The Latest News from the Institute for Free Speech March 13, 2023 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 The Tennessee Conservative: Moms Sue School Board Over First Amendment Rights Violations By Paula Gomes .....A group of moms are suing the Wilson County Board of Education over what they say are violations of their First Amendment rights. Moms for Liberty – Wilson County, along with Chair Amanda Price and Robin Lemons are named as plaintiffs in the lawsuit filed against the seven-person board on March 9th, 2023, in the United States District Court, Middle District of Tennessee, Nashville Division… “School boards cannot selectively enforce rules to censor speakers who criticize them,” said IFS attorney Brett Nolan, “That is a basic guarantee of the First Amendment, and it applies even when a speaker’s criticism is harsh and uncomfortable.” The plaintiffs are challenging three policies: The Board’s requirement that speakers disclose their home address before speaking, the Board’s policy regarding “abusive” comments, and a requirement that speakers obtain approval from a board member that their comments are “in the public interest.” Reason: Transforming Stormy Daniels' Hush Payment Into a Felony Would Reinforce Trump's 'Witch Hunt' Complaint By Jacob Sullum .....It looks like Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat, intends to pursue criminal charges against former President Donald Trump. But the charges he seems to have in mind, based on a 2016 hush payment to porn star Stormy Daniels, are so iffy that they reinforce Trump's reflexive complaint that he is, as always, the victim of a long-running Democratic "witch hunt." Daniels claims she had a sexual affair with Trump in 2006, when he was married to his current wife, former First Lady Melania Trump. Although Trump denies the affair, he arranged a $130,000 payment to Daniels in the fall of 2016 to keep her story out of the press. There is nothing inherently illegal about that payment. But Michael Cohen, the Trump lawyer who paid off Daniels and was reimbursed by Trump, pleaded guilty in 2018 to violating federal law by making an excessive campaign contribution. The theory underlying that charge was that Cohen "contributed" the hush money at Trump's behest for the "principal purpose of influencing [the] election," as opposed to avoiding personal embarrassment for Trump or sparing Melania Trump's feelings. As former Federal Election Commission Chairman Bradley Smith noted at the time, that interpretation was open to question. "The best interpretation of the law is that it simply is not a campaign expense to pay blackmail for things that happened years before one's candidacy—and thus nothing Cohen (or, in this case, Trump, too) did is a campaign finance crime," Smith wrote in a 2018 Reason essay. "But at a minimum, it is unclear whether paying blackmail to a mistress is 'for the purpose of influencing an election,' and so must be paid with campaign funds, or a 'personal use,' and so prohibited from being paid with campaign funds." FARA Rolling Stone: The Feds Say Pras Is a Foreign Agent. Now the Fugee Tells His Side By Michael Ames .....When Pras’ trial begins March 27 in the U.S. Federal Court for the District of Columbia, the jury will hear conflicting versions of an inherently confusing story. They will adjourn to their jury room to debate the finer points of federal election law, ponder the legislative spirit of FARA, and do their best to determine what Pras did differently than many others involved who got off easier. According to the government, Pras and Low together pulled the strings of an intricate and elaborate international conspiracy — first, to get Obama reelected in 2012, second, to coerce the Trump administration into dropping the 1MDB investigations, and lastly, to promote a covert campaign of Chinese influence in Washington. To this, the defense will counter, with the aid of 2.7 million pages of discovery documents, that Pras has only ended up here — as the single, suitable fall guy for the crimes of many — because he refused to play ball and take the plea... Before this infamy found Pras, there was fame. Washington Post: The Reagan administration labeled a film ‘propaganda.’ It won an Oscar. By Matthew Hays .....President Ronald Reagan’s Justice Department declared that a nominee in the best short documentary category, “If You Love This Planet,” was “foreign political propaganda,” meaning that anyone who arranged a screening of the film would have to register their names with the FBI. Critics immediately compared the move to McCarthyism and said it would intimidate people and keep them from showing the film... To brand the film as propaganda, the Justice Department used the Foreign Agents Registration Act, a 1938 law written to counter Nazi messaging, which allowed the department to apply the label to foreign-produced material intended to sway the American public. In addition to “If You Love This Planet,” two Canadian documentaries about the dangers of acid rain received this label in 1983... But as often happens with attempts at censorship, the labeling backfired... Boosted by all the headlines, “If You Love This Planet” won the Oscar for best short documentary... California state Sen. Barry Keene (D) filed a lawsuit against the Justice Department, arguing that the propaganda designation amounted to censorship and violated the First Amendment. The case went all the way to the Supreme Court; in April 1987, in a 5-3 decision in Meese v. Keene, the court ruled in favor of the Justice Department. Free Expression New York Times: Disinformation Is Not the Real Problem With Democracy By Jamelle Bouie .....[T]o the extent that the crisis in American democracy is shaped by the modern information environment, I don’t think the problem is misinformation, disinformation or partisan silos, because we’ve always had misinformation, disinformation and partisan silos. The information environment of the early American Republic — the first years of the Constitution, leading up to the election of 1800 — was saturated with conspiracies and misinformation. For all intents and purposes, there was no press but the partisan press well into the 19th century, to the extent that local political machines produced their own newspapers for their supporters and patrons. And conspiracies, again, were the common currency of American politics. We tend to remember the 20th century as the age of the broad-minded and objective journalist, but until the Second World War, the information environment of American life looked much like it did in the previous century, with tabloids and broadsheets competing with partisan outlets and ideological journals. Cato: General Bans on Election Untruths Would Violate the First Amendment By Walter Olson .....Should the law do more to punish persons who falsely assert that an election was rigged or stolen? That’s a demand being heard from some academics and officials. But any general attempt to legislate against so-​called election denial soon runs into the First Amendment. Washington Free Beacon: ‘Dogs—t’: Federal Judge Decries Disruption of His Remarks by Stanford Law Students and Calls for Termination of the Stanford Dean Who Joined the Mob By Aaron Sibarium .....Fifth Circuit appellate judge Stuart Kyle Duncan, who was shouted down by Stanford Law School students as administrators looked on in silence, says the protesters behaved like "dogshit." Now, in an interview with the Washington Free Beacon, Duncan is calling on the school to discipline the students who disrupted his talk and to fire the school’s associate dean of diversity, equity, and inclusion, who stepped in during the event to chastise him and deliver what the judge described as a "bizarre therapy session from hell." Duncan’s remarks come after nearly a hundred students at Stanford Law School disrupted his remarks in brazen violation of Stanford University’s free speech policies. One source of the students’ ire was Duncan’s refusal, in a 2020 opinion, to use a transgender sex offender’s preferred pronouns. National Review: Stanford President and Law-School Dean Apologize to Judge Duncan By Ed Whelan .....I’m pleased to break the news that Stanford president Marc Tessier-Lavigne and Stanford law school dean Jenny Martinez have issued a joint letter of apology to Judge Kyle Duncan for the violations of university policies on speech that disrupted his talk on Thursday... I asked Judge Duncan for comment and have received this response from him: The States Election Law Blog: Should NYC Prosecutors Go After Trump for Crimes Tangentially Related to Campaign Finance Crimes? Reasons for Caution and Reasons to Save Prosecution for More Serious Crimes By Rick Hasen .....Reports circulated yesterday that the Manhattan District Attorney is considering indicting Donald Trump for state law crimes related to falsifying business records related to hush money payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels. To turn this from a misdemeanor to a felony under state law, prosecutors are going to have to show that he had an intent to commit another crime. In this case, that crime would be violating campaign finance laws. Doing all of this won’t be easy to do... At this point, it seems ill-advised to prosecute Trump on this difficult legal theory. Back in 2018, I wrote at Slate about how Trump could be prosecuted for the underlying campaign finance crime. It is going to turn on Trump’s state of mind in a case that federal prosecutors looked at and passed on. It seems like a risky move to go after Trump on an uncertain legal theory that requires bootstrapping two crimes, for something that might not even merit jail time. Fox 13 Seattle: Domestic extremism bill would criminalize free speech, create 'Ministry of Truth,' advocacy group warns By Hannah Ray Lambert .....A bill pushed by Washington's attorney general would criminalize free speech and lead to an Orwellian "Ministry of Truth" under the guise of preventing domestic terrorism, according to a regional think tank. "This bill will create a two-tiered justice system where some people have free speech and others don't, and that is a dangerous path for us to be set upon," Liv Finne, director for education at the Washington Policy Center, told Fox News. Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson's office released a 31-page report last year with recommendations on preventing domestic extremism. Now, a bill establishing a commission tasked with building upon the report and creating a first-of-its-kind public health approach to proactively fighting misinformation and early signs of radicalization is making its way through the state legislature. 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. 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