The Bay Area Rapid Transit system (BART) stepped into a touchy First Amendment issue when it shut off cell-phone service this summer in response to protests over a police action. The decision sparked protests from First Amendment advocates and even criticism from BART board members who thought the agency overreacted…
This may be the year the long-debated and much-needed federal shield law passes. The so-called Free Flow of Information Act, HR 985, cleared the House Judiciary Committee March 25, and the committee’s chairman, Rep. John Conyers, committed to “swift action” on the bill this year. Last year the federal shield…
What do Dustin Hoffman, Joe Montana and Vanna White have in common? All have been plaintiffs in high-profile cases testing whether a person’s right to profit from celebrity overcomes a First Amendment right to talk about them or do a parody about them. Joe Montana, the former San Francisco 49er…
Two interests which both find some support in the First Amendment — the right to be anonymous and the public’s right to know — collide with each other in a new federal court lawsuit. The lawsuit was filed by supporters of Proposition 8, the California measure passed by voters in…
I’ve often said that one of the best ways to bring attention to something is to try and censor it. A San Francisco defamation suit reported today is a good example of this. A local chiropractor, it seems, was unhappy about a negative review of him posted on the website…
What do the First Amendment and your vanishing stock portfolio have in common? The answer is the need for openness, transparency and watchdogs on powerful institutions. The people who created the First Amendment more than two centuries ago had never heard of hedge funds, but they knew that too much…
One of the hallmarks of the Internet age has been the increasing prevalence of anonymous speech. No one can question that there is a First Amendment right to anonymous speech. The U.S. Supreme Court affirmed that point in the case of McIntyre v. Ohio. Anonymous speech serves many important purposes:…
Does the First Amendment protect someone’s use of another’s copyright or trademark to make fun of them? That question has been at the forefront of several cases involving so-called “parody” of intellectual property. Many cases have found parody of copyrighted works or trademarks protected under the “fair use” doctrine or…
The First Amendment and judicial independence – both prized pieces of American democracy – have an uneasy coexistence these days. Many states elect their trial judges and the justices of their highest courts, and in some states, like West Virginia, big-money corporate interests have waged expensive campaigns to elect or…
The media will inevitably come under intense criticism this year for its coverage of the Presidential election. Supporters of John McCain have criticized the media for favoring Barack Obama. Hillary Clinton’s backers considered some in the media sexist, and Obama backers have complained of what they consider racist comments by…