What Does Free Speech Mean Online?

WASHINGTON — Warning that retaliation against the press is a tactic that “belongs to a society much different and more oppressive than our own,” the American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of the District of Columbia filed a brief late last night in support of the Associated Press in their lawsuit against the Trump administration. The brief supports the AP’s claim that the White House violated the First Amendment when it restricted the AP’s access to official events because the outlet refused to adopt the administration’s preferred name for the Gulf of Mexico. The brief argues that incursions on free expression, left unchecked, frequently lead to greater repression, as demonstrated by American history and the modern experience of other nations, and the brief catalogues the Trump administration’s alarming campaign of retaliation against dissenting voices. “Attacking a free press is a key play in the autocracy playbook, as we have seen around the world in recent years,” said Scott Michelman, legal director at the ACLU of D.C. “When countries like Hungary and the Philippines have regressed from democracy toward autocracy, the punishment of journalists critical of the ruling party has been a harbinger of worse to come. By punishing the AP for refusing to parrot the administration’s worldview, Trump is taking a step down a dangerous road. The First Amendment exists to block any incursion against press freedom, and we are asking the court to heed the lessons of our own history and of world history by enforcing the First Amendment here.” In January, President Donald Trump signed an executive order aiming to rename the Gulf of Mexico to “Gulf of America.” When the Associated Press chose not to use the new moniker, the White House retaliated by barring the AP’s reporters from participating in the press pool in the Oval Office or aboard Air Force One. The news organization filed suit in February and was granted reinstatement by a federal judge in April. Part of the judge’s decision was temporarily stayed by a panel of the D.C. Circuit. “The president cannot punish a press outlet for its choice of words,” said Brian Hauss, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project. “The White House press pool guarantees the public’s timely access to important information about the president and the executive branch. If the president can banish any media outlet that refuses to parrot the administration’s talking points, the American public will hear exclusively from sycophants and stenographers.” Participation in the White House press pool is historically managed by the White House Correspondents Association, and the president has not in recent history had the power to remove individual outlets based on the content of their coverage. The AP’s suit, Associated Press v. Budowich, was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. It is currently before the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, where the ACLU and the ACLU of D.C. filed the amicus late Monday.

CHICAGO — Today, Governor J.B. Pritzker announced that “in the coming hours” the Trump administration intends to federalize 300 members of the Illinois National Guard over his objections. For months, President Trump and his senior-most officials have been threatening to send troops into Chicago using the pretext of protecting ICE facilities and operations. He has repeatedly stated his desire for the Governor of Illinois and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson to request his help to “clean up” the city. And just last week, President Trump gave an unprecedented partisan address to the nation’s top military leaders in which he urged using Chicago and other cities as “training grounds.” “This is the latest escalation of attacks on people in the Chicago area,” said Colleen K. Connell, executive director of the ACLU of Illinois. “From federal officers’ attack on Black and Brown residents — including children — living in an apartment building on the City’s South Side, to the indiscriminate firing of pepper balls and projectiles in our neighborhoods and against protesters, Trump is targeting Chicago. The president clearly despises the reality that Chicago rejects his cruel policies, but we will not be intimidated.” This mobilization would be the latest attempt by the Trump administration to scare the millions of people living in American cities. Since June, he has sent armed federal agents and military troops to Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Memphis, and Portland. He has also threatened to do the same in New York City, Baltimore, and San Francisco. “Yet again President Trump is escalating tensions with a National Guard deployment, just as he has in other American cities,” said Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU’s National Security Project. “We see the president’s strategy for what it is — placing National Guard troops in legal and ethical jeopardy in an attempt to create conflict, sow fear in our communities, and intimidate people from exercising their constitutional rights. But we can’t let this president normalize military and armed federal policing in our country and must remember that no matter what uniform they wear, federal agents and troops are bound by the Constitution and must be held accountable if they violate our rights.” If President Trump federalizes troops under Title 10, they are likely to be activated under 10 USC § 12406, which the President also invoked in California and Oregon. Troops activated in this status are prohibited under the centuries-old Posse Comitatus Act from “direct enforcement of the law.” A federal judge in California recently found that Defense Department orders given to California National Guard troops forcibly deployed under this provision in support of immigration enforcement and other operations caused them to violate that law. Federal agents and troops are generally not trained in local policing or de-escalation. Yesterday, a federal judge in Oregon heard arguments in the state and City of Portland’s challenge to the President’s activation of 200 members of the Oregon National Guard over the governor’s objections.

We can’t let government block drone photography of newsworthy events simply by claiming a need to fly their own aircraft in an area or claiming the existence of vague “security threats”

NEW YORK — Last night, legal organizations across the ideological spectrum filed an amicus brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit supporting the American Association of University Professors’ (AAUP) lawsuit against the Trump administration’s unprecedented interference in university governance and academic freedom. The brief has been filed by five organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU), the Cato Institute, the Rutherford Institute, and the National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC). The organizations argue that the administration violated the First Amendment by coercing Columbia University to censor and reshape its teaching, research, and faculty hiring in line with the government’s preferred ideology. Using the threat of canceling hundreds of millions of dollars in federal research funding, federal officials pressured Columbia to restructure entire academic departments, impose speech restrictions on student protest, and adopt government-approved definitions of contested political terms. “This case isn’t about one university or one ideological disagreement," said Vera Eidelman, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project. “If the government can punish professors and universities for viewpoints it dislikes, then no field of research, no classroom discussion, and no scholar’s speech is safe. That is precisely what the First Amendment forbids.” By joining together, the amici underscore that this case is not about politics of “left vs. right,” but rather about preventing the government from weaponizing funding to impose ideological litmus tests on scholars. The coalition spans groups that disagree on many issues but share a commitment to defending constitutional protections against viewpoint discrimination. “The Trump administration’s use of federal funding to restrict Columbia University’s academic independence, scholarship, and discourse is a dangerous intrusion into academic freedom,” said Arthur Eisenberg, Executive Counsel at the NYCLU. “The First Amendment protects against this kind of abuse of power by prohibiting the government from using the power of the purse to dictate curriculums, research, or free inquiry. We urge the Court to move this case forward so the government is held accountable and the freedom once enjoyed by Columbia’s academic community is restored.” The brief stresses that retaliating against professors for their speech — whether directly or by coercing their universities into doing the silencing — violates core First Amendment protections. The organizations urge the Second Circuit to reverse the district court’s dismissal and allow the case to proceed, warning that upholding the administration’s actions would open the door to ideological bullying of universities and faculty across the country. The brief can be read here.