Email from The Institute for Free Speech The Latest News from the Institute for Free Speech February 11, 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]. Supreme Court New York Times: Supreme Court Signals That Landmark Libel Ruling Is Secure By Adam Liptak .....Starting in 2019, Justice Clarence Thomas has repeatedly called for the Supreme Court to reconsider New York Times v. Sullivan, the landmark First Amendment decision that made it hard for public officials to prevail in libel suits. That project gained momentum in 2021, when Justice Neil M. Gorsuch said the decision “has evolved into an ironclad subsidy for the publication of falsehoods by means and on a scale previously unimaginable.” So it was notable that just five days before President Trump took office last month, the Supreme Court seemed to go out of its way to signal that it is not ready to embrace one of his most dearly held goals: to “open up our libel laws” and overrule the Sullivan decision. The Courts New York Times: Justice Dept. Tells Prosecutors to Drop Federal Corruption Case Against Eric Adams By William K. Rashbaum, Dana Rubinstein, Michael Rothfeld, Jonah E. Bromwich, Glenn Thrush, Benjamin Weiser and Emma G. Fitzsimmons .....The Justice Department on Monday told federal prosecutors in Manhattan to drop corruption charges against Mayor Eric Adams of New York. It claimed his indictment last fall came too close to the 2025 Democratic mayoral primary and limited his ability to cooperate with President Trump’s immigration crackdown… In a memo sent to prosecutors Monday evening, the Justice Department’s acting No. 2 official, Emil Bove, ordered the government to restore Mr. Adams’s security clearance, and accused the former Manhattan federal prosecutor who charged Mr. Adams of having done so for political reasons, though he offered no evidence… Just weeks ago, the same Manhattan federal prosecutor’s office said it had uncovered “additional criminal conduct” by Mr. Adams. It was unclear how Danielle R. Sassoon, the interim U.S. attorney currently leading the office, would respond to Monday’s request. Bloomberg Law: Abortion Activists Oppose State's Bid to Ditch Free-Speech Claim By Mary Anne Pazanowski .....Two Tennessee women are urging a federal court to reject 11 state district attorneys’ bid to save a state law that blocks them from helping people get legal abortions in other states. The attorneys actually supported the women’s argument that the provision violates their First Amendment free-speech rights, the women said Thursday in a brief opposing the attorneys’ Jan. 16 summary judgment motion in the US District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee. At issue is the constitutionality of a measure that prohibits “recruiting” minors for abortions, which the court put on hold pending trial. WXXI: Second lawsuit charges town of Greece placed tracking devices on citizens’ vehicles By Gino Fanelli .....A second person has come forward claiming the town of Greece placed them under surveillance after raising concerns about town government improprieties. Tina Bachman claims her family was trailed by private investigators and her husband, Greece police officer Matthew Bachman, faced retaliation at his job, after raising concern about a two official’s private use of town contractors. Bachman filed a federal lawsuit against the town on Friday. In the complaint, she said that she was a part-time housekeeper hired to clean the home of former Deputy Town Supervisor Michelle Marini's son-in-law. Marini currently faces felony charges based on allegations she used town resources to have renovations done on her children’s houses. FEC Daily Kos: 'Insane': Former FEC Chair on Trump's Unlawful Firing of Current FEC Chair: 'BradCast' 2/10/2025 .....Over the weekend, Ravel told me via email that she thought Trump's attempt to fire Weintraub was "insane" and saw it as one more indication that the President has "no moral compass". Today, she offers more details on just how outrageous and unprecedented this effort is. We also discuss why Trump would want to make sure there was no Democrat in charge of the FEC, which had a 3 to 2 imbalance in favor of Republican members before Weintraub was theoretically removed last week. "There were approximately 20, maybe more, complaints that had been filed against Trump at the FEC," Ravel explains today. "There were dozens of complaints related to the 2024 elections -- not only against Trump and Musk, who spent nearly $300 million dollars to help the President get elected -- but also complaints that Trump had filed himself against Kamala Harris, media outlets and the like. And that is undoubtedly the reason why Trump wanted to eliminate the chair." Congress House Judiciary Committee: The Censorship-Industrial Complex .....The House Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on Wednesday, February 12, 2025, at 10:00 a.m. ET. The hearing, "The Censorship-Industrial Complex," will examine the Committee's role in uncovering the Biden-Harris Administration's unconstitutional censorship campaign and will examine upcoming threats to free speech including from AI and foreign governments. Broadband Breakfast: Gosar Bill Would Roll Back Big Tech’s Immunity in Moderating Content By Jericho Casper .....As President Donald Trump escalates his war on so-called “government censorship,” some Capitol Hill Republicans are reviving efforts to overhaul Section 230, starting with a bill from Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz. On Wednesday, Gosar reintroduced the Stop the Censorship Act, marking another attempt by House Republicans to strip Big Tech of the legal shield the lawmakers say has allowed platforms to suppress conservative viewpoints with impunity. The bill, co-sponsored by Reps. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo.; Doug Collins, R-Ga.; Harriet Hageman, R-Wyo.; Mary Miller, R-Ill.; Troy Nehls, R-Texas; Ralph Norman, R-S.C.; and Tom Tiffany, R-Wis., would limit tech companies’ ability to moderate content and expose them to more legal liability for their decisions. People United for Privacy: The Corporate Transparency Act Is an End-Around on Donor Privacy By Brian Hawkins .....A new report from People United for Privacy Foundation and National Taxpayers Union Foundation details hidden threats to nonprofit donor privacy in the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA). Recent weeks have seen a back-and-forth in federal courts on the constitutional status of the law, which was enacted as a rider to the National Defense Authorization Act in early 2021. While a national injunction prohibiting the Department of the Treasury from enforcing the CTA remains in place, small business owners and nonprofits are still scrambling to understand the law’s ultimate impact. The CTA aims to combat money laundering and other illicit activities by requiring companies to disclose their “beneficial owners.” While nonprofits are generally exempt from this requirement, the law’s broader scope and complex reporting mechanisms raise significant concerns for nonprofit donor privacy and governmental overreach. Trump Administration USA Today: Trump says he wants to protect free speech. Advocates say he's undermining it. By Trevor Hughes .....In what President Donald Trump says is a move to protect the rule of law and free speech advocates see as an attack on it, the White House is promising tougher punishments for vandalizing public monuments, statues and religious displays. The move, tucked into an executive order celebrating the nation's 250th birthday, resurrects a similar effort Trump made in June 2020, as racial-justice protests rocked the country following the murder of George Floyd. The order give federal officials more power to target protesters who vandalize, and to penalize police departments if the federal government says they aren't doing enough to stop that vandalism… Free-speech advocates called the orders a direct attack on protests and the First Amendment. "This is all about targeting based on political beliefs and expressed viewpoints with which this administration disagrees," said Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, the executive director of the Center for Protest Law and Litigation. "It's not about the underlying claims about damages to persons or property. Because there are already provisions in the law to deal with this." Candidates and Campaigns Politico: ‘So dirty and rotten’: Candidate for NJ governor’s fundraising tactic confuses some donors By Matt Friedman and Madison Fernandez .....POLITICO got in touch with more than a dozen frequent small-dollar donors on the campaign finance reports of Spadea and Elect Common Sense, many of whom were listed as retirees and as living outside of New Jersey. Of those donors to the campaign, just two were aware that they were frequently making donations to Spadea. What many of the donors POLITICO contacted had in common was that they wanted to help Trump, and that their donations were processed through WinRed, a fundraising platform that is commonly used by Republican candidates for office. Some fundraising tactics employed by Spadea’s campaign could lead to confusion for donors: Solicitations that do not mention him as a candidate until the fine print at the bottom, and automatic recurring donations. The strategy was made famous by Trump several years ago and has been used by candidates on both sides of the aisle, such as Gov. Gavin Newsom in California. The States AZ Mirror: Arizona judge says he’ll consider fake electors’ free speech defense By Jerod MacDonald-Evoy .....Two of Arizona’s “fake electors” won a victory in a courtroom Monday morning when a judge allowed their attempt to dismiss their criminal charges under an Arizona law designed to prevent political prosecutions to move forward. Former state lawmaker Anthony Kern and Mark Meadows, who was Donald Trump’s chief of staff in 2020, are trying to block the criminal case against them from proceeding by claiming that the prosecution violates Arizona’s anti-strategic law against public participation law, or anti-SLAPP law. Cleveland.com: Can your HOA bar political signs? Ohio bill would end bans By Anna Staver .....A new bill could shake up suburbia by creating a right to plant political yard signs—even if your homeowner’s association says you can’t. House Bill 16 would let HOAs and local governments keep “reasonable restrictions” about where, when, how big and how many signs people displayed. But outright bans would be prohibited… The idea for HB 16 came from a Democratic constituent who wanted to display her sign for Vice President Kamala Harris. She was stopped from doing so by her HOA rules. “That’s not right,” Lorenz said. “It’s a free speech thing.” 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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