‘A huge win.’ A plaintiff in an ACLU lawsuit against facial recognition firm Clearview AI hails a proposed settlement under which the company agrees to limit the use of its massive collection of images …
■ … technology that those concerned about stalkers, ex-partners or predatory companies challenged under Illinois’ pioneering biometric privacy law.
■ The company had hired free-speech champion Floyd Abrams to argue that the First Amendment protected its right to make publicly available information searchable.
Devil’s in the details. Now that the Supreme Court has ruled Boston violated a Christian group’s First Amendment rights by refusing to let its flag fly over Boston’s City Hall Plaza, the Satanic Temple religious freedom advocacy group wants its standard hoisted there this summer …
■ … for “Satanic Appreciation Week.”
■ The group honors Satan not as an evil figure but as one who questioned authority.
■ A Wayne State University professor explains: “The key question … was whether raising a flag on City Hall’s third flagpole was an act of government speech or private expression.”
■ Former Acting U.S. Attorney General Stuart Gerson sees the ruling this way: “When government does not speak, it may not discriminate on the basis of religion as to access to a public facility.”
■ Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby: “How many more times must Boston be spanked by all nine members of the nation’s highest court before it learns to treat the First Amendment with respect?”
‘Police are concerned that if they do something about protesters outside of a clinic, they’re going to get sued for violating their First Amendment rights.’ If the Supreme Court indeed overturns Roe v. Wade, a Drexel University law professor tells Mother Jones the legal line between harassment and free speech will get blurrier.
■ Jewish organizations contend that an abortion ban would threaten their First Amendment freedoms.
R.I.P., ‘free speech zones.’ A new Georgia law outlaws them on college campuses …
■ Iowa public universities’ new requirement that students, faculty and staff undergo First Amendment training is off to a slow start.
■ A Wall Street Journal editorial celebrates an Ohio mother’s free-speech victory in a lawsuit filed after a school board president told her to “zip it.”
Pay to tweet? Aspiring Twitter owner Elon Musk is mulling the prospect of imposing “a slight cost” on commercial and government agencies to use the service.
■ CNET: Pitching itself to advertisers, Twitter “made little more than a veiled allusion to … Musk.”
■ A federal court has tossed Donald Trump’s lawsuit complaining that Twitter was acting as a government agent when it kicked him off …
■ … but the judge left the door open for him to file an amended complaint.
■ George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley suggests five steps to save free speech on Twitter.
She’ll be back. Georgia’s top election official has ruled that Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene can stay on the Republican primary ballot …
■ … overruling challengers’ contention that she should be kicked off because she engaged in insurrection …
■ … but similar fights continue in other states.
■ Truckers who drove to Washington to protest COVID-19 vaccine requirements are suing the city on First Amendment grounds.
‘The Orwellian name’ didn’t help. ABC News says the Biden administration is playing defense over its proposal to establish a “Disinformation Governance Board” …
■ … to standardize government agencies’ treatment of disinformation.
■ Another Journal editorial: Pull the plug on the DGB …
■ Turley again, sarcastically: Biden’s choice to head the agency is “practically perfect in every way.”
