Civil Liberties
Florida Court Reverses Anti-Libel Injunction Entered During Discovery Dispute
Florida appellate courts are pretty good about reversing unconstitutional injunctions against speech (though Florida trial courts seem to be pretty willing to enter such injunctions).
European Union's AI Law Will Heavily Regulate a Technology Lawmakers Don't Understand
And in the process, it will stifle innovation and competition.
Lawsuits Allege Michigan Sheriffs Colluded To End In-Person Jail Visits and Price Gouge Families for Calls
Two class-action lawsuits say Michigan counties take cuts of the exorbitant costs of inmate phone calls while children go months without seeing their parents in person.
Amicus Brief in United States v. Abbott Explains Why Texas is Wrong to Equate Illegal Migration and Drug Smuggling With "Invasion"
The state's position is at odds with the text and original meaning of the Constitution and would set a dangerous precedent if accepted by federal courts.
Court Allows Media to Intervene to Unseal Documents in Lottery Winner's Lawsuit
The lottery winner is suing an ex-girlfriend based on a non-disclosure agreement aimed at concealing his identity. (The intervention, at this point, is aimed at just unsealing various sealed documents in the case, not at disclosing the parties' names.)
Arizona County Again Defies State Protections for Self-Defense Rights
Tucson and Pima County have a history of passing restrictions that conflict with state law.
The Government Can't Save India's Suffering Farmers
Protests in the country come from an understandable place. But their demands are divorced from certain unfortunate economic realities.
Biden Wants To Avoid a First Amendment Showdown Over WikiLeaks
U.S. prosecutors are looking to wriggle out of an espionage trial for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
Will the Supreme Court Let Sylvia Gonzalez Sue the Political Enemies Who Engineered Her Arrest?
"Mayors should not be allowed to launder animus through warrants," the former city council member's lawyer told the justices.
Texas SWAT Team Held Innocent Family at Gunpoint After Raiding the Wrong Home
The officers are avoiding accountability after getting qualified immunity.
"Spam Private Eye" Can't Constitutionally Be Required to Get Real Private Eye License,
at least when the license requires 6000 hours of training on matters far removed from his expertise.
#TheyLied Libel Lawsuit Over Ex-Student's Allegations of Rape Can Go Forward,
and so can the professor's Title VII and Title IX discrimination claims against the university.
Another Judge Says Illegal Immigrants Have Second Amendment Rights
Some supposed defenders of the right to bear arms react with alarm.
Biden Decries Criminalization of Cannabis Consumers Even As He Insists They Have No Second Amendment Rights
Hours before the president said "no one should be jailed" for marijuana use, his Justice Department was saying no one who uses marijuana should be allowed to own guns.
Supreme Court Considers Claim That New York Regulators Violated NRA's First Amendment Rights
State officials “jawboned” financial firms into cutting ties with the gun-rights group.
The Supreme Court Should Reject Clandestine Government Censorship of Online Speech
The Biden administration’s social media meddling went far beyond "information" and "advice."
'Hamstringing the Government': A Viral Narrative Distorts Ketanji Brown Jackson's Understanding of Free Speech
If partisans have one thing in common, it's confirmation bias.
Supreme Court Says Officials Who Block Critics on Social Media Might Be Violating the First Amendment
The justices established guidelines for determining whether that is true in any particular case.
Who Best Chronicles the Absurd Reality of Venezuelan Politics? A Giant Manic-Depressive Rodent
Diosdado Cabello, Nicolás Maduro's right-hand man, is threatening retribution against the satirical website.
Trump Files Defamation Lawsuit Against ABC for Saying He Was Found Liable for Rape Instead of Sexual Assault
The defamation lawsuit is the latest in Trump's campaign of lawfare against media outlets, but all of those suits have failed so far.
Justice Jackson Seems to Be Charting a More Speech-Restriction-Tolerant Approach
Justice Jackson, like Justice Breyer (whom she replaced and for whom she clerked), seems to be considering an approach that is more embracing of speech restrictions that she views as especially urgent—including perhaps ones that departs from precedents such as the Pentagon Papers case.
Murthy v. Missouri and Government Urging Platforms to Restrict Speech
The government can't block viewpoints it condemns from its own property that has been opened to publicspeech. Should there be limits on government systematically and substantially encouraging private entities to block the same viewpoints from their property—which may be much more important to public debate than the government property where speech remains free?
"Black Lives Mat[t]er" + "Any Life" Drawing "Not Protected by the First Amendment" in First Grade
Such speech can be found to be "impermissible harassment," the court says, partly because "deference to schoolteachers is especially appropriate today, where, increasingly, what is harmful or innocent speech is in the eye of the beholder."
Court Should Focus on Coercion in Murthy v. Missouri
The government is entitled to try to persuade social media to take down posts, but not to coerce them to do so.
SCOTUS Ponders Whether the Biden Administration Coerced Social Media Platforms To Censor Speech
Several justices seemed concerned that an injunction would interfere with constitutionally permissible contacts.
The CCP Sucks. So Does Banning TikTok.
Plus: A listener asks about Republicans and Democrats monopolizing political power in the United States.
Law Enforcement Trainers File Scotus Amicus Brief against Maryland Rifle Ban
Citizens should be able to choose the same high-quality defensive arms that peace officers choose
The One-Man 'Cult' That Put St. Louis Under Surveillance
The story behind the city's ban on unlicensed drone businesses is even weirder than the ban itself.
Pornhub Pulls Out of Seventh State
The company leaves Texas over an “ineffective, haphazard, and dangerous” age-verification law.
ACLU, Once a Defender of Free Speech, Goes After a Whistleblower
The former civil liberties group continues morphing into a progressive organization.
The New York Times Again Worries That Free Speech Endangers Democracy
The newspaper portrays the constitutional challenge to the government's social media meddling as a conspiracy by Donald Trump's supporters.
Cross-Ideological YIMBY Coalition Defies Increasing Polarization - So Far
The New York Times and the Atlantic report on how the movement to curb exclusionary zoning and build more housing has managed to cut across ideological lines.
No, Imprisoning a School Shooter's Parents Isn't Justice
James Crumbley, who was convicted of involuntary manslaughter, may be an unsympathetic defendant. But this prosecution still made little sense.
Pano Kanelos: 'Ideology Is the Death of Ideas'
The president of the new University of Austin wants to reverse the decline of higher education in America.
Judge Orders Person to Stop Campaign of Criticizing Teenager Who Had Posted a Racial Slur When a Sophomore
The Indiana Court of Appeals, though, reverses the order, concluding the judge wasn't allowed to issue such an order on his own initiative; it doesn't decide whether such an order would violate the First Amendment.
S. Ct. Announces Test for When a Government Official's Social Media Posts Are "State Action"
This bears on when the official's comment deletion or blocking decisions may violate the First Amendment.
Study Estimates Nearly 96% of Private Property Is Open to Warrantless Searches
The Institute for Justice says its data show that a century-old Supreme Court doctrine created a huge exception to the Fourth Amendment.
Banning TikTok Would Give the Feds Way Too Much Power
"It's a disturbing gift of unprecedented authority to President Biden and the Surveillance State," said Sen. Rand Paul (R–Ky.).
Matt Yglesias on the Takings Clause and Curbing Exclusionary Zoning
Prominent political commentator and zoning reform advocate comments on my work on this topic (with Joshua Braver).
Abortion Pill Studies Retracted: Politics or Science?
"Following the science" as the Supreme Court considers the safety and efficacy of medical abortions.
TikTok's Opponents Want Chinese-style Censorship in America
Instead of freeing Americans from censorship, the TikTok bill would tighten the U.S. government's control over social media.
