We’re Hiring!
Summer Associate Legal Fellowship
The Institute for Free Speech Summer Associate Legal Fellowship is a unique opportunity for law students to explore a career in public interest and First Amendment law. The program is open to students who will finish their first or second year of law school by the summer of 2021.
Fellows are expected to work full time for 10 weeks in our Washington, D.C. area headquarters, but other arrangements may be available to especially outstanding candidates. In light of the ongoing pandemic, the possibility remains that fellows will work remotely for some or all of the summer fellowship.
Fellows are eligible to earn $10,000 in salary for their 10 weeks of employment.
During the fellowship, students will work with Institute for Free Speech attorneys for a portion of their time. Each fellow will also be expected to complete a project. Applicants are encouraged to be creative in suggesting a project as part of their application. While many projects may produce papers suitable for publication, we will consider any project related to protecting or advancing First Amendment rights.
[You can learn more about this role and apply for the position here.]
In the News
Newsmax: Bradley Smith: Targeting Conservative Media a ‘Rank Abuse of Power’
By Eric Mack
House Democrats seeking to pressure platforms to stifle conservative media are engaging in a “rank abuse of power,” Institute for Free Speech founder Bradley Smith said Wednesday.
“We don’t trust the U.S. Government to decide what news we can decide to hear,” Smith, the former Federal Election Commission chairman, said during a Zoom call.
“They do not have a right to censor the press.”
Smith called out the “retaliatory attempt” to censor conservative views amid the Biden administration’s own call for “unity.”
“It is repugnant to the First Amendment,” Smith said for lawmakers to seek to censor speech that is “incongruent with their political beliefs.”
“We don’t need to be nice about this; we need to call it what it is: This is a rank abuse of power by members of Congress who want to censor their political opposition,” Smith said…
“[President Donald] Trump was accused of targeting journalists, but it was the Obama administration that actually wiretapped them,” Smith wrote in an opinion piece for RealClearPolitics on Wednesday. “What if a future populist, conservative president followed Obama’s path – but went one step further, ordering the FCC to cancel outlets that allowed a commentator’s undesirable opinion to be heard?
Politico: Democrats attack fake news, and Republicans cry foul
By John Hendel
Democrats are morphing their scrutiny of online falsehoods into a broader campaign against misinformation on right-leaning television outlets – a development that Republicans and some media organizations are calling a government attack on the First Amendment…
The Democratic efforts include a House hearing Wednesday where lawmakers lambasted conservative-leaning broadcasters and cable channels as sources of dangerous conspiracy theories about the pandemic and the November election…
“This is a rank abuse of their political power,” former Bush-era Federal Election Commission Chair Bradley Smith, who now heads a deregulatory nonprofit called the Institute for Free Speech, told reporters before Wednesday’s hearing.
RNLA: Opposition Continues to Grow To HR 1
By Michael Thielen
If there is one thing that unites those concerned with free speech; open fair and honest elections; libertarians and conservatives; and the GOP and ACLU; it is opposition to HR1. Today we’ll highlight three groups’ opposition.
First, we want to highlight the opinions of those who know elections best, the Secretaries of State who wrote a letter opposing HR 1:
We are writing you today to urge you to reject the “For the People Act” otherwise known as H.R. 1 or S. 1, which is a dangerous overreach by the federal government into the administration of elections…
The Institute for Free Speech breaks down the problems related to the First Amendment with HR 1 or S1:
-Unconstitutionally regulates speech that mentions a federal candidate or elected official at any time under a vague, subjective, and dangerously broad standard that asks whether the speech “promotes,” “attacks,” “supports,” or “opposes” (“PASO”) the candidate or official. This standard is impossible to understand and would likely regulate any mention of an elected official who hasn’t announced their retirement.
-Compels groups to declare on new, publicly filed “campaign-related disbursement” reports that their ads are either “in support of or in opposition” to the elected official mentioned, even if their ads are neither. This form of compulsory speech forces organizations to declare their allegiance or opposition to public officials, provides false information to the public, and is unconstitutional.
New from the Institute for Free Speech
Letter to U.S. House Administration Committee on H.R. 1’s Harms to Speech and Assembly Rights
By David Keating
On behalf of the Institute for Free Speech, I write to express serious concerns about the devastating effect H.R. 1 would have on Americans’ freedom of speech and assembly rights. Labeling this bill the “For the People Act” is Orwellian. In reality, H.R. 1 would subsidize the speech of politicians while suppressing the speech of the people.
Significant portions of the bill would violate the privacy of advocacy groups and their supporters – including those groups who do nothing more than speak about policy issues before Congress or federal judicial nominees – limit political speech on the Internet, and compel speakers to recite lengthy government-mandated messages in their communications instead of their own speech.
H.R. 1 would impose onerous and unworkable standards on the ability of Americans and groups of Americans to discuss the policy issues of the day with elected officials and the public. It would radically transform oversight over the labyrinth of laws that regulate political speech from a historic, purposefully bipartisan system to one under partisan control. The proposal would coerce Americans into funding the campaigns of candidates with which they disagree under a system that research has proven hasn’t lived up to its goals elsewhere. As we struggle to emerge from the deaths and economic devastation of the pandemic, it’s likely most Americans would prefer to spend precious public funds addressing those harms. These issues represent only a few of the serious impacts on First Amendment freedoms that would be caused by enactment of H.R. 1.
DOD
Politico: Pentagon wades into political minefield in hunt for extremists
By Bryan Bender
The Pentagon is launching an unprecedented campaign to root out extremists in the ranks after dozens of military veterans took part in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
But confronting white nationalism and other far-right ideologies is proving to be a political minefield for an institution that prides itself on staying out of the nation’s partisan wars. There’s a growing sense of anxiety within the Pentagon that this push could feed the perception that it is policing political thought, favoring one political party over another or muzzling free speech…
The Pentagon has not yet disclosed all the training materials it is providing commanders, but that hasn’t stopped lawmakers and right-wing commentators from accusing the Defense Department of initiating a witch hunt on behalf of the Biden administration to purge political opponents. While there is no evidence to support a politicization of this effort, there are concerns among the top brass and senior retired officers that it could backfire if the Pentagon doesn’t clearly define exactly what “extremism” means…
Some branches of the military have adopted their own initiatives. [The Navy] warned sailors…that “just by posting, retweeting, or liking an offensive post on social media – you could be participating in extremism.”
Congress
Wall Street Journal: The ‘Experts’ Cited by the New Censors
By James Freeman
Two House Democrats from California, Reps. Anna Eshoo and Jerry McNerney, launched a frontal assault on the First Amendment this week with a letter to the CEOs of communications companies demanding to know what they are doing to police unwelcome speech…
The “experts” quoted are three Harvard academics, and the lead author is law professor Yochai Benkler. His take on “right-wing” media is perhaps not surprising given that according to the OpenSecrets website he donates exclusively to left-wing politicians, especially Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.).
In any case, Mr. Benkler has assembled an interdisciplinary team at Harvard’s Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society and purports to have discovered data showing that conservative media is bad.
Writing in the Washington Post in October of 2018, Mr. Benkler asserted:
Our analysis underscores not only the enormous power of right-wing media but also their distinctiveness from left-wing media. The conservative network of outlets, with Fox at its center, feeds a large minority of Americans narratives that confirm their biases, fills them with outrage at their political opponents, and isolates them from views that contradict these narratives. It is a closed propaganda feedback loop.
Left-leaning media, whatever the goals of some of their members, have failed to produce anything similar, our analysis found.
Insider: Congress needs to seize the moment, end the influence of Big Money, and save American democracy
By Jana Morgan
Because of wealth disparities resulting from discriminatory policy in the United States, the vast majority of Big Money donors are white. Since donor class preferences drive policy in our current broken system, the issues Black and brown people care most about fall to the bottom of the list, despite robust participation of these communities in our democracy…
White Americans hold the majority of wealth in the United States, and without a fair way to fund campaigns for public office, their dollars dominate our political system, making it harder for Black and brown people to build political power or run for public office.
The outsized corporate and wealthy white influence in our political system demonstrates the urgent need to change the status quo.
Fortunately, hope is within reach…
The For the People Act – set to be introduced in the Senate and reintroduced last month in the House with support from more than 210 House Democrats – is once-in-a-generation legislation that will help counteract the power of corporations and the wealthy few who dictate the direction of our government.
Online Speech Platforms
By Jack Gillum and Justin Elliot
As Turkey launched a military offensive against Kurdish minorities in neighboring Syria in early 2018, Facebook’s top executives faced a political dilemma.
Turkey was demanding the social media giant block Facebook posts from the People’s Protection Units, a mostly Kurdish militia group the Turkish government had targeted. Should Facebook ignore the request, as it has done elsewhere, and risk losing access to tens of millions of users in Turkey? Or should it silence the group, known as the YPG, even if doing so added to the perception that the company too often bends to the wishes of authoritarian governments?
It wasn’t a particularly close call for the company’s leadership, newly disclosed emails show.
“I am fine with this,” wrote Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s No. 2 executive, in a one-sentence message to a team that reviewed the page…
The conversations, among other internal emails obtained by ProPublica, provide an unusually direct look into how tech giants like Facebook handle censorship requests made by governments that routinely limit what can be said publicly.
Wall Street Journal: Google and Facebook on the Barbie
By Holman W. Jenkins, Jr.
Unfortunately, the Aussie money grab would institute the opposite of a virtuous circle, putting politicians in charge of subsidizing media owners, and doing so behind an anti-transparency fig leaf provided unhappily by Google and Facebook. Our world is already awash in proposals, including from Sen. Sanders, to undermine a free press by addicting its owners to tax dollars.
Is there a better approach? In the U.S., a newspaper lobby calling itself the News Media Alliance, along with friends in Congress, has argued for waiving our indiscriminate and Procrustean antitrust prejudice against cooperative acts by competitors. Let U.S. media outlets join forces to control the terms under which their content is searchable and linkable. If they so choose, let them create their own ad platform to compete with Google and Facebook.
CNET: TikTok removed nearly 350,000 videos related to election misinformation
By Andrew Morse
TikTok removed nearly 350,000 videos in the US for violating rules on election misinformation, disinformation or manipulated media in the second half year, the short-form video app app said on Wednesday in a transparency report.
The video platform removed a total of 347,225 videos from the platform and made an additional 441,028 videos ineligible for recommendation on the For You page, which serves as a homepage for users.
TikTok said its partnerships with fact-checkers allowed it to verify how accurate videos posted to it are, as well as limit the distribution of those containing “unsubstantiated content”.
Candidates and Campaigns
Salon: Now Ted Cruz may be buying his own books through a mystery company
By Roger Sollenberger
One day before the Georgia Senate runoff elections – and two days before the Capitol insurrection – a leadership PAC attached to Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to a mystery company that had previously bought copies of Cruz’s book, according to recent filings with the Federal Election Commission. The expenses raise questions about whether the controversial conservative senator used those political campaigns, and Donald Trump’s attempt to subvert the democratic process, to raise money for himself. That could push the FEC to issue a ruling on a pending issue that could have consequences for former President Donald Trump’s fundraising…
“Sen. Cruz spending nearly a quarter million dollars on ‘sponsorship advertising’ is certainly odd and raises several questions into his leadership PAC’s financial behavior,” said Jenna Grande, press secretary for government watchdog Citizens For Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, the group that filed the original FEC complaint detailing the dark money scheme involving Thomas and Roe. “We would certainly welcome an explanation from him about these suspicious expenditures,” Grande added.
Brendan Fischer, director of federal reform at the Campaign Legal Center, echoed the point.
The States
Seattle Times: Washington AG Bob Ferguson sues Google, again, for alleged violations of political-ad transparency law
By Jim Brunner
Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson has again sued Google, alleging the tech giant has continued to flout Washington laws on political advertising transparency.
In the lawsuit, filed Wednesday in King County Superior Court, Ferguson’s office accused Google of selling political ads without keeping required publicly accessible records detailing the sponsors and other information on the ads.
It’s the second such lawsuit filed by Ferguson against the tech giant. In 2018, Google and Facebook paid a combined $450,000 to settle a similar lawsuit filed by the state – a relatively tiny amount for the mega-corporations, which admitted to no violations in the settlements.
In June of 2018, three days after Ferguson’s first lawsuit, Google announced it was voluntarily suspending sales of political ads for state and local elections in Washington, calling the state’s disclosure requirements overly burdensome. Facebook later announced a similar ad moratorium.
AZCentral: ‘Dark money’ is still trying to influence Phoenix elections despite new law. Here’s how
By Jen Fifield, Arizona Republic
Southwest Phoenix voters got the first deceitful political mailer from Americans for Progress nearly two weeks ago, and they just keep coming.
The ads, featuring Donald Trump’s talking points, are seemingly attempting to trick voters in the heavily progressive district into thinking that Yassamin Ansari, a Democratic candidate for Phoenix City Council, is a Republican.
The problem is: Voters don’t have a way of knowing who is sending them. Americans for Progress has yet to file a disclosure with the city.
A new city law was intended to stop these type of “dark money” ads from influencing city elections, but the group sending the ads remains shrouded in secrecy, even as voting for Phoenix City Council races is underway…
The new law requires spending disclosures for groups such as nonprofit advocacy organizations that do not meet the definition for a political action committee, which were already required to disclose their spending.
This election is the first real test for the law.
Associated Press: Montana governor repeals directives made by former governor
By Amy Beth Hanson
Republican Montana Gov. Greg Gianforte…also repealed two other executive orders issued by former Democratic Gov. Steve Bullock.
One required companies to report political spending if they wanted to bid on large state contracts and the second allowed counties to decide if they wanted to hold the November 2020 general election mostly by mail…
Both of Bullock’s executive orders were unsuccessfully challenged in court.
Bullock’s political spending order required companies bidding for certain state contracts to disclose political donations made within 60 days of an election. Opponents argued it violated companies’ First Amendment rights and raised the possibility that a company’s donations could lead to retaliation.
A federal judge rejected a challenge to the executive order made by the Illinois Opportunity Project, saying the organization could not prove it would be adversely affected. A notice of appeal was filed in September, but an appeal has not been filed.
