points.”

“I think it’s important to indict the Russians, just like [Robert] Mueller indicted a lot of Russians who were engaged in direct election interference and boosting [Republican nominee Donald] Trump back in 2016,” Clinton said. “But I also think there are Americans who are engaged in this kind of propaganda and whether they should be civilly, or even in some cases, criminally charged is something that would be a better deterrence because the Russians are unlikely, except in a very few cases, to ever stand trial in the United States.”

Candidates and Campaigns

New York Magazine (Intelligencer): We Are About to Enter a New Era of Political Gambling

By Kevin T. Dugan

.....Already, concerns that the markets could be used to manipulate public sentiment are rising. That question looms large among opponents of political betting. Democratic senator Jeff Merkley, of Oregon, told Politico that the decision is a “nightmare” that could allow for wealthy backers to paint a preferred candidate as more likely to win. “Think about that anonymous political power or that anonymous corporate power that says, ‘Not only do we want this candidate to lose or that candidate to win, we’re going to bet on the person that we want to win,’” Merkley told the outlet. “It’s a deeply corrupting combination of dark money and election bets.”

How that would work is less clear. Political-betting markets were a routine part of the elections going back to the founding of the country, before the advent of scientific polling, and were only outlawed after a series of state and federal laws started to clamp down on the practices, said Koleman Strumpf, a political-economy professor at Wake Forest University. “In the early 20th century and the 19th century, these markets were humongous,” Strumpf said. “There is very little evidence in the historical record of market manipulation.”

Archive.today link

Online Speech Platforms

Wall Street Journal: Meta Bans Russia’s RT From Facebook, Instagram for ‘Foreign Interference’

By Sam Schechner

.....Facebook owner Meta Platforms is kicking Russian TV channel RT off its apps, depriving the Kremlin-backed media outlet of one of its biggest remaining distribution platforms in the West.

The ban comes days after the U.S. government announced sanctions against the state-owned channel and its related entities, accusing them of carrying out covert influence operations aimed at interfering in foreign elections, including recent Moldovan elections. 

Ars Technica: AI chatbots might be better at swaying conspiracy theorists than humans

By Jennifer Ouellette

.....Belief in conspiracy theories is rampant, particularly in the US, where some estimates suggest as much as 50 percent of the population believes in at least one outlandish claim. And those beliefs are notoriously difficult to debunk. Challenge a committed conspiracy theorist with facts and evidence, and they'll usually just double down—a phenomenon psychologists usually attribute to motivated reasoning, i.e., a biased way of processing information.

A new paper published in the journal Science is challenging that conventional wisdom, however. Experiments in which an AI chatbot engaged in conversations with people who believed at least one conspiracy theory showed that the interaction significantly reduced the strength of those beliefs, even two months later. The secret to its success: the chatbot, with its access to vast amounts of information across an enormous range of topics, could precisely tailor its counterarguments to each individual.

The States

Washington Post: California passes AI laws to curb election deepfakes, protect actors

By Kelsey Ables and Gerrit De Vynck

.....California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed into law a raft of artificial intelligence bills Tuesday, aimed at curbing the effects of deepfakes during elections and protecting Hollywood performers from their likenesses being replicated by AI without their consent…

Among the measures is A.B. 2655, which requires large online platforms to remove or label deceptive, digitally altered or digitally created content related to elections during certain periods before and after they are held. He also signed A.B. 2839 — which expands the time frame during which people and entities are prohibited from knowingly sharing election material containing deceptive AI-generated or manipulated content — and A.B. 2355, which requires election advertisements to disclose whether they use AI-generated or substantially altered content.

Detroit News: ACLU of Michigan asks Warren to repeal or amend its new public comment policy

By Anne Snabes

.....The ACLU of Michigan is urging the Warren City Council to repeal or amend its new public comment policy, arguing it violates the First Amendment.

The Warren council in July passed an amendment to the council rules of procedure that prohibits members of the public from making personal attacks, making disruptive comments and using profanity during council meetings.

But a letter from ACLU of Michigan Legal Director Dan Korobkin and Senior Staff Attorney Phil Mayor to Warren City Council sent Sept. 11 argues that banning personal attacks and behavior "likely to provoke disorderly conduct" is unconstitutional.