Free Republic

On XApr 17, 2024 TRANSCRIPT:Katherine Maher: The number one challenge here that we see is, of course, the First Amendment in the United States... is a fairly robust protection of rights, and that is a protection of rights, both for platforms, which I actually think is very important. The platforms have those rights to regulate what kind of content they want on their sites, but it also means it is a little bit tricky to really address some of the real challenges of 'where does bad information come from?' and some of the influence peddlers who have made a real...

Federal prosecutors are pursuing a deal to allow WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to avoid espionage charges and instead plead guilty to the misdemeanor of mishandling classified data. The Wall Street Journal first reported on the talks between U.S. authorities and Assange's lawyers on Wednesday. The independent outlet Consortium News then confirmed that it had learned the same details "off the record" several months ago. Assange has been detained in Britain for five years awaiting extradition, and the Journal reported that he "would likely be free to leave prison shortly after any deal was concluded" due to time served. Although it's...

WASHINGTON, March 15 (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court, addressing free speech rights in the digital age, decided on Friday that government officials can sometimes be sued under the Constitution's First Amendment for blocking critics on social media. In unanimous decisions in two cases from California and Michigan, the justices set a new standard for determining if public officials acted in a governmental capacity when blocking critics on social media - a test to be applied in lawsuits accusing them of violating the First Amendment. First Amendment protections for free speech generally constrain government actors, not private individuals. Under the...

Priscilla Villarreal, also known as "Lagordiloca," has sparked a debate about free speech and who, exactly, is a journalist.A journalist asked the police a few questions and was arrested by that same agency for publishing the answers. That this happened not in China or Russia but in the U.S. may raise some eyebrows. Yet that's the conduct a federal court greenlit last week when it ruled that law enforcement in Laredo, Texas, did not obviously violate the Constitution when officers allegedly misled a magistrate judge and arrested Priscilla Villarreal for doing basic reporting, adding another twist to a case that...

CNN — New York City has banned the term “illegal alien” when used “with intent to demean, humiliate or harass a person,” the city said. The city’s new guidelines, announced last week, also ban discrimination against someone based on their English proficiency and threats to call immigration authorities on someone “based on a discriminatory motive.” These violations can result in fines up to $250,000. The guidance is for all public accommodations, employment and housing, the city’s Commission on Human Rights said.

Special Counsel Jack Smith hunted information on X users who liked or retweeted posts published by former President Donald Trump, according to redacted search warrants and other documents released Monday.According to the heavily redacted document issued to then-Twitter in January, the court ordered the social media giant to forfeit a bevy of information regarding Trump’s account, including “advertising information, including advertising IDs, ad activity, and ad topic preferences,” as well as IP addresses “used to create, login, and use the account” and privacy and account settings. The warrant also demanded information such as Trump’s search history, direct messages, and “content...

The White House on Monday pushed back on hardline Republican demands to deport foreigners who joined pro-Palestinian protests, warning the proposals would not pass First Amendment protections on free speech. Republican 2024 hopefuls are competing to see who can be toughest on demonstrators backing the Palestinian cause after Hamas terrorists killed 1400 people on October 7. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, for example, said pro-Hamas demonstrators should have their visas canceled. John Kirby, White House national security spokesman, was asked about sending home people who support the Palestinian cause. 'I would just tell you, you don't have to agree with every...

A Texas judge ruled that Infowars host Alex Jones cannot use bankruptcy protection to avoid paying Sandy Hook massacre victims' families more than $1.1 billion for his conspiracy theories that the 2012 shooting was a hoax. U.S. District Judge Christopher Lopez of Houston issued the ruling Thursday. "The families are pleased with the Court’s ruling that Jones’s malicious conduct will find no safe harbor in the bankruptcy court," said lawyer Christopher Mattei, who represents the families. "As a result, Jones will continue to be accountable for his actions into the future regardless of his claimed bankruptcy."

In a bombshell ruling, the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has shut down the “nerve center” of federal government-led speech policing, correcting a critical error in its prior jurisprudence and striking a major blow for the First Amendment and against deep-state election interference. The court’s opinion comes in the landmark free speech case in the digital era, Missouri v. Biden. Before the litigation landed in appellate court, Louisiana District Judge Terry A. Doughty declared in a fitting Independence Day ruling that federal authorities from the Biden White House to the FBI and CDC had likely engaged in “the most...

The police chief who oversaw a controversial raid on a small Kansas newspaper has been suspended. The raid, carried out on the Marion County Record on August 11, was personally led by Marion Police Chief Gideon Cody . Another raid was enacted on the home of the newspaper's publisher' 98-year-old mother, Joan Meyer, who subsequently died. The police chief who led a highly criticized raid of a small Kansas newspaper, that saw its 98-year-old owner die the following day, has been suspended. ... The August 11 raids of the Marion County Record office and the homes of its publisher and...

On September 13, 2023, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held California AB2571, which broadly limits the commercial speech of people promoting the sale of firearms or firearms products or events where firearms products are used or sold, was probably unconstitutional. For example, this would include virtually all gun shows. The three-judge panel stopped enforcement of the bill. The California Government had passed the bill into law a bit more than a year earlier.On June 30, 2022, the California Governor signed AB 2571 into law, a sweeping new restriction on the commercial speech of firearms industry...

In a recent survey by the Annenberg Constitution Day Civics Survey, Americans were asked to name the rights the First Amendment protected. The Annenberg Foundation has drifted reliably left since its creation. From the ABA Journal: The 2023 Annenberg Constitution Day Civics Survey asked Americans to name the specific rights guaranteed by the First Amendment. The results: 77% said freedom of speech 40% said freedom of religion 33% said the right to assembly 28% said freedom of the press 9% said the right to petition governmentTwenty-two percent named the right to bear arms, which is actually protected by the Second...

“This changes the rules of the game,” Dershowitz said. “This basically says RICO is not just applicable to organized crime or to organized, commercial crime with hierarchies, but it also applies to protests against election results. It’s going to deter and chill people from challenging legitimate election results.”

The police chief whose “Gestapo”-style raid on a small town newspaper has become the focus of national outrage was being investigated by its reporters over claims of alleged sexual misconduct. Gideon Cody and every officer in the Marion Police Department stormed into the Marion County Record’s offices Friday with a search warrant where they seized computers and servers. They also raided the home of the editor and publisher, Eric Meyer, and his 98-year-old mother Joan Meyer, the paper’s co-owner. She died the following day of “shock and grief,” Meyer said, stressed and unable to sleep when police seized her computer...

Pennsylvania state judge ruled that President Donald Trump is protected by presidential immunity for the statements he made creating doubt about the 2020 election results while in office. Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas Judge Michael Erdos ruled Monday that 2020 election worker James Savage is unable to sue Trump over the claims, according to The Hill. Trump's immunity includes a tweet and other comments he made from the White House while a Pennsylvania state Senate committee met in November 2022, the judge also said. "Other legal proceedings may examine the propriety of his statements and actions while he was...

Two years after the Supreme Court sharply limited the authority of school districts over their students when not on campus or at school-sponsored programs, a high school principal faces a lawsuit alleging he suspended a student for unflattering social media posts about him, despite having known the legal precedent. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression filed a First and Fourteenth amendments lawsuit on behalf of the rising senior, known only by his initials I.P., against Tennessee's Tullahoma City Schools, recently departed Principal Jason Quick and Assistant Principal Derrick Crutchfield. Because the suspension is on the student's permanent record, it...

The U.S. government has filed an emergency stay request to lift a recent injunction issued by a federal judge forbidding the government from violating Americans’ First Amendment rights by colluding with social media companies to censor their constitutionally protected speech. In the emergency stay, the government contended that the injunction was vague and that the attorney generals could not show harm from the censorship, an argument that Judge Terry Doughty had rejected multiple times in the past. “Defendants respectfully request that the Court stay its July 4 preliminary injunction pending Defendant’s appeal of that order,” the government argued. “The Government...

A California Christian church and preschool were pushed out of a federal food program for policies opposing homosexuality and transgenderism, including a prohibition on 'lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender lifestyles' for staff.(LifeSiteNews) — A Christian church and preschool are suing the Biden administration and California state officials for suspending them from a food program serving impoverished students because of the church’s religious beliefs on human sexuality. The Church of Compassion and its subsidiary Dayspring Christian Learning Center, located in El Cajon, California, maintain traditional beliefs regarding sexuality and gender, such as that there are only two “genders” (sexes). The lawsuit...

A Michigan House committee plans to hold a hearing on Tuesday regarding two bills that would amend the penal code and make vaguely defined “hate” speech a felony subject to severe penalties. House Bills 4474 and 4475 state, “A person is guilty of a hate crime if that person intimidates or harasses another individual; causes bodily injury or severe mental anguish to another individual; uses force or violence on another individual; damages, destroys, or defaces any real, personal, digital, or online property of another individual; or threatens, by word or act, to do any of the above described actions, if...

Boys are boys and girls are girls, and there’s no in between.” That’s what Kellogg High School senior Travis Lohr said. And because he stated this simple biological reality, the school will not allow him to walk at his graduation ceremony. —— break —— In protest of the school’s disciplinary decision, more than 30 students walked out Friday, and dozens of parents joined in the parking lot. In total, more than 100 people gathered outside Kellogg High School to protest Lohr’s punishment.