The Latest News from the Institute for Free Speech December 1, 2022 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]. We're Hiring! Communications Director – Institute for Free Speech – Washington, DC or Virtual Office .....The Institute for Free Speech is seeking a skilled communicator with experience in media relations and a proven record of developing relationships with journalists and influencers. This role will support all aspects of the Institute for Free Speech’s work. The Communications Director will understand both traditional media outreach efforts and social media to share the Institute’s pro-speech message. This position demands a candidate who has an in-depth understanding of what drives news stories and can use the news cycle to educate the public on the threats to and the importance of free speech. In short, you will help spread the Institute’s message and fight for the First Amendment’s speech freedoms and a culture of free speech in the court of public opinion. New from the Institute for Free Speech The Unexplained 25% Threshold in the “Final” FEC Draft Rule By David Keating .....It struck us the FEC’s “Draft Final Rule and Explanation and Justification for Internet Communications Disclaimers” on the agenda today doesn’t explain or justify the 25% threshold for using an adaptive disclaimer, which was in the previous draft’s Alternative A. But alternative B’s proposal suggested a 10% threshold. While there is some language about commenters suggesting higher or lower thresholds, the proposed rule never explains where 25% comes from – it just seems to materialize out of thin air. That means a regular disclaimer in a small internet ad could take up a large portion of your message. The simple “paid for by” disclaimer has what most voters want to know but the law requires a lot more (too much I might add). This failure to explain the rationale for the 25% could be viewed as arbitrary and capricious. Supreme Court SCOTUSblog: Justices worry that broad reading of federal bribery law could sweep in lobbyists By Amy Howe .....The Supreme Court appears poised to reverse the conviction of a powerful New York political aide who took money in exchange for helping to facilitate a real estate development. Joseph Percoco was sentenced to six years in prison for violating a federal fraud law that makes it a crime to deprive members of the public of the intangible right to “honest services.” But justices of all ideological stripes were concerned on Monday that upholding the conviction of Percoco, who served as the manager of former Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s re-election campaign when he took the actions that led to his conviction, could have far-reaching effects for other private citizens – most notably, lobbyists. The Courts Washington Post: Here's a first: Journalists and a U.S. citizen are suing NSO Group By Tim Starks .....A lawsuit filed against spyware industry leader NSO Group on Wednesday represents the first of its kind from a U.S. citizen and the first by journalists in U.S. courts. It’s the latest salvo in a multi-front battle against foreign commercial spyware... Wednesday’s lawsuit accuses NSO Group of violating the main federal anti-hacking law, as well as a computer access and fraud law in California, the location of the federal court where the plaintiffs filed their complaint. The plaintiffs are reporters and others who work for El Faro, a Salvadoran news organization, who allege they were targets of NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware. The plaintiffs want a judge to declare that NSO Group has violated U.S. law. They also want a judge to order the company to disclose the client who spied on them, Carrie DeCell, senior staff attorney with the Knight First Amendment Institute, told me. “We do view the use of spyware against members of the press in particular as one of the biggest threats to democracy and independent press freedom today,” said DeCell, whose organization is co-representing the plaintiffs with Columbia University. “We think an order requiring NSO Group to disclose its client would really deter future government actors from seeking to use NSO’s technology in their own efforts to repress journalism and stifle free speech.” Congress Daily Signal: Exclusive: Documents Reveal Senate Democrat Pressured IRS, DOJ to Target Conservative Groups By Fred Lucas .....Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., called for revoking a tax exemption for a conservative group for not masking up and socially distancing during the pandemic, insisted on a slew of investigations of other conservative groups, and pressed for the Internal Revenue Service to expand its reach. A total of 176 pages of correspondence from and to Whitehouse was obtained from the IRS by the conservative watchdog group American Accountability Foundation through the Freedom of Information Act and shared with The Daily Signal. “It’s abundantly clear that [Whitehouse] is trying to take the 87,000 new IRS agents and put them to work investigating me and my friends because he doesn’t like their politics,” Tom Jones, president and founder of the American Accountability Foundation, told The Daily Signal in a phone interview Tuesday... “It’s Lois Lerner on steroids,” Jones said of what’s in the Whitehouse correspondence, referring to the Internal Revenue Service official in the middle of the Obama-era IRS scandal over the targeting of tea party groups. U.S. Senator Josh Hawley: Hawley Investigation: DHS Documents Expose Shocking New Details on Disinfo Board Censorship Agenda .....Today U.S. Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) revealed new documents obtained from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) as part of his investigation into President Joe Biden’s plans to establish a so-called “Disinformation Governance Board” to monitor and suppress the speech of American citizens. The hundreds of pages of heavily redacted internal emails, which can be read in full below, expose that DHS’s plans for the Disinformation Governance Board were much more extensive than the Biden administration has publicly acknowledged. FEC Washington Examiner: FEC moves off massive ad regulation scheme By Paul Bedard .....In a victory for deregulation, a bipartisan team of commissioners has cleaned up a loosely written plan to unleash a massive wave of rules on political online ads just in time for a vote Thursday by the Federal Election Commission. Under fire for an earlier proposal to force disclaimers on tiny digital political ads, even those placed for free, commissioners rewrote the rule to honor the agency’s historic support for free speech on the internet. Former FEC Chairman Lee Goodman, long a foe of internet regulations, applauded the change. “This revised proposal is an improvement over the previous proposal. The commission can be applauded for resolving the vexing problem of disclaimers on small paid digital ads without expanding regulation over political messages disseminated on the internet for free.” The agency will consider the new proposal at its meeting on Thursday... The actual change to the proposal was tiny, removing two words: “promoted” and “service.” But Goodman and others said the impact was huge. Free Expression Harvard Crimson: Nearly 250 Harvard Affiliates Sign ‘Free Speech’ Petition Addressed to University Presidential Search Committee By J. Sellers Hill and Leah J. Teichholtz .....Nearly 250 Harvard affiliates signed onto a petition this month calling on the University's Presidential Search Committee to nominate a candidate who “actively affirms the importance of free speech” on campus. Signatories of the petition, which was addressed to the search committee and Penny S. Pritzker ’81 — the committee’s leader and the senior fellow of the Harvard Corporation — hid their names from the public, though organizers said names would be disclosed to the committee... “Harvard’s mission to ‘educate citizens and citizen-leaders’ depends on an environment of open inquiry and criticism,” the petition reads. “But unless the next President shows a firm commitment to protecting free speech at Harvard, that environment will continue to contract.” Independent Groups Insider: Sam Bankman-Fried says he's the Republicans' third-biggest donor, but used 'dark money' to avoid media criticism By Pete Syme .....Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of FTX, says he's the Republicans' third-biggest donor – but used "dark money" to avoid criticism. He revealed the information in a YouTube interview with journalist Tiffany Fong, amid reports that he donated $40 million to the Democrats ahead of the 2022 midterm elections... "I've been their third-biggest Republican donor this year as well," he said. Bankman-Fried explained that this was "not generally known," because "all my Republican donations were dark." ... Bankman-Fried said he did so to avoid media criticism, rather than for regulatory reasons. "Reporters freak the f*** out if you donate to a Republican," he said. "They're all secretly liberal and I didn't want to have that fight, so I made all the Republican ones dark." "Despite Citizens United being the literally the highest-profile Supreme Court case of the decade and the thing everyone talks about with campaign finance, for some reason in practice no-one can possibly fathom the idea that someone actually gave dark." Link via Yahoo Finance The States BDN: Democratic group fined by Maine regulators for not disclosing top donors By Michael Shepherd .....A group associated with the legislative campaign arm of national Democrats that played heavily in Maine House of Representatives elections this year was fined $10,000 by ethics regulators on Wednesday for ads that did not disclose top donors. The penalty is a major one for the Maine Ethics Commission and is among the first for a violation of a campaign finance law passed by voters in 2015 that requires political groups to disclose their top three funders in written material and video advertisements. Center Square: After spending $39 million, California's campaign finance website still trapped in 2000 By Madison Hirneisen .....Despite nearly $40 million spent to update California’s antiquated campaign finance website, state lawmakers are still awaiting the roll out of a new platform that was initially scheduled to go live in 2019. Now that may be pushed back to June 2026. 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 First Amendment rights to freely speak, assemble, publish, and petition the government. Please support the Institute's mission by clicking here. For further information, visit www.ifs.org. Follow the Institute for Free Speech ‌ ‌ ‌ The Institute for Free Speech | 1150 Connecticut Ave., NW, Suite 801, Washington, DC 20036 Unsubscribe [email protected] Update Profile | Constant Contact Data Notice Sent by [email protected]