1st Amendment
187 Articles

Revised Justice Department Policy Still Silences Immigration Judges
Some of the sharpest critics of the Trump administration’s immigration policies are the former immigration judges who were once charged with enforcing them. But there’s a reason…

John Bolton’s Silence — Here’s how he could lawfully break it
"If he wanted to, Bolton could this afternoon ..."

Explainer: Prepublication Review and How it Applies to Bolton
An explainer of the key features of the prepublication review process and the significant discretion it gives the government to suppress protected speech—potentially including…

Recent North Korea Sanctions Arrest Raises Questions About Free Speech Rights
Virgil Griffith, it’s safe to assume, did not have a happy Thanksgiving. On arriving at Los Angeles International Airport from abroad, he was arrested that day. An unsealed criminal…

Social Media Vetting of Visa Applicants Violates the First Amendment
The Knight First Amendment Institute and the Brennan Center for Justice sued the US government to stop social media vetting of visa applicants.

Duty to Warn: Has the Trump Administration Learned from the Khashoggi Failure?
This attitude shift alone, if it has indeed taken place, is commendable, but should not reduce scrutiny of what happened in the Declan Walsh case.

Nuts and Bolts of the IG Report on Comey: Correcting Misconceptions
On the morning of Aug. 29, I finished up my lecture notes for my first day teaching a class called “Law of Secrecy.” I would touch on classification, leaking, prepublication…

New Resource Tool Sheds Light on Government’s Prepublication Review System
For more than three years, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University have been litigating a series of Freedom of Information…

The Distorter-in-Chief is Hosting a Summit on Distortion on Social Media
By pushing Russian-planted disinformation and indulging America’s own conspiracy theorists, Trump is doing the opposite of what he claims to be attempting with the White House…

Journalist Watchlist Raises Specter of Civil Rights-Era Secret Surveillance
Throughout his campaign and now his presidency, historians have drawn parallels between President Trump’s treatment of the news media and the Nixon White House’s efforts to…

Balancing the Law and Reporting: Reflections on the Assange Indictment and What It Means for Journalists
The superseding indictment of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has again sent First Amendment guardians to the ramparts, when what’s needed is a calm discussion of what threat…

L’Affaire d’Assange: Why His Extradition May Be Blocked
The Department of Justice’s release of a superseding indictment accusing Julian Assange of numerous Espionage Act violations has stirred grave concern among defenders of a free…