As Summer Starts Maryland Judge Says Restrictions On Boardwalk Performers Unconstitutional
A U.S. district court judge in Maryland ruled that restrictions on street performers in Ocean City is unconstitutional. The decision says the restrictions placed a "substantial burden" on harmless speech.
Bill to Increase Fines And Penalties For Protestors Vetoed
“I believe that blocking access to freeways and airports is a matter of public safety for everyone involved,” Governor Mark Dayton wrote in a letter to the speaker of Minnesota’s […]
Lata Nott: These Two States Are Pushing Laws To Criminalize Some Protests
The Newseum Institute’s First Amendment expert, Lata Nott, originally published this podcast on the Newseum blog, and has given First Amendment Watch permission to reprint. Rightly or wrongly, certain […]
Ballard Spahr: First Amendment Bars Trump from Blocking Critics on Twitter, Court Rules
Reprinted with Permission from Ballard Spahr A federal judge has ruled that the First Amendment prohibits President Donald J. Trump from blocking Twitter users because of political disagreements. Last summer, […]
EPA Bars Reporters from Several Outlets From Attending National Summit
Reporters from CNN, The Associated Press, and E&E News were barred by the EPA from entering a national summit “of national priority,” while other reporters were allowed inside for Scott […]
Parents of Paul Tatum, a teenager who committed suicide, sued now retired columnist Steve Blow at The Dallas Morning News for libel in regards to a piece he wrote in 2010 about their son's death. The court however decided the column was protected by the First Amendment as it was an opinion piece and therefore protected speech. "The publication of Blow's column may have run afoul of certain journalistic, ethical, and other standards. But the standards governing the law of defamation are not among them," wrote Justice Jeff Brown, a former Texas Supreme Court chief justice who handled the case in the Supreme Court.
The Newseum Institute’s First Amendment expert, Gene Policinski, originally published this commentary on May 11, 2018, on the Newseum blog, and has given First Amendment Watch permission to reprint. […]
President Trump Takes Fake News Accusations To New Level Tweeting Negative Coverage Equals Fake News
Presidents make use of all forms of communication to get their message out to voters. No other President has so effectively used Twitter as President Trump who has called it his "own form of media" used to counter "fake news." In his latest deluge, President Trump equates negative news coverage with "fake news" and threatens to revoke press credentials (again). The central role of the First Amendment is to protect the people in their writings about government affairs and government officials—and especially when it is negative, as that is when the government is most likely to try to punish writers. As James Madison wrote in his Virginia Report of 1800, freedom of the press protects the "right of freely examining public characters and measures, and of free communication among the people thereon, which has ever been justly deemed the only effectual guardian of every other right.”