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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.

New from the Institute for Free Speech

Citizens United and the Persistent Myth of Corruption, 11 Years Later

By Tiffany Donnelly

Eleven years ago today, the United States Supreme Court decided Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission…

Critics of the Court’s ruling predicted that allowing nonprofits, businesses, and labor unions to independently voice their support or opposition to candidates would lead to increased corruption.

Last year, the Institute for Free Speech sought to learn the truth. Did the Supreme Court’s ruling that corporations and unions can speak without limit and contribute unlimited amounts to finance independent political expenditures increase the amount of corruption in our democracy?

Former IFS Research Intern Alec Greven authored a report last September comparing independent expenditures before and after Citizens United to public corruption prosecutions over the same period. It examined both for a federal relationship and a relationship in states most affected by the decision.

Greven’s analysis concluded that fears of increased corruption have no basis in reality.

IFS Welcomes Spring Research Intern Margaux Granath

By Scott Blackburn

Margaux Granath has joined the Institute for Free Speech as a Research Intern for the spring of 2021. In this role, Margaux will design and conduct a semester-long research project in conjunction with the Institute’s Research Director, assist in the production of the organization’s Daily Media Update, contribute original writing to the Institute’s blog, and support the Research Department’s efforts.

Margaux is a current senior at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, where she is pursuing a B.A. in Political Science and minors in Business Law and Arabic. She has worked as an undergraduate research assistant since her freshman year, tracking civil liberties violations and extremism in Central Asia. She received departmental awards for her work both semesters of her junior year.

Her passion for defending the First Amendment formed out of her participation in a student government group her freshman year. Since that time, Margaux has authored a Chicago Statement resolution on behalf of her fellow students, oversaw the creation and implementation of a free expression website for the University, and interned in summer 2019 for the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE).

“The First Amendment is vital to American democracy,” Margaux explained. “Without it, we risk losing our dearest American values: freedom, protest, and progress. I am very excited to work at the Institute for Free Speech, where I will uphold a longstanding reputation of ensuring every American has the ability to speak freely, which has become increasingly more important in our political climate.”

We look forward to working with Margaux over the coming months and welcome her to our growing and dedicated team!

Supreme Court

Daily Journal: California’s attack on donor privacy draws supreme scrutiny

By Jeremy Talcott

Do you have the right to privately support charities and causes you believe in? And what standard applies when the government seeks to discover otherwise-anonymous donors’ identities from nonprofit organizations? On Jan. 8, the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari in Americans for Prosperity Foundation v. Becerra to clarify the answers to those questions.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals previously signed off on California’s donor disclosure law, which required all nonprofit organizations to hand over an unredacted IRS Form 990 Schedule B, which contains the name and address of all people who contribute over $5,000 in a calendar year…

It is obvious that many individuals will be less likely to contribute to organizations they support if their identity will be freely known. That’s why even the disclosure of donor identity to government can create a significant First Amendment injury…

[T]he reality is that the public disclosure of donations to nonprofit organizations can lead to public and private reprisals. The threats range from the loss of employment – for example, one restaurant manager in Los Angeles was forced to resign over a $100 donation to a group supporting Proposition 8, the 2008 ballot measure banning same-sex marriage – to increased government scrutiny, like that to which the IRS subjected groups affiliated with the “Tea Party” movement.

Biden Administration

The Hill: Biden signs executive order invoking 2-year lobbying ban for appointees

By Alex Gangitano

President Biden signed an executive order on Wednesday that required all political appointees to sign an ethics pledge including a ban on certain lobbying for two years after they leave the administration, which was designed to restore and maintain public trust in government. 

The order states that as a condition of employment, officials must commit themselves to not accept gifts from registered lobbyists and put bans on the so-called revolving door. It was one of 17 executive orders Biden signed on his first day in office.

Sludge: Biden’s Huge Inaugural Donations Would be Banned Under Democrats’ Ethics Bill

By David Moore

Even though Biden’s inaugural fundraising follows a bipartisan tradition established by his predecessors, it runs counter to his own party’s landmark ethics proposal in H.R. 1. That bill, which congressional Democrats first proposed in 2019, would cap inaugural donations at $50,000 and require online disclosure of donors above $1,000 within 24 hours online. 

Biden’s inaugural committee made some gestures toward ethics policies by capping business donations at $1 million and individual donations at $500,000, and by putting the names of its donors online, though not the amount or date of their gifts. Curiously, the Biden inaugural also barred donations from the PACs or executives of fossil fuel companies, which as journalist David Dayen pointed out last month begs the question: why are million-dollar checks from other major corporations acceptable for a mostly-virtual event? …

Government ethics expert Craig Holman of the progressive watchdog group Public Citizen tells Sludge that he worked with Rep. Kurt Schrader (D-Or.) and Sen. Cortez Masto (D-Nev.) in drafting the legislation and that Rep. John Sarbanes’ (D-Md.) staff included a version of it in H.R. 1 in the wake of Trump’s inauguration scandals, which are still under investigation…

“Wealthy individuals and corporations generally do not give money to an inaugural committee because they want to ensure a glorious televised inauguration,” said Holman. “They give to endear the president and the inner circle.”

Congress

CNBC: Senate Democrat urges IRS to review tax-exempt status of pro-Trump group Turning Point USA

By Brian Schwartz

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., has called on the head of the IRS to review the tax-exempt status of Turning Point USA, a dark-money organization led by pro-Trump activist Charlie Kirk.

In a letter Tuesday to IRS commissioner Charles Rettig, Whitehouse said the 501(c)(3) nonprofit student group should have its tax-exempt status reviewed because he believes it broke Covid-regulations when it reportedly hosted two large events in Florida.

Free Speech

Glenn Greenwald: The New Domestic War on Terror is Coming

Anyone who…still harbors lingering doubts that the Capitol riot is and will be the neoliberal 9/11, and that a new War on Terror is being implemented in its name, need only watch the two short video clips below…

The second video features the amazing declaration from former Facebook security official Alex Stamos, talking to the very concerned CNN host Brian Stelter, about the need for social media companies to use the same tactics against U.S. citizens that they used to remove ISIS from the internet – “in collaboration with law enforcement” – and that those tactics should be directly aimed at what he calls extremist “conservative influencers.”

“Press freedoms are being abused by these actors,” the former Facebook executive proclaimed. Stamos noted how generous he and his comrades have been up until now: “We have given a lot of leeway – both in the traditional media and in social media – to people with a very broad range of views.” But no more. Now is the time to “get us all back in the same consensual reality.”

In a moment of unintended candor, Stamos noted the real problem: “there are people on YouTube, for example, that have a larger audience than people on daytime CNN” …

The Wall Street Journal reports that “Mr. Biden has said he plans to make a priority of passing a law against domestic terrorism, and he has been urged to create a White House post overseeing the fight against ideologically inspired violent extremists and increasing funding to combat them.” …

What acts should be criminalized by new “domestic terrorism” laws that are not already deemed criminal? They never say, almost certainly because – just as was true of the first set of new War on Terror laws – their real aim is to criminalize that which should not be criminalized: speech, association, protests, opposition to the new ruling coalition.

Spiked: We need scepticism more than ever

By Frank Furedi

This potential for developing knowledge, without claiming certainty or to have discovered The Truth, is vital in today’s distinctly uncertain world. This is important not just for the development of science, but also for the flourishing of a democratic public life. There can be no freedom of thought without the right to be sceptical. Which is why the demonisation of the sceptic today – as a denier, a corrupter, a moral inferior – does not simply reflect polemical excess on the part of those supporting the establishment; it is also an attack on human inquiry itself.

Society needs scepticism to develop. Scepticism encourages society to question the assumptions and taken-for-granted ‘facts’ that otherwise might ossify and become dogma. It allows our intellectual life to yield to new experience. In short, it is the antidote to an excess of certainty.

A sceptical attitude is especially important right now. During this perilous moment, when humanity is confronted by a deadly threat like Covid, there is a temptation to close down debate and limit freedom of speech. In such circumstances, dissenting views can easily be caricatured as a threat to people’s health. To some it even seems that debate itself is a luxury we can no longer afford. Yet it is precisely during an emergency, like the pandemic, that debate and free speech become indispensable. They are the means by which we harness the creativity and the wisdom of the public to deal with the crisis in which we now find ourselves.

Lobbying

Politico: Politico Influence

By Caitlin Oprysko

Just after 1 a.m. [yesterday], former President Donald Trump rescinded the 2017 ethics pledge for appointees of his administration, making one of his last official acts as president his lifting of a five-year ban on lobbying for former officials and a lifetime ban on lobbying for a foreign government. It’s unclear for now how much of an impact the revoked ban will have, as there are still statutory restrictions in place on lobbying the government after leaving it, and former Trump officials are not likely in high demand for lobbying the Biden administration…

The order rescinding the lobbying bans immediately drew condemnation from government reform advocates. “President Trump, as essentially his final act, was to restore the revolving door so that members of his administration who should’ve been dedicated to [the] people’s business can go out and make millions of bucks lobbying. And it’s – the anticipation of that possibility is a corrupting force.” Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), who is one of the lead sponsors on a Senate government reform bill, said in an interview. He added that Trump’s order makes his “For the People Act,” a package of campaign finance, election and ethics reforms, which among other things would codify former President Barack Obama’s ethics rules, “all the more important.”

Online Speech Platforms

Morning Consult: Political Advertising Operatives Worry Digital Ad Bans Limit Options, Transparency During Historic Events

By Sam Sabin

[W]ith Facebook Inc. and Google barring political advertisements on their sites…, political advertisers across the ideological spectrum say they’re losing out on opportunities they normally have following presidential and midterm elections to fundraise or start email and text list-building, essentially punished for content moderation issues rarely related to their ads.
And at least one strategist warned of transparency concerns, noting that without the two platforms, political advertisers could be forced to push their dollars to sources that don’t have the same ad library tools indexing who is spending money in what ways…

The bans also do little to combat the misinformation issues that Facebook and Google are trying to prevent, said Eileen Pollet, founder of Ravenna Strategies LLC, which works with mostly state- and local-level progressive candidates and causes in Washington state and Washington, D.C.

“While certainly some of it comes out of Trump’s official ad account on Facebook, the majority of it is coming organically from supporters,” Pollet, a former senior advertising manager with the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said of misinformation issues. “Facebook needs to really crack down on that sort of content and not hamper advertisers who for the most part are acting in good faith.”

The Hill: YouTube extends Trump ban for another week

By Joseph Choi

YouTube has extended the ban on new uploads to President Trump’s account for another week…
A Google spokesperson told The Hill that “in light of concerns about the ongoing potential for violence, the Donald J. Trump channel will be prevented from uploading new videos or livestreams for an additional minimum of seven days.”

“As we shared previously, comments will continue to be indefinitely disabled under videos from the channel,” the spokesperson added.

YouTube had barred new content from being posted to the president’s channel last week over a violation of its policies…

The White House on Tuesday uploaded Trump’s farewell address onto YouTube. Trump appeared to take aim at his various social media bans when he said, “In America we don’t insist on absolute conformity or enforce rigid orthodoxies and punitive speech codes, we just don’t do that.” …

Reports came out on Tuesday that Facebook does not currently intend on lifting its ban of Trump’s pages after he leaves office. Facebook had initially stated its ban would last until at least one day after Biden’s inauguration, but statements from its COO Sheryl Sandberg and communications director Andy Stone have indicated his ban may go on longer.

The States

NorthJersey.com: Why donations to NJ political campaigns from public contractors nosedived in 10-year span

By Terrence T. McDonald

Contributions from public contractors to New Jersey’s six biggest political fundraising committees sank by $22 million in the past decade compared with the prior 10 years, according to a new analysis by the state’s election law agency.

That is good news for advocates of pay-to-play laws, which restrict how much money vendors can donate to political campaigns. The 94% dip in contributions from contractors coincided with state laws restricting donations to Democratic and Republican fundraising committees, showing the laws worked on the state level, said Jeff Brindle, executive director of the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission.

But there’s a downside, Brindle warns in the commission’s new report. Vendors’ donations to the party committees may be down, he said, but they may also have fueled a rise in independent spending groups, which can receive unlimited donations and are not always required to reveal their donor lists.

EFF: Political Satire Is Protected Speech – Even If You Don’t Get the Joke

By David Greene

Should an obviously fake Facebook post-one made as political satire-end with a lawsuit and a bill to pay for a police response to the post? Of course not, and that’s why EFF filed an amicus brief in Lafayette City v. John Merrifield.

In this case, Merrifield made an obviously fake Facebook event satirizing right-wing hysteria about Antifa. The announcement specifically poked fun at the well-established genre of fake Antifa social media activity, used by some to drum up anti-Antifa sentiment. However, the mayor of Lafayette didn’t get the joke, and now Lafayette City officials want Merrifield to pay for the costs of policing the fake event.