Voting Tech Firm, Conservative Outlet Reach Settlement in Election Defamation Case
The confidential settlement was announced just a few hours after jury selection began in the lawsuit filed by Florida-based Smartmatic against Newsmax.
Ohio Sheriff Deletes Online Post About Harris Yard Signs After Public Outcry
The sheriff's supporters called that reaction overblown, arguing he was making a political point about unrestrained immigration and exercising his right to free speech.
Trial Begins Over Texas ‘Trump Train’ Highway Confrontation
One defendant argued his group had a First Amendment right to demonstrate support for their candidate, but the judge wrote that threats of violence are not protected expression.
First Amendment Scholar Timothy Zick Dismantles Trump v. CNN Lawsuit
Former President Donald Trump filed a $475 million defamation lawsuit against CNN arguing the network has maligned him with “fake news” for the purposes of damaging his political future heading into 2024. First Amendment Watch asked First Amendment scholar Timothy Zick to annotate the 29-page lawsuit for the legal claims it made and the precedents it cited.
DOJ Under President Trump Acquired Phone Records of NYT Reporters
On June 2nd, the Department of Justice revealed that during the administration of former President Donald Trump, the DOJ acquired the phone records of four reporters from The New York Times. The phone records date from the first several months of 2017.
John Quincy Adams: Defeating the Gag Rule and Protecting the Right of Petition
Which president in American history did the most for First Amendment freedoms either in or out of office? This is a deliciously difficult question because the vast majority of the occupants of the Oval Office were, at times, hostile to the First Freedom. Recent presidents simply do not make the grade for their in-office activities.
Fox’s lawyers argue that they had a First Amendment privilege to report newsworthy allegations–even false ones–in a neutral way. They also claim that Smartmatic failed to establish a key requirement of a defamation claim—that Piro, Dobbs, and Bartiromo acted with “actual malice.”
Do Twitter and Other Social Media Platform Bans on Trump Violate the First Amendment?
Twitter, Facebook, and a host of other privately-held companies have imposed bans on President Donald J. Trump, believing that his incendiary comments on January 6, 2021, helped fan the flames of outrage that resulted in an assault on the Capitol. Trump and others have decried the social media blackout as a direct assault on conservative points of view, and as a draconian targeting of only certain types of speech.