Email from The Institute for Free Speech The Latest News from the Institute for Free Speech March 7, 2025 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]. In the News AL.com: Enduring First Amendment lessons of ‘Bloody Sunday’: op-ed By Helen Knowles-Gardner and Tiffany Donnelly .....The world reacted with shock and horror as news filtered out of Selma 60 years ago. There, Americans had merely peacefully protested in support of their civil right to vote. Local law enforcement, Alabama State Troopers, and a vigilante mob on horseback beat and bloodied the men and women who had gathered at the Edmund Pettus Bridge. It was a brutal assault that injured hundreds. Six decades later, the story of that “Bloody Sunday” in Selma shouldn’t be confined to the pages of history books. It is a story of enduring constitutional principles; it is a story about every American’s right to stand up and speak out without fear of governmental retribution. The Courts ACLU: ACLU and Knight Institute Urge Court to Construe Foreign Agent Registration Act Narrowly .....The American Civil Liberties Union and the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University today filed an amicus brief in support of foreign policy expert Dr. Sue Mi Terry in a criminal case pending in federal court. Dr. Terry has been charged with violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) for failing to register as an agent of the Republic of Korea. The groups argue that reading FARA broadly could chill a wide range of speech on issues of public concern and enable the government to selectively target speakers for viewpoint-based reasons in violation of the First Amendment. They call on the court to narrowly interpret the law to avoid these potential constitutional problems. “While the government has a legitimate interest in informing Americans about foreign attempts to influence domestic public discourse, interpreting FARA broadly does nothing to further that interest and raises serious First Amendment concerns,” said Xiangnong (George) Wang, staff attorney at the Knight Institute. “The court should interpret the law narrowly to avoid chilling protected speech.” Reason (Volokh Conspiracy): School District Can't "Prohibit All [Parents'] Speech on School Property That It Finds 'Offensive or Inappropriate'" By Eugene Volokh .....An excerpt from the 11,000-word opinion in Hartzell v. Marana Unified School Dist., decided today by Ninth Circuit Judge Milan Smith, joined by Judges Wallace Tashima and Bridget Bade: Congress Sen. Elizabeth Warren: Warren, Lawmakers to Trump: Fire Elon Musk, Reinstate Agency Leaders and Federal Watchdogs .....U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), along with Senator Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and House Oversight Committee Ranking Member Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) and House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), led 38 Members of Congress in a letter to President Donald Trump, raising concerns about his unlawful firings of dozens of independent agency heads and inspectors general (IGs), and calling attention to how many of these firings appear to benefit Elon Musk. The Members also asked that President Trump remove Musk from his government role unless he addresses his conflicts of interest, and immediately reinstate the illegally fired individuals. “Nearly all of your decisions you made about who to fire appear to benefit Mr. Musk, and many target individuals and agencies that are currently investigating or prosecuting Mr. Musk or his companies for unlawful behavior,” wrote the lawmakers. “Many of these individuals have legal protections dictating why and how they can be removed from office.” Bloomberg: Alphabet Gets House GOP Subpoena on Alleged Censorship By Emily Birnbaum .....The Republican-led House Judiciary Committee subpoenaed Alphabet Inc. and its CEO Sundar Pichai as part of its ongoing investigation into the biggest tech companies’ relationships with the Biden administration. The subpoena, issued Thursday, specifically seeks documents related to communications either the company or Pichai had with the previous administration, which Republicans have alleged amounted to an effort to censor Americans’ speech. The committee has asked for the documents by March 28, according to a copy of the subpoena the panel released on Thursday. They’re specifically looking for information “referring or relating to the moderation, deletion, suppression, restriction, or reduced circulation of content,” the subpoena states. Reason: Amy Klobuchar's Health Misinformation Act Has Aged Poorly By Robby Soave .....On July 22, 2021, she introduced the Health Misinformation Act, which would have granted broad new powers to the secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS). These powers would have included the ability of the secretary to reduce online platforms' protection from liability under Section 230, the federal law that immunizes websites from liability for users' speech. In effect, Klobuchar's bill would have established that the federal government could use a public health emergency as a pretext to erode vital free speech protections at the whims of HHS. It is clear whose speech Klobuchar was interested in censoring: The press release accompanying her bill explicitly mentions the so-called disinformation dozen. Klobuchar and her fellow Democrats sought to empower the HHS secretary to censor COVID-19-related speech with which they disagreed. Wall Street Journal: Senators Call for DOJ Probe of X’s Advertiser Pressure Campaign By Suzanne Vranica .....Five Democratic senators have asked the Justice Department to investigate whether Elon Musk is leveraging his influence in the Trump administration to bully advertisers into returning to X. The request, from Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, Richard Blumenthal, Adam Schiff and Chris Van Hollen, follows a Wall Street Journal report last month about the social-media platform’s pressuring Interpublic Group to spend more on X. If Musk uses his government position to harm those who don’t do business with him, “he risks running afoul of criminal ethics laws,” the senators wrote to Attorney General Pam Bondi in a letter, a copy of which was viewed by the Journal. The senators wrote that they are concerned X is taking advantage of Musk’s powerful role to “extract revenue from advertisers.” Trump Administration New York Times:‘People Are Going Silent’: Fearing Retribution, Trump Critics Muzzle Themselves By Elisabeth Bumiller .....More than six weeks into the second Trump administration, there is a chill spreading over political debate in Washington and beyond. People on both sides of the aisle who would normally be part of the public dialogue about the big issues of the day say they are intimidated by the prospect of online attacks from Mr. Trump and Elon Musk, concerned about harm to their companies and frightened for the safety of their families. Politicians fear banishment by a party remade in Mr. Trump’s image and the prospect of primary opponents financed by Mr. Musk, the president’s all-powerful partner and the world’s richest man. Axios: Scoop: State Dept. to use AI to revoke visas of foreign students who appear "pro-Hamas" By Marc Caputo .....Secretary of State Marco Rubio is launching an AI-fueled "Catch and Revoke" effort to cancel the visas of foreign nationals who appear to support Hamas or other designated terror groups, senior State Department officials tell Axios. The effort — which includes AI-assisted reviews of tens of thousands of student visa holders' social media accounts — marks a dramatic escalation in the U.S. government's policing of foreign nationals' conduct and speech. The reviews of social media accounts are particularly looking for evidence of alleged terrorist sympathies expressed after Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, officials say. Officials plan to examine internal databases to see whether any visa holders were arrested but allowed to stay in the country during the Biden administration. New York Post: Trump suspends security clearances of employees at law firm behind Steele dossier: ‘Dishonest and dangerous’ By Victor Nava .....President Trump signed an executive order Thursday suspending the security clearances of employees who work at Perkins Coie – the powerhouse Democratic law firm that played a key role in commissioning the so-called Steele dossier. “The dishonest and dangerous activity of the law firm Perkins Coie LLP … has affected this country for decades,” read Trump’s latest executive order. “Notably, in 2016 while representing failed Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, Perkins Coie hired Fusion GPS, which then manufactured a false ‘dossier’ designed to steal an election.” Perkins Coie retained the services intelligence firm Fusion GPS to conduct opposition research against Trump for the Clinton campaign in April 2016. Online Speech Platforms New York Times: ActBlue, the Democratic Fund-Raising Powerhouse, Faces Internal Chaos By Reid J. Epstein and Shane Goldmacher .....ActBlue, the online fund-raising organization that powers Democratic candidates, has plunged into turmoil, with at least seven senior officials resigning late last month and a remaining lawyer suggesting he faced internal retaliation. The departures from ActBlue, which helps raise money for Democrats running for office at all levels of government, come as the group is under investigation by congressional Republicans. They have advanced legislation that some Democrats warn could be used to debilitate what is the party’s leading fund-raising operation. The exodus has set off deep concerns about ActBlue’s future. Last week, two unions representing the group’s workers sent a blistering letter to ActBlue’s board of directors that listed the seven officials who had left. The letter described an “alarming pattern” of departures that was “eroding our confidence in the stability of the organization.” The States Utah News Dispatch: Utah Legislature bans pride flags from schools, public buildings By Katie McKellar .....The Utah Legislature has passed a bill aimed at banning LGBTQ+ flags from Utah’s public schools and government buildings in the name of “neutrality.” After a fiery debate Thursday — the second-to-last day of the Utah Legislature’s 2025 session — the Utah Senate voted 21-8 to approve the bill, with two Republicans (Sens. Todd Weiler, R-Woods Cross, and Dan Thatcher, R-West Valley) joining Democrats in opposition. The House also gave a final nod of approval, 53-20. If Gov. Spencer Cox signs HB77, it will ban almost all flags from being displayed on or in public buildings, except for flags explicitly allowed in a prescriptive list included in the bill, such as the U.S. flag, the state flag, military flags, Olympic flags, college or university flags, or others. Pride flags or other LGBTQ+ flags — which Utah lawmakers in recent years have repeatedly tried to bar from schools in various ways — would be prohibited. Columbus Underground: New Ohio Law Could Crack Down on Protests By H.L. Comeriato .....A new bill at the Ohio Statehouse could be used to target pro-LGBTQ+ demonstrations across the state by allowing private citizens to sue individuals for damages incurred by “vandalism or riot activity,” even if an individual is not found personally responsible for the damages. Ohio Senate Bill (SB) 53 is part of a growing legislative trend the National Lawyers Guild (NLG) has called “a thinly-veiled attempt to further criminalize protesting.” “SB 53 is designed to keep the most marginalized, including the LGBTQ+ community, silent by increasing the potential penalties for making their voices heard,” said NLG media liaison Hannah Scifres. “If SB 53 is signed into law, organizers of a pro-LGBTQ+ rally could be held civilly liable if a protestor in attendance caused damage, no matter how minimal, to private property,” Scifres added. “The Ohio legislature is attempting to scare community organizers into silence and complicity. However, Pride has its roots in protest and countering state-sanctioned violence.” 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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