‘Not protected by the First Amendment.’ A federal judge appointed by Donald Trump was unimpressed with the free-speech defense advanced by four Proud Boys participants in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol.
■ He says they had many nonviolent ways to express their opinions.
■ Here’s his 43-page opinion.
■ A lawyer for a Michigan county commissioner who, while attending a virtual board meeting from his home last January, grabbed a semi-automatic rifle says his client was just exercising his First Amendment right and not intimidating a citizen critical of the Proud Boys.
■ You can see the video here.
‘Twitter is an enemy to America.’ That’s Georgia Republican U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s response to Twitter’s decision to ban her personal account for multiple violations of its COVID-19 misinformation policy.
■ Los Angeles Times reporter David Lazarus: Greene’s case “has prompted many conservatives to demonstrate their lack of understanding about the First Amendment.”
■ Columnist Matthew Yglesias fears “Twitter deplatforming the most deranged GOP politicians is a favor to Republicans.”
■ Techdirt’s Mike Masnick complains that Sen. Amy Klobuchar's “silly letter to Facebook raises First Amendment issues and only gives ammo to misinfo peddlers that Facebook is a state actor.”
■ The Electronic Frontier Foundation’s look back at 2021: “The Year Lawmakers Tried to Regulate Online Speech.”
‘Hateful and hurtful speech.’ A rash of stickers posted near campus—apparently by white supremacists—posed a First Amendment puzzle for a Pennsylvania university.
■ Asserting that the First Amendment doesn’t apply, a federal judge has nevertheless rejected an Arkansas school district’s request to seal proceedings in the case of ninth-grade basketball players accused of sexually assaulting eighth-grade teammates.
‘An outrage against the First Amendment.’ Journalism professor Dan Kennedy condemns a New York judge’s order forbidding The New York Times from publishing confidential documents it unearthed in investigating the reactionary group Project Veritas.
■ Techdirt: Veritas has been “on the one hand, screaming about their own press freedoms … while simultaneously trying to get a prior restraint order against the … Times.”
Mail-in ballots and free speech. Two Texas election officials are going to court on First Amendment grounds against a new law forbidding them from soliciting vote-by-mail ballot applications.
■ Their 24-page motion contends the law imposes content-based restrictions on their right to discuss elections.
‘Can the government censor you for tweeting happy birthday to a judge?’ Wall Street Journal commentator Thomas Berry suggests that a bill advancing in the U.S. Senate—aimed at protecting federal judges and their families—would violate the First Amendment.
■ The bill is a response to an attack that left a federal judge’s 20-year-old son dead and her husband critically wounded at their home.
■ Read it here.
Lawsuit that backfired. A Nebraska town that sued a man for writing letters and sending email that city officials and the police department considered “burdensome” will pay him $16,000 to drop his First Amendment claim against them.
■ A Michigan woman is celebrating a prosecutor’s decision not to seek felony charges against her for outing nurses spreading misinformation about COVID-19.
