The Georgia Supreme Court ruled that a law outlawing assisted suicide was an unconstitutional violation of free speech in that it made it a crime to promote assisted suicide. -db

From The New York Times, February 6, 2012, by Kim Severson.

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The First Amendment Coalition has filed an amicus brief in a US Supreme Court case, United States v. Alvarez,  that will test the limits of free speech protection for false speech.  FAC’s brief was written by lawyers Gary Bostwick, Jean-Paul Jassy and Kevin Vick of  LA law firm Bostwick & Jassy, LLP.

The Alvarez case concerns a local politician in Southern California who was prosecuted under an obscure federal law, the Stolen Valor Act, which makes it a crime to falsely claim to have been awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. Alvarez’s conviction was overturned by the Ninth Circuit federal court of appeals on First Amendment grounds.

The Supreme Court’s prior decisions in the areas of libel and elsewhere have extended protection to some false speech as a prophylactic measure, needed to assure adequate First Amendment protection for true speech. The Justice Department contends that First Amendment protection for false speech should be narrowly limited to those areas.

FAC’s brief argues that the Court should resist the government’s invitation to carve out a new category of non-protected speech under the First Amendment. FAC also points out that the infamous Sedition Act of 1798, which criminalized “false and malicious writings” against the federal government, would survive First Amendment scrutiny under the test urged by the Justice Department.

Here’s the Court of Appeals decision in US v. Alvarez.

– PS

Stances against campaign finance limits and the online piracy act are among Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s  views on First Amendment issues detailed in a roundup for the First Amendment Center. -db

From the First Amendment Center, February 1, 2012, by Josh Tatum with research by Courtney Holliday.

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The Chicago Tribune pulled the  DonorsChoose cartoon in the Doonesbury strip on the grounds that the cartoon promoted cartoonist Garry Trudeau’s self-interest in making an appeal for a particular charity contrary to Tribune policy.

Trudeau disputed that the cartoon ws in his self interest since the appeal was for a charity that he was not connected with. -db

From a commentary in The Washington Post, February 6, 2012, by Michael Cavna.

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A federal judge ruled against a Wisconsin middle school student who sued the Sauk Prairie School District on First Amendment grounds for banning the “I (Heart) Boobies” bracelet.

The judge said the district could ban vulgar or offensive speech under the U.S. Supreme Court’s Bethel v. Fraser precedent. -db

From the Student Press Law Center, February 7, 2012, by Brian Schraum.

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A number of free speech defenders have filed briefs to the U.S. Supreme Court contesting the constitutionality of the Stolen Valor Act.

The briefs were filed in support of a Pomona, California water district board member who lied about receiving the Medal of Honor and 25 years of service in the Marines. -db

From the Courthouse News Service, February 06, 2012, by Tim Hull.

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A federal judge ruled that the “Sister Wives family could proceed with their lawsuit challenging Utah’s anti-polygamy law.

Because Utah’s Attorney General said the family would be prosecuted under the state’s bigamy law, the judge said there was a “chilling effect” on the family’s First Amendment rights. -db

From The Hollywood Reporter, February 4, 2012, by Aaron Couch.

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Obsidian Finance Group who won a round in court against a blogger for defamation says the blogger does not deserve a new trial. A court awarded Obsidian$2.5 million in damages for one post.

The blogger is seeking to appeal the award with the Electric Frontier Foundation filing an amicus brief arguing the judgment was a threat to free speech. -db

From the Courthouse News Service, February 6, 2012, by Nick McCann.

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A federal judge gave the go-ahead to a lawsuit brought by three families claiming a school district violated the free speech rights of their children seeking to hand out candy cane pens stamped with religious messages. -db

From the Courthouse News Service, February 6, 2012, by Bonnie Barron.

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The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) has sued the Justice Department and the FBI claiming that they refuse to release information on the FBI’s surveillance of citizens who have shown support for or interest in WikiLeaks.

EPIC made the Freedom of Information Act complaint in federal court. -db

From the Courthouse News Service, January 31, 2012, by Iulia Filip.

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A gay police officer who alleged that St. Cloud Police Department refused to allow him his First Amendment rights to work in the Twin Cities Pride Festival even if he used his vacation time lost a bid in federal court on the First Amendment claim.

The court did say there was sufficient evidence to pursue an equal protection claim. -db

From the First Amendment Center, January 30, 2012, by David L. Hudson Jr.

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A federal judge ruled that Republican presidential contender Ron Paul could not force YouTube and Twitter to provide the identities of whoever uploaded videos with a spoof of Ron Paul bashing former candidate Jon Huntsman for being a Chinese agent.

It is unusual for a candidate to sue in these matters given the courts’ tolerance of robust give and take in presidential campaigns, writes Jeff Roberts in paidContent. -db

From a commentary in paidContent, January 26, 2012, by Jeff Roberts.

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Writing critical reviews of doctors and dentists online could make you the target of a defamation lawsuit as medical professionals try to stifle negative comments.

Some doctors are asking patients to sign gag orders to prevent online comments while the sites are publishing the names of doctors using gag order forms and providing patients with access to legal resources if they are threatened. -db

From the The Washington Post, January 28, 2012, by Dina ElBoghdady.

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The Justice Department wants a federal judge to allow them to withhold photos of the death of Osama bin Laden on the grounds that releasing the photos could incite violence against the U.S.

The DOJ disputed the arguments of Judicial Watch that making the photos public would cause harm to national security by revealing intelligence methods or equipment. -db

From The Blog of Legal Times, January 26, 2012, by Mike Scarcella.

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After the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled the Stolen Valor Act unconstitutional in a separate case, the 10th Circuit upheld the law which prohibits lying about military awards.

The opinion of the 10th Circuit judges cited a statement from a Supreme Court ruling that false statements do not get constitutional protection, “except to the extent necessary to protect more valuable speech.” -db

From The Denver Post, January 27, 2012, by John Ingold.

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After NBC TV station continued to air a Mitt Romney ad that the network wants pulled, they were charged with hypocrisy, but says Josh Gerstein in Politico, it’s not that the stations would sell out principles to make a buck, FCC rules say that stations have to take ads on a comparable basis from all viable candidates. -db

From a commentary in Politico, January 29 2012, by Josh Gerstein.

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The Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals extended the Supreme Court ruling known as Hazelwood to public colleges and universities while ruling on a case over the expulsion of a student in a counseling program at Eastern Michigan University.

Hazelwood allows school administrators to censor student expression on the grounds of “legitimate pedagogical concerns.” -db

From the Student Press Law Center, January 27, 2012, by Nick Glunt.

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After Twitter announced last week they would engage in country-specific censorship, EFF’s Eva Galperin says there are ways to fight the plan including checking to see if Twitter makes use of the Chilling Effects Project which publishes a country’s censorship orders and puts it in an archive.

Galperin also says that a user can circumvent the censorship by changing the country listed in their profile. -db

From a commentary for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, January 27, 2012, by Eva Galperin.

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In an incident reminiscent of  Cohen v. California, the Supreme Court police arrested a man in a corridor wearing a jacket with the words “Occupy Everything.”

For the Citizen Media Law Project, Andrew F. Sellars analyzes the case finding little basis for the arrest. “Here, in the halls of the very building that brought us Cohen, Grace, and every other major case which has safeguarded our liberties from the intrusion of government, we have absurd government intrusion, based on hypothetical harms, against a legitimate display of pure speech,” writes Sellars. -db

From a commentary for the Citizen Media Law Project, January 23, 2012, by Andrew F. Sellars.

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In a victory for the technology industry, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid postponed a vote on the Protect IP Act, the online piracy bill before the Senate.

In effect, Congress is going back to the drawing board to balance intellectual property rights with openness and innovation on the Internet. -db

From Wired, January 20, 2012, by David Kravets.

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The American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation are set to file an appeal concerning the U.S. government’s attempts to obtain Twitter records in their investigation of WikiLeaks.

The ACLU and EFF are seeking to prevent the government from sealing records of their efforts to obtain private information of Internet users without a warrant. -db

From a press release by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, January 20, 2012.

Full release

BY PETER SCHEER—Successful technology firms pride themselves on their capacity to disrupt the established order. The reference is usually to a technological advance that poses an existential threat to an entrenched industry or way of doing business. Think of Apple Computer’s impact on the cellphone and music industries, Google on the sale and delivery of advertising, or Amazon on book publishing–to name just a few.

But in their recent protests against anti-piracy legislation pending in Congress–the SOPA  bill—high-tech firms demonstrated, for the first time, their awesome capacity for “creative destruction” of a political establishment that they see as hostile to their interests. Literally within hours of Wikipedia going dark and Google’s covering its logo with the black band of censorship, members of Congress were running for the exits, disavowing their previously pledged support for SOPA.

Legislators barely hesitated before reneging on literally decades of accumulated political debts to Hollywood interests, the principal backers of the anti-piracy bill. These politicians cowered before the emergence of a new political institution—more powerful even than the traditional media, the so-called “Fourth Estate,” in its heyday. Call this new institution, the corporate power brokers of Silicon Valley and other digital meccas across the country, the Fifth Estate. Pulling the plug on SOPA was the occasion for their political coming out.

Shrewdly, the Fifth Estate selected a political strategy that relied entirely on symbolic expression. The online anti-SOPA protests involved no threats of violence, no coercion, no overnight camping in public parks or blocking of street traffic during rush hour. Municipalities were not required to pay overtime to police. Tasers guns and pepper spray remained holstered. And there were no injuries.

The Fifth Estate’s tactic of symbolic protest was the essence of constitutionally protected expression.

In this context it is worth noting that the First Amendment rights on display in this debate were secured by the US Supreme Court’s controversial decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. That misunderstood case is reviled in some quarters for its affirmation of the First Amendment rights of corporations. Indeed, in the aftermath of the Citizens United decision, a cottage industry has emerged to advocate legislation (or, God forbid, constitutional amendments) to curb the influence of corporations in the political sphere.

Their good intentions notwithstanding, those who believe corporations have no free speech rights (or that they should have, at most, a second-rate version of the free speech protections for individuals), should realize that only the First Amendment stands in the way of governmental punishment–legislative, regulatory or otherwise–against Google and other Fifth Estate corporations for their inciting of public opinion against SOPA-type legislation.

Think of how many members of Congress, humiliated (or at least humbled) by the anti-SOPA blow-back on the internet, would love to not only punish the Fifth Estate for its political impudence, but to neuter it permanently–for example, by blocking corporate acquisitions,  unleashing antitrust and SEC investigations, or instigating IRS scrutiny.

One does not have to be a Ron Paul supporter to appreciate that, for corporations (like Google, Twitter, Facebook and Microsoft), there is nothing more intimidating than being in the cross-hairs of government law enforcement agencies, egged on by pissed-off members of Congress with power over the agencies’ budget appropriations.

Corporations, no less than individuals, need First Amendment protection for their criticism of government and advocacy of policies opposed by government. They need this protection for themselves, for their employees, and for their shareholders and customers.
—————
Peter Scheer, a lawyer and journalist, is executive director of the First Amendment Coalition (FAC). The views expressed here are his alone, not necessarily those of the FAC Board of Directors.

Rejecting arguments that a 1994 law complying with an international treaty violated U.S. copyright law and free speech rights, the U.S. Supreme Court voted 6-2 to extend copyright protection to foreign works.

Google was among those against the law, but the government said that foreign works should receive the same treatment as domestic works under the reciprocal international copyright system. -db

From Reuters, January 18, 2012.

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The Citizen Media Law Project is providing access to information on the SOPA and PIPA, the online piracy bills before Congress, and also to links for summaries and commentaries on the laws. -db

From the Citizen Media Law Project,  January 18, 2012, by CMLP Staff.

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The District of Columbia Court of Appeals ruled that a software trade association did not have to disclose the name of an anonymous tipster.

Solers, a software company, had sued the trade association to determine the identity of the tipster who they claimed made a false accusation that the company used unlicensed software. -db

From The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, January 18, 2012, by Haley Behre.

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With copyright protection established in the U.S. Constitution and free speech in the Bill of Rights, it is vital to honor each in the fight over the new online piracy bills currently before Congress says Ken Paulson of the First Amendment Center.

It will be a difficult task to craft a law that intercepts pirated content headed for the U.S. while protecting the free flow of ideas. -db

From the First Amendment Center, January 13, 2012, by Ken Paulson.

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The 8th U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals found that police had not violated protestors ‘ First And Fourth Amendments rights when they arrested 400 people at the 2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota.

The court cited widespread violence and vandalism in saying police were justified in conducting mass arrests to restore order. -db

From City Pages, January 13, 2012, by Aaron Rupar.

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Despite split rulings in two federal appellate courts, the U.S. Supreme Court will not hear arguments on whether school officials can regulate the off-campus speech of students on the Internet.

Two of the three cases under consideration concerned parodies directed at principals while the third involved cruel words directed at another student. -db

From the Student Press Law Center, January 17, 2012, by Brian Schraum.

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Spurning arguments that their lawsuit attacked free speech rights, a San Francisco Superior Court judge ruled that CalPERS could continue their legal battle against credit-rating firms, Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s.

The public pension system accused the firms of negligence in making careless investment ratings. -db

From the San Francisco Chronicle,  January 14, 2012, by Bob Egelko.

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A California appellate court ruled for a whistleblower at the College of Marin who said she was demoted for questioning what she thought were illegal activities of her superiors.

The court said the motives behind whistleblower reports of wrongdoing were not germane. -db

From the Marin Independent Journal, January 13, 2012, by Rob Rogers.

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Just as the Tucson Unified School District board voted the end the Mexican-American studies program, a federal judge ruled that students could sue to reinstate the program.

The judge said teachers had no standing to contest the ruling to end the program and that teachers “have failed to demonstrate that they have a protected First Amendment right to speak within the classroom.”  -db

From the Courthouse News Service, January 11, 2012, by Tim Hull.

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A group of citizens has been able to forestall a move by the Los Angeles Board of Supervisors to restrict the public in addressing the board.

A proposal before the board would limit speakers to three minutes for  various items on the agenda and two minutes for items not on the agenda. The board has also been asked to strengthen rules allowing them to throw disruptive speakers out of the meeting. -db

From the Los Angeles Daily News, January 10, 2012, by Christina Villacorte.

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A couple of legal heavyweights are joining the appeal of a $2.5 million judgment against an Oregon blogger accused of defaming the Obsidian Finance Group.

An Oregon federal judge had ruled that the blogger was not a member of the media and not protected by Oregon’s shield law. -db

From a commentary for the Citizens Media Law Project, January 9, 2012, by Arthur Bright

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The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has allowed an applicant for a college teaching job to sue a law school dean for allegedly discriminating against her for her political beliefs.

The applicant said the then dean of the University of Iowa College of Law rejected her application for legal-writing positions based on her socially conservative beliefs. -db

From a commentary for the First Amendment Center, January 10, 2012, by Douglas E. Lee.

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A study for the Brennan Center for Justice found that notwithstanding its reputation, the Roberts Supreme Court is ruling for free speech at a lower rate than the courts led by three previous chief justices.

In responding to the study, some point out that numbers don’t tell the entire story that the court had made some crucial decisions in such cases as the Kansas funeral protesters, violent video games and the animal torture videos. -db

From The New York Times, January 7, 2012, by Adam Liptak.

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The U.S. government has stepped up efforts to pressure Twitter to censor posts by a militant Somali group and the Taliban according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

The Israeli government and U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman are also pressuring Twitter. -db

From a commentary for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, January 6, 2012, byy Jillian C. York and Trevor Timm.

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The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the 2002 Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act forbidding foreign citizens from making campaign contributions in the U.S. The case had been brought by two Canadian citizens. -db

From the Courthouse News Service, January 9, 2012, by Barbara Leonard.

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An anti-abortion group is asking for a injunction in federal court to prevent the state from blocking an anti-abortion display in a corridor linking the Capitol Building to a parking garage.

The group, WyWatch Family Action, said other groups had put up displays, and they were only asking for equal treatment. -db

From the Casper Star-Tribune, January 5, 2012, by Joan Barron.

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In a 9-2 vote, the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals overturned a conviction of a man who sent letters to the media threatening a massacre at the 2008 Super Bowl in Arizona.

The court said the law covers threats to people, not corporations. The man served a year and a day in prison. -db

From the San Francisco Chronicle, January 9, 2012, by bob Egelko.

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The U.S. Supreme Court declined last week to hear a case on commercial speech brought by interior decorators who claim that Florida is denying their free speech rights by requiring years of school, apprenticeship and an exam before a person can take clients in interior design.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs argue that Florida’s law is an unfair burden and unconstitutional in restricting speech. -db

From a commentary in The National Law Journal, January 4, 2012, by Clark Neily and Paul Sherman.

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