ICYMI
California Gunowner Data Leak Makes the Case (Again) for Donor Privacy
By Tiffany Donnelly
July 1 marked the one-year anniversary of the Americans for Prosperity v. Bonta ruling, the Supreme Court’s most important decision on the First Amendment right of association in over 60 years.
In the 6-3 decision, the Court held that a California rule requiring charities and other nonprofit organizations to submit an annual list of donors to state officials violated the First Amendment right to freedom of association. Organizations have the right to keep one’s memberships, affiliations, and financial support private.
Sadly, news reported shortly before the one-year anniversary last week provides a poignant reminder of the risks of donor exposure and the importance of donor privacy.
On June 28, The Reload reported that California gun owners’ personal, confidential identifying information had been exposed by the state Attorney General’s office.
FEC
By Dave Levinthal
Google wants to ease its Gmail spam filters when political candidates and committees email you for donations or otherwise try contacting you — and it’s asked the Federal Election Commission for its legal blessing.
But few Americans are aware of this pending case. And a deadline for public comment is fast approaching with little publicity from Google or the FEC on the case — or its implication for consumers.
An affirmative ruling by the nation’s bipartisan campaign finance regulator could affect tens of millions of Gmail users who could expect more political solicitations landing in their main inboxes unless they proactively opt-out.
“People care about getting spam email, including political email. They have opinions,” said Rick Hasen, a law and political science professor at the University of California, Irvine, who edits the Election Law Blog. “The FEC should give the public sufficient time to weigh in on an issue that affects the public in direct way.”
The FEC received Google’s “advisory opinion” request on July 1 and made it public on July 6. On July 8, in its weekly digest of official announcements, the FEC announced that the public would have until July 11 to comment on Google’s request.
But, in an email to Insider, FEC spokesperson Judith Ingram said the public comment deadline would actually be Friday, July 16. She declined to comment on whether the agency believes it has given the public adequate time to comment on the matter.
The Courts
ABA Journal: Judge blocks no-contact orders against Christian law students who discussed opposition to same-sex marriage
By Debra Cassens Weiss
A federal judge has ordered the University of Idaho to rescind no-contact orders against three Christian law students who expressed their views against same-sex marriage at an LGBTQ event and a meeting concerning ABA accreditation.
Chief U.S. District Judge David C. Nye of the District of Idaho issued a preliminary injunction June 30 that blocks the no-contact orders against the students, who were members of the school’s chapter of the Christian Legal Society.
Nye said the students had shown a likelihood of prevailing on their argument that the university violated their First Amendment free speech and free exercise rights and their 14th amendment right to due process.
Florida Politics: Judge allows challenge to Stop WOKE Act to move forward
By Jacob Ogles
A federal judge will allow a case challenging Florida’s “Stop WOKE Act.” to proceed.
While U.S. District Judge Mark Walker last month declined to stop the enforcement of the law, he denied a motion to dismiss the case entirely. A group of teachers has sued the state law (HB 7), which went into effect at the beginning of July, as an infringement of their First Amendment rights in the classroom. Walker’s order makes clear the First Amendment does protect classroom discussion to a degree.
He points to specific complaints from one of the plaintiffs, Robert Cassanello. The University of Central Florida professor teaches courses on the Civil Rights movement, the Jim Crow era and Reconstruction, arguing in the lawsuit against the state that the new law restricts his ability to teach the class accurately.
Online Speech Platforms
Washington Post: Twitter plans to take its fight against Elon Musk to the courts
By David J. Lynch and Elizabeth Dwoskin
Twitter has retained a prominent New York law firm as it prepares to fight Elon Musk over his decision to abandon a $44 billion takeover of the social media company…
Twitter’s hiring of Wachtell, Lipton comes just days after Musk’s attorneys said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that Twitter was “in breach” of the terms of the takeover deal for failing to fully disclose information on its reliance upon “false and spam accounts,” often called “bots,” in its membership claims…
On Sunday, Twitter declined to comment. Wachtell, Lipton did not respond to emails requesting comment. Nor did Musk, who tweeted shortly after midnight: “They said I couldn’t buy Twitter. Then they wouldn’t disclose bot info. Now they want to force me to buy Twitter in court. Now they have to disclose bot info in court.”
The tweet included photos of Musk laughing.
By Thomas Catenacci
The left-wing activist group ShutDownDC on Friday offered to pay people who messaged them the location of the six conservative Supreme Court justices.
ShutDownDC tweeted Friday that it would pay $50 to anyone who shares a “confirmed sighting” of Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett or John Roberts, adding that they would pay $200 if the justice was still in the location where they were sighted after 30 minutes.
However, Twitter has been silent on why the tweet detailing such bounties on justices don’t violate the platform’s rules and policies. Representatives for the social media platform didn’t respond to requests for comment from Fox News Digital when asked why the tweet wasn’t removed Friday.
Twitter prohibits any user from encouraging or calling for others to harass an individual or group of people, according to its rules and policies document.
The Hill: Big Tech must step up now to fight misinformation in the midterms
By Zeve Sanderson and Joshua A. Tucker
As Facebook pivots to focus on the metaverse, for example, the company reduced the number of employees focused on election integrity from 300 to 60. Experts fear this lack of resources and attention, combined with the magnitude of the midterms, could exacerbate the problem. Indeed, internal research shows Facebook struggles to catch misinformation in local environments, like those seen in the midterms.
Instead of pulling back election integrity measures, platforms should enhance their election safeguards. As researchers who study the intersection of social media, politics and democracy, here are four questions we’re watching.
Candidates and Campaigns
Politico: The RNC is promoting Trump and his business, raising fresh concerns about its neutrality
By Meredith McGraw
Perhaps the best example of the bind the RNC now finds itself in came on July 4, when the committee’s Twitter account published quotes from past Republican presidents. Included in that was a video of Trump. It was a natural clip for the RNC to share alongside patriotic messages from Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. But it also gave Trump a platform that other GOP presidential aspirants couldn’t get.
The States
New York Times: The Fight Over Truth Also Has a Red State, Blue State Divide
By Steven Lee Myers and Cecilia Kang
To fight disinformation, California lawmakers are advancing a bill that would force social media companies to divulge their process for removing false, hateful or extremist material from their platforms. Texas lawmakers, by contrast, want to ban the largest of the companies — Facebook, Twitter and YouTube — from removing posts because of political points of view.
In Washington, the state attorney general persuaded a court to fine a nonprofit and its lawyer $28,000 for filing a baseless legal challenge to the 2020 governor’s race. In Alabama, lawmakers want to allow people to seek financial damages from social media platforms that shut down their accounts for having posted false content.
In the absence of significant action on disinformation at the federal level, officials in state after state are taking aim at the sources of disinformation and the platforms that propagate them — only they are doing so from starkly divergent ideological positions. In this deeply polarized era, even the fight for truth breaks along partisan lines.
The result has been a cacophony of state bills and legal maneuvers that could reinforce information bubbles in a nation increasingly divided over a variety of issues — including abortion, guns, the environment — and along geographic lines.
Des Moines Register: Why Iowa needs a new law to protect your right to free expression on matters of public concern
By Carol Hunter
As the Des Moines Register’s William Morris reported last week, metro restaurateur Steve McFadden, owner of establishments such as the Tipsy Crow, Grumpy Goat and Dough Mama’s Pizzeria, has filed lawsuits against at least 11 people, accusing them of defamation and invasion of privacy.
Several defendants have filed counterclaims accusing McFadden of misusing the legal process to pursue unrelated grudges.
George Freeman, executive director of the Media Law Resource Center in New York, told Morris that McFadden’s complaints bear the hallmarks of strategic lawsuits against public participation, or SLAPPs — meritless defamation claims seeking to use the courts to silence critics.
Freeman succinctly described such claims as “a way the powerful have of getting unhappy, less-powerful people to be quiet.”
McFadden’s attorney defends the lawsuits as proper. I’m not going to debate the merits of whether these suits should be considered SLAPPs. But this is an opportune time to examine the phenomenon of baseless lawsuits intended to squelch people’s rights to express themselves on matters of public concern and why Iowa should enact a law to curb such lawsuits.
