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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

ACLU challenges Colo. jail's postcard-only policy

Posted on August 04, 2010
BOULDER, Colo. ? The American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado filed a lawsuit Aug. 3 in federal court over the Boulder County jail?s policy of restricting inmates? outgoing mail to postcards. The ACLU claims the policy is unconstitutional because inmates are reluctant to freely express themselves and write about personal, sensitive information...

Calif. judge bars L.A. Times from publishing photos

Posted on August 04, 2010
LOS ANGELES ? A judge took the unusual and possibly unconstitutional step of barring a Los Angeles Times photographer from publishing images she allowed him to shoot at a hearing for a man charged with murdering a Hollywood family. Lawyers for the newspaper planned to ask the judge to reconsider the order, which a press group argues amounts to a prior restraint that violates the First Amendment right to a free press...

Kagan confirmed as 112th justice

Posted on August 04, 2010
WASHINGTON — The Senate has confirmed Elena Kagan as the 112th justice and fourth woman to serve on the Supreme Court. The vote was 63-37 for President Barack Obama?s nominee to succeed retired Justice John Paul Stevens. Five Republicans joined all but one Democrat and the Senate?s two independents to support Kagan...

Pentagon refuses embed for Rolling Stone writer

Posted on August 03, 2010
WASHINGTON — The author of the Rolling Stone article that ended the military career of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the former top commander in Afghanistan, has been denied permission to join U.S. troops fighting in Afghanistan, the Pentagon said yesterday...

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Conn. governor vetoes bill to fix campaign-finance law

Posted on August 03, 2010
HARTFORD, Conn. ? Gov. M. Jodi Rell followed through Aug. 2 with her promise to veto a bill that attempts to fix Connecticut?s campaign-finance law after a federal appeals court found parts of it unconstitutional. The Republican governor issued her veto on the same the day the measure, S...

Group to challenge vote that cleared way for NYC mosque

Posted on August 03, 2010
NEW YORK ? Plans for an Islamic community center and mosque near ground zero moved forward as a city panel opened the way for developers to tear down a building that was struck by airplane debris on Sept. 11, 2001. Even as the project's backers celebrated the decision, a conservative advocacy group founded by the Rev...

Panel's denial of landmark status frees NYC mosque site

Posted on August 02, 2010
NEW YORK ? A city commission today denied landmark status to a building near the World Trade Center site, freeing a group to convert the property into an Islamic community center and mosque that has drawn national opposition. The Landmarks Preservation Commission voted 9-0, saying the 152-year-old building a few blocks from the site of the Sept...

Pa. prisons can bar Muslim workers' headscarves

Posted on August 02, 2010
PHILADELPHIA ? Prison officials can bar employees from wearing religious headscarves out of concerns they pose a safety risk, a federal appeals court in Philadelphia ruled yesterday in a 2-1 decision. Prison officials have legitimate concerns the headscarves can hide drugs or other contraband, or be used by an inmate to strangle someone, the majority said in EEOC v...

Conn. attorney general can't make confidential records public

Posted on August 02, 2010
HARTFORD, Conn. — The Connecticut Supreme Court has ruled that state Attorney General Richard Blumenthal cannot make public the confidential business documents he obtains through a subpoena, handing a victory to a Florida insurance company that sued to prevent disclosure of the information...

Federal judge not fooled by differing demon Spawn

Posted on August 02, 2010
MADISON, Wis. ? Coraline and Stardust author Neil Gaiman is owed royalties for three more characters that appeared in artist Todd McFarlane's classic Spawn comic book series, a federal judge has ruled. U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb ruled last week that the demon Dark Ages Spawn and two scantily clad female angels, Domina and Tiffany, were derived from characters Gaiman created...

U. of Ill. offers to reinstate Catholic instructor

Posted on August 01, 2010
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. ? The University of Illinois says it has offered a teaching job to an instructor who was fired over a complaint that he engaged in hate speech in his explanation of Catholic Church doctrine on homosexuality. The university also said July 29 that it would stop allowing the on-campus St...

N.C. court won't force newspaper to I.D. online commentator

Posted on August 01, 2010
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A North Carolina judge has ruled that news organizations do not have to release the identities of people who make comments on their online news articles. Gaston County Superior Court Judge Calvin Murphy ruled the Gaston Gazette did not have to tell the attorney for a murder suspect who a commentator was on an article about the case...

11th Circuit blocks extra funds for Fla. governor hopeful

Posted on August 01, 2010
ATLANTA ? A federal appeals court?s decision late last week effectively blocked Florida Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill McCollum from receiving matching public funds for every dollar beyond $24.9 million spent by his self-financed opponent. The 11th U...

D.C. judge lifts gag order against legal newspaper

Posted on August 01, 2010
WASHINGTON ? A judge has lifted an order that prevented a legal newspaper from publishing information found in court records that were supposed to have been shielded from public view. The Internet blog of the National Law Journal reported on July 30 that the judge freed the newspaper at 4:30 p...

FBI effort to update surveillance law prompts questions, fears

Posted on July 30, 2010
WASHINGTON ? Invasion of privacy in the Internet age. Expanding the reach of law enforcement to snoop on e-mail traffic or on Web surfing. Those are among the criticisms being aimed at the FBI as it tries to update a key surveillance law. With its proposed amendment, is the Obama administration merely clarifying a statute or expanding it? Only time and a suddenly on-guard Congress will tell...

Divided 8th Circuit strikes down Minn. judicial-campaign restrictions

Posted on July 29, 2010
ST. PAUL, Minn. ? A divided federal appeals court ruled yesterday that Minnesota's restrictions on fundraising and endorsements by judicial candidates violated their free-speech rights, overturning parts of the state code of judicial conduct. A sharp dissent warned that the change could threaten public trust in impartial courts...

Nev. high court tosses portion of state's ethics law

Posted on July 29, 2010
CARSON CITY, Nev. ? The Nevada Supreme Court struck down as unconstitutional a portion of the state?s ethics law yesterday in a case involving Sparks Councilman Michael Carrigan. The high court said the law the Nevada Ethics Commission relied on when it censured Carrigan for voting on the controversial Lazy 8 casino project in 2005 was overly broad and lacked ?necessary limitations to its regulations of protected speech...

Ousted USDA employee: I'll sue blogger

Posted on July 29, 2010
SAN DIEGO ? Ousted Agriculture Department employee Shirley Sherrod said yesterday that she would sue a conservative blogger who posted a video edited in a way that she contends made her appear racist. Sherrod was forced to resign last week as director of rural development in Georgia after Andrew Breitbart posted the edited video online...

Pentagon: Leak investigation may go beyond military

Posted on July 29, 2010
WASHINGTON — A criminal investigation into the leak of tens of thousands of secret Afghanistan war logs could go beyond the military, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said yesterday, and he did not rule out that Wikileaks founder Julian Assange could be a target...

Texas cities can't challenge state's open-meetings law

Posted on July 28, 2010
PECOS, Texas ? Four Texas cities cannot join more than a dozen elected officials in a lawsuit aimed at overturning the Texas Open Meetings Act, a federal judge ruled yesterday. U.S. District Judge Robert Junell said the cities of Alpine, Pflugerville, Rockport and Wichita Falls cannot sue Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott and the state over the act because the issue involved revolves around individual rights...

Judge tosses lawsuit by student who wouldn't counsel gays

Posted on July 28, 2010
DETROIT ? A conservative legal group says it will appeal a federal judge's decision to throw out a lawsuit brought by an Eastern Michigan University student who was kicked out of a master's degree program because of her religious views against homosexuality...

FBI chief: Surveillance rules not based on race, faith

Posted on July 28, 2010
WASHINGTON ? FBI Director Robert Mueller told Congress yesterday that the bureau's domestic-surveillance guidelines were being used properly and that agents were not employing them to target people for investigation on the basis of race. The FBI director's defense of the guidelines at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing followed criticism by civil liberties groups that the guidelines unfairly target innocent Muslims...

Leaked Afghan war docs could spur crackdown on info access

Posted on July 28, 2010
WASHINGTON — Call it the big information chill, looming across the military and intelligence communities. After the massive Afghan war data spill by Wikileaks, some veteran intelligence officers and experts are calling for a tightening of access to information and more monitoring in the spy community?s lower levels...

Wikileaks: More U.S. documents coming on Afghan war

Posted on July 27, 2010
White House national security adviser Gen. Jim Jones says leaked documents 'put the lives of Americans and our partners at risk.'

Press advocates pan FTC's suggestions to aid journalism

Posted on July 27, 2010
By Matthew Beddingfield Many journalists, advocates say government has crossed a line with proposals for 'reinventing journalism.'

N.H. governor vetoes exemption to Right-to-Know Law

Posted on July 27, 2010
John Lynch says bill could have diluted public's access to meetings, government records.

Jury sides with Mont. sheriff's officers in retaliation case

Posted on July 27, 2010
Three men awarded $945,000 after jurors find commanders discriminated against them and then violated their free-speech rights when they complained.

5th Circuit strikes down part of university's free-speech policy

Posted on July 27, 2010
NEW ORLEANS ? A federal appeals court said universities cannot require a security fee for speaking on campus without any guidelines for what security is needed. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled yesterday that Southeastern Louisiana University's free-speech policy is unconstitutionally vague on that point...

Tenn. governor candidate questions whether Islam is a 'cult'

Posted on July 27, 2010
NASHVILLE, Tenn. ? Republican gubernatorial candidate Ron Ramsey is being criticized by a national Muslim advocacy group for questioning whether Islam is more of a cult than a a religion. At an event in Chattanooga earlier this month, Ramsey said: "You could even argue whether that being a Muslim is actually a religion, or is it a nationality, way of life, cult or whatever you want to call it?" CNN reported that Ramsey also said that although he supported religious freedom, such freedom may not include allowing "sharia (Islamic) law into the state of Tennessee ...

Congress votes to protect U.S. authors from foreign libel judgments

Posted on July 27, 2010
WASHINGTON — Congress yesterday passed a bill that would protect American authors, journalists and publishers from foreign libel judgments that undermine the U.S. guarantee of free speech. The House approved the legislation by voice vote and sent it to President Barack Obama...

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