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Constitutional Law

First Amendment Center

News related to the first amendment of the US Constitution and freedom of speech issues.
By First Amendment Center

Post Frequency: 38.7/day

Last Entry: March 29, 2011 at 21:00:00

Charges against Texas official who released public info thrown out

Posted on September 29, 2010
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — A state judge has thrown out felony charges against a top state official indicted for giving journalists information about a suicide in a Texas jail. Adan Munoz Jr., executive director of the Texas Commission on Jail Standards, had been indicted after releasing information about a Nueces County jail inmate who hanged himself in February...

Calif. to allow sealing of slain children's autopsy records

Posted on September 29, 2010
SACRAMENTO, Calif. ? Autopsy reports of slain children could be sealed permanently under a bill signed into law by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in response to several murders of children and teenagers in California over the last year. Schwarzenegger spokesman Matt Connelly said on Sept...

House Democrats shelve net-neutrality proposal

Posted on September 29, 2010
WASHINGTON — House Democrats have shelved a last-ditch effort to broker a compromise between phone, cable and Internet companies on rules that would prohibit broadband providers from blocking or degrading online traffic flowing over their networks...

Supreme Court to post audio of every argument online

Posted on September 28, 2010
WASHINGTON ? The Supreme Court is broadening access to audio recordings of all of its arguments, but ending its practice of same-day release of audio in high-profile cases. Beginning with the new term next week, the Court will post audio files of each week's arguments on its website on Fridays...

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Hallmark, Paris Hilton settle 'that's hot' lawsuit

Posted on September 28, 2010
KANSAS CITY, Mo. ? Hallmark Cards Inc. says a greeting card using Paris Hilton's "that's hot" catchphrase and image was meant as a parody. But the celebrity socialite apparently didn't appreciate the humor. The Kansas City-based greeting card giant and the hotel heiress have reached a settlement in a 3-year-old lawsuit over the card, a company spokeswoman said yesterday...

Minn. court tosses law barring false accusations against police

Posted on September 28, 2010
ST. PAUL, Minn. ? The Minnesota Court of Appeals has struck down a state law against making false statements that allege police misconduct. In a 2-1 ruling yesterday, a three-judge panel said the law was unconstitutional on free-speech grounds because it ?criminalizes knowingly making false statements that allege police misconduct, but not knowingly making false statements to absolve police...

High court takes case on corporate privacy

Posted on September 27, 2010
WASHINGTON ? The Supreme Court is getting involved in an unusual freedom-of-information dispute over whether corporations may assert personal privacy interests to prevent the government from releasing documents about them. The Court today agreed to a request from the Obama administration to take up a case involving claims made by telecommunications giant AT&T to keep secret the information gathered by the Federal Communications Commission during an investigation...

Defense Dept. oversees destruction of classified war memoir

Posted on September 27, 2010
WASHINGTON ? The Defense Department says it has paid $47,000 to destroy 9,500 copies of a former Army intelligence officer's war memoir that the Pentagon contends threatened national security. Pentagon spokesman Col. Dave Lapan said Sept. 27 that military officials last week watched as St...

W.Va. high court orders release of petition signatures

Posted on September 27, 2010
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Jefferson County?s clerk must release signatures sought by a newspaper from an Eastern Panhandle ballot petition, a unanimous state Supreme Court ruled last week. The justices on Sept. 23 concluded that a referendum petition is a public record when filed with a public body...

Pa. court tosses union's bid to keep teachers' addresses private

Posted on September 27, 2010
HARRISBURG, Pa. ? A Pennsylvania appeals court has thrown out a lawsuit filed by the state?s largest teachers union that sought to prevent public disclosure of public school employees? home addresses. Commonwealth Court on Sept. 24 ruled against the Pennsylvania State Education Association, which sued the state Office of Open Records to keep it from ordering the release of the addresses under the state?s Right-to-Know Law...

White House drafting rules to make it easier to eavesdrop online

Posted on September 26, 2010
WASHINGTON ? Broad new regulations being drafted by the Obama administration would make it easier for law enforcement and national security officials to eavesdrop on Internet and e-mail communications like social-networking websites and BlackBerrys, The New York Times reported today...

Jury acquits Christian missionaries arrested at Arab festival

Posted on September 26, 2010
DEARBORN, Mich. — A jury in the heavily Arab Detroit suburb of Dearborn on Sept. 24 acquitted four Christian missionaries of charges of disorderly conduct at an Arab cultural festival. The Detroit Free Press reported that Nabeel Qureshi of Virginia, Negeen Mayel of California and Paul Rezkalla and David Wood, both of New York, are members of a Christian group called Acts 17 Apologetics, which maintains that Islam is a false religion and inherently violent...

Texas Board of Ed. wants less Islam in textbooks

Posted on September 26, 2010
AUSTIN, Texas ? The Texas State Board of Education has adopted a resolution that seeks to curtail references to Islam in Texas textbooks, as socially conservative board members warned of what they describe as a creeping Middle Eastern influence in the nation's publishing industry...

Attorney: Feds trying to quiet anti-war activists

Posted on September 26, 2010
CHICAGO — FBI agents in Chicago took a laptop and documents from the home of a Palestinian-American anti-war activist in an attempt to silence his advocacy, an attorney said yesterday. The FBI on Sept. 24 searched eight addresses in Minneapolis and Chicago, including the home of Hatem Abudayyeh, who is the executive director of the Arab American Action Network, attorney Jim Fennerty told the Associated Press...

Nev. high court sides with newspaper in records case

Posted on September 25, 2010
CARSON CITY, Nev. ? The Nevada Supreme Court says a Reno judge erred when he denied a newspaper?s public-records petition against Washoe County health officials without requiring them to show why the records sought were confidential. The Reno Gazette-Journal filed a petition after the Washoe County Health Department in 2009 reported its first human case of swine flu...

Nebraska high court backs sender of angry e-mails

Posted on September 24, 2010
LINCOLN, Neb. ? The Nebraska Supreme Court supports the sender of profanity-laced e-mails, saying the First Amendment protects his angry words. Darren J. Drahota was convicted of disturbing the peace and fined $250 for e-mails he sent in 2006 to former political science professor Bill Avery...

Congress OKs repeal of SEC open-records exemptions

Posted on September 23, 2010
WASHINGTON ? A proposal that would let the public receive details on the government's oversight of financial-services firms has been passed by Congress. The House voted yesterday to repeal broad Freedom of Information Act exemptions that were given to the Securities and Exchange Commission in the nation's new financial services law...

Senate GOP again blocks campaign-disclosure bill

Posted on September 23, 2010
WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans yesterday stood fast in blocking legislation requiring special-interest groups which run campaign ads to identify their donors. Mirroring a Senate vote on the bill last July, all 39 Republicans who voted stopped Democrats from bringing the campaign-disclosure bill to the Senate floor...

Tenn. ballot rules too tough on 3rd parties, federal court says

Posted on September 23, 2010
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — A federal judge has found Tennessee?s requirements are too burdensome for third parties to get on the ballot and they violate the First Amendment. Third parties seeking to run statewide candidates must currently submit a petition signed by 2...

AP's Curley warns on unlicensed use of news

Posted on September 23, 2010
NASHVILLE, Tenn. ? An enforcement mechanism needs to be created to help curb unlicensed use of news on the Internet, Associated Press President and CEO Tom Curley said yesterday. Curley said an effort was under way to track websites engaged in content "scraping," and that he planned to name 18 of them at an industry meeting today ? including one with revenues approaching $100 million...

Ga. library system bans teen for pestering patrons

Posted on September 22, 2010
COLUMBUS, Ga. ? A 16-year-old who officials said was bothering patrons by evangelizing outside a library after he was warned to stop has been banned from the Chattahoochee Valley Regional Library System for six months. Kirsten Edwards, acting manager of the North Columbus Public Library, said in a letter that Caleb Hanson repeatedly asked patrons about their religious faith and offered biblical advice...

Anonymity promised for NYC terror-trial jurors

Posted on September 22, 2010
NEW YORK ? More than 400 prospective jurors filled out questionnaires yesterday aimed at gauging their eligibility for the first civilian trial of a Guantanamo Bay detainee after a judge assured them that they would remain anonymous. U.S. District Judge Lewis A...

ACLU urges La. college to rescind e-mail policy

Posted on September 22, 2010
NEW ORLEANS — A First Amendment issue is brewing at Grambling State University. Grambling President Frank Pogue on July 13 issued an e-mail to students, prohibiting political expression via e-mail, said Marjorie Esman, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana...

FCC examines complaint about Skechers cartoon

Posted on September 22, 2010
WASHINGTON ? The Federal Communications Commission is looking into complaints that a new television show based on characters first created to market Skechers shoes to kids would violate government rules that limit advertising in children's programming...

Backpage.com says it won't drop adult-services ads

Posted on September 21, 2010
HARTFORD, Conn. ? The Backpage.com classified-advertising website says it will not close its adult-services section despite a call to do so from 21 state attorneys general. Village Voice Media-owned Backpage.com said in a blog posting yesterday that it would not drop the category because it had increased efforts, including working with law enforcement officials, to block ads promoting prostitution and child-trafficking...

4th Circuit hears whistleblower-secrecy case

Posted on September 21, 2010
RICHMOND, Va. — The secrecy part of a federal whistleblower law undermines the nation?s open court system and tramples on the right to free speech, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union told an appeals court yesterday. Attorney Christopher A...

ACLU sues Pittsburgh police over post-G-20 conduct

Posted on September 21, 2010
PITTSBURGH ? City police wrongly arrested 25 people ? and used unnecessary force against some ? to "punish" them for participating in or being near an anti-police brutality protest after the Group of 20 summit ended in the city last year, the American Civil Liberties Union said in a lawsuit...

9th Circuit strikes down Ore. limits on sexually explicit material

Posted on September 20, 2010
PORTLAND, Ore. ? Booksellers and sex educators won an appeal yesterday against Oregon laws intended to keep adults from using pornography to groom young people for sex. In Powell?s Books, Inc. v. Kroger, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned major portions of the 2007 laws, saying they could apply to furnishing standard sex-education literature or novels for children or young people by author Judy Blume...

Report says FBI gave inaccurate info to justify surveillance

Posted on September 20, 2010
WASHINGTON ? The FBI gave inaccurate information to Congress and the public when it claimed a possible terrorism link to justify surveilling an anti-war rally in Pittsburgh, the Justice Department's inspector general said yesterday in a report on the bureau's scrutiny of domestic activist groups...

Federal judge backs Minn. campaign-disclosure law

Posted on September 20, 2010
ST. PAUL, Minn. — A federal judge refused yesterday to interfere with a new Minnesota law that revealed political donations from Target Corp. and other companies, saying the public has an interest in knowing who speaks and who pays for those messages as the election approaches...

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