Federal Judge Dismisses Nunes’s $250 Million Defamation Suit Against The Washington Post
On December 24, 2020, a federal judge dismissed a $250 million defamation lawsuit against The Washington Post that was filed earlier in the year by Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA). The suit, filed on March 3, 2020 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, alleges that Nunes was defamed in a Post article that referred to a conversation Nunes had with President Donald Trump about an intelligence briefing.
Dominion Employee Sues Trump Campaign and Others for Defamation
On December 22nd, Eric Coomer, the Director of Product Strategy and Security for Dominion Voting Systems, filed a suit against President Donald Trump’s campaign, podcast host Joseph Oltmann, Trump’s personal lawyers Rudy Guiliani and Sidney Powell, conservative news outlets One American News Network (OANN) and Newsmax, and others, for defamation and inflicting emotional distress.
Investigation into NYPD’s Response to George Floyd Protests Found Officers Violated First Amendment
A new report found that NYPD officers deployed during the George Floyd protests this summer "failed to discriminate between lawful, peaceful protesters and unlawful actors,” and frequently resorted to aggressive crowd control tactics that failed to adequately take protesters' expressive rights into consideration.
Voting Technology Company Demands Conservative Networks Retract Election Fraud Claims
From the moment the 2020 presidential election was called in favor of Joe Biden, three prominent conservative cable companies, Fox News, One America News Network (OANN), and Newsmax have repeatedly questioned the accuracy of the results. Now Smartmatic, a voting technology company, is threatening to sue the networks for false claims they published or republished about its product.
More than a thousand professors and graduate students have pledged not to speak at the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) until the administration provides a “full and transparent” account of the events that led to the firing of Garrett Felber, a well-regarded history professor.
Massachusetts Wiretap Law Can’t Apply to Police Recording, First Circuit Rules
On December 15th, the United States Appeals Court for the First Circuit unanimously ruled that a Massachusetts wiretap statute could not be used against individuals who recorded police officers in public, even if the officer had not consented to the recording. The state has long fought to preserve the statute that broadly protects people from being recorded without their consent
Press Groups’ Challenge to Texas Drone Law Can Move Forward
The National Press Photographers Association (NPPA), the Texas Press Association (TPA), and an independent journalist can move forward with their First Amendment challenge to a Texas law that restricts the use of drones.
New Report Shows Acute Rise in Arrests of Journalists in the U.S.
Drawing on data collected by the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, the report showed at least 117 verified cases of journalists arrested in 2020. The number represents a 1200% increase from 2019 when only nine cases were confirmed.