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It is where he inveighs against FAKE NEWS, promotes his television appearances, and trumpets his administrations accomplishments. Its also where he reports on meetings with world leaders, discusses policy positions, and announced his choice for FBI Director. President Donald Trumps Twitter feed is the epicenter of a new-age White House communications strategy that has earned the oft-repeated label unprecedented.

Whether Trumps demeanor in the messages he posts is presidential is debatable, but his own spokespeople have made clear that his tweets constitute official statements. Not everyone, however, can see those statements or participate in the discussion that occurs in the replies.

On Tuesday, the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University filed a lawsuit against Trump and two of his top advisors on behalf of seven people who have been blocked from viewing tweets by the presidents @realDonaldTrump account. Attorneys at the Knight Institute argue that Trumps blocking of users who have criticized him amounts to viewpoint-based exclusion, which is not allowed under the First Amendment.

President Trumps Twitter account, @realDonaldTrump, has become an important source of news and information about the government, and an important public forum for speech by, to, and about the President. In an effort to suppress dissent in this forum, Defendants have excludedblockedTwitter users who have criticized the President or his policies. This practice is unconstitutional, the federal suit alleges.

The case raises complicated questions about how to apply constitutional principles written in a time of pamphlets and town square debates to the realities of the Facebook and Twitter era. Skeptics might say that blocking someone on Twitter doesnt make it impossible for that person to see tweets. He or she can simply sign out of that account or create a different one. Blocking adds a barrier to entry, to be sure, but its not an insurmountable obstacle. Additionally, as anyone who spends time on Twitter knows, comments on the platform can be crude, distasteful, and even scary, and blocking trolls allows for some measure of control over the people with whom you interact.

But attorneys at the Knight Institute have put forward a series of arguments that make a compelling case for thinking differently. They are not arguing that we redefine Twittera privately owned social media platformwrit large as a virtual town square where all voices are welcome. Rather, they claim that because of the way the President and his aides use the @realDonaldTrump Twitter account, the account is a public forum under the First Amendment.

If the presidents feed is defined as a public forum, citizens cannot be excluded from viewing his statements and engaging in discussions simply because they disagree. The lawsuit alleges that Trump, along with Press Secretary Sean Spicer and Social Media Director Dan Scavino, have violated the First Amendment rights of seven Americans who were blocked soon after criticizing or mocking the president, and that the block infringes on the plaintiffs First Amendment right to petition their government for redress of grievances.

When [government officials] open up a space and allow the general public to come in and comment in that space, whether a city council meeting or a Facebook page, that is a designated public forum, Katie Fallow, a senior attorney at the Knight Institute, tells CJR. The courts have held that when you do that, you cant then exclude people based on viewpoint. The Knight Institute, which has not been blocked by Trumps account, is also a plaintiff in the suit. It argues that users who arent blocked are being deprived of their right to read the speech of the dissenters.

The reaction from legal experts last month to the Knight Institutes letter declaring its intent to sue was mixed, with some supporting the effort and others arguing the plaintiffs had a tough legal hill to climb. But in the weeks since, the Supreme Court issued a decision in which Justice Anthony Kennedy described social media as the modern public square.

Trump recently referred to his use of social media as modern day presidential. It will now be left to the courts to decide whether that requires a modern day update to First Amendment protections.

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Can Donald Trump block you? A First Amendment group is suing to find out. - Columbia Journalism Review

The Affordable Care Act raises myriad constitutional problems. The Supreme Courthasheld that the commerce clause does not provide Congress with thepower to enact the individual mandate. The Court also invalidated, under the spending clause, provisions that required states to expand medicaid coverage or lose all federal medicaid funds.

But what about Obamacares First Amendment problem? A little-known portion of the law requires restaurants and grocery stores to provide calorie counts on menu items. As I explain on Fa on First, years of research showthat menu labeling does not change what people order in any significant way. Whats more, Obamacares menu labeling requirement may actuallymake it harder for restaurants to offer healthier options. To comply, restaurants that want to offer healthier items must paythousands of dollars first to a lab to test the food, and then to a printing company to print new menus.

In thiscomment letter, PLF informed the Food and Drug Administration that the menu labeling requirement violates the First Amendment. The First Amendment not only appliesto laws that censor speech, but also to laws that compel speech. At a minimum, laws that force people to speak must directly advance a substantial governmental interest. The menu labeling requirement doesnt do that. Rather, it forces restaurants and grocery stores to bear the costs of a law that, if anything, could decrease the number of healthy options they can provide to their consumers.

Good news may be on the way. The FDA has already decided to delay the implementation of the menu labeling rule.This administration may decide to scrap it altogether. If not, yet another constitutional challenge to Obamacare could be on its way.

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Obamacare's First Amendment problem - PLF Liberty Blog - Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF) (press release) (blog)

Two months ago, the American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri was prepared to take the Hazelwood School District to court for suspending dozens of students who walked out in protest for unionized teachers.

Now, the district and ACLU are holding a community workshop together about the First Amendment in schools.

According to the district's website, the workshop will be held on Monday, July 31 from 6-8 p.m. at the Hazelwood administration building, which is at 15955 New Halls Ferry Road.

The suspensions of about 200 Hazelwood West High students in May sparked outcry from students, parents and civil rights activistswho viewed the incident as a violation of freedom of speech. The district, on the other hand, said the walkout was not peaceful and that students had been running and cursing during it. After three days of heavy community pressure,the district rescinded thesuspensions.

In 1988, Hazelwood was the subject of a U.S. Supreme Court case about freedom of speech in schools, Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier. The court then ruled that school officials could exercise editorial control over the student newspaper and student speech so long as it was "reasonably related to legitimate pedagogical concerns."

The workshop's speakers include Hazelwood Superintendent Nettie Collins-Hart, ACLU of Missouri Executive Director Jeffrey Mittman and two Washington University School of Law professors: Gregory Maragian and Eric Miller. The event will be moderated by alumnus Reece Ellis, who graduated from Hazelwood East High this year.

Shake off your afternoon slump with the offbeat or overlooked news of the day.

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Hazelwood Schools to host First Amendment workshop with ACLU - STLtoday.com

Wednesday on Fox Business Networks Cavuto: Coast to Coast, Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz dismissed accusations of treason aimed at Donald Trump, Jr., as a New York Times op-ed suggested, for his meeting with a Russian lawyer offering opposition research on his fathers Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton during the 2016 presidential election.

Dershowitzpointed to The New York Times publishing of the Pentagon Papers in 1971, noting thatit was protected by the First Amendment.

[T]heres really no difference under the First Amendment between a campaigner using information he obtained illegally, from somebody who obtained it illegally, and a newspaper doing it, he said. So I think this is conduct that would be covered by the First Amendment. Its also not prohibited by law. Theres been so much overwrought claim. There are people who are talking about treason. I cant believe The New York Times had an op-ed yesterday in which treason was mentioned without even looking at the definition.

Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor

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Dershowitz Rips NY Times for Trump Jr Treason Accusation Conduct Covered by First Amendment - Breitbart News

Columbia Universitys Knight First Amendment Institute is suing Donald Trump for blocking people on Twitter, claiming that it violates free speech protections. The institute filed suit today on behalf of seven Twitter users who were blocked by the president, which prevents them from seeing or replying to his tweets. It threatened legal action in a letter to Trump in June, and now asks the court to declare that the viewpoint-based blocking of people from the @realDonaldTrump account is unconstitutional.

The lawsuit, which was filed in the Southern District of New York, elaborates on the Knight Institutes earlier letter. It contends that Trumps Twitter account is a public political forum where citizens have a First Amendment right to speak. Under this theory, blocking users impedes their right to participate in a political conversation and stops them from viewing official government communication. Therefore, if Trump blocks people for criticizing his political viewpoints, hed be doing the equivalent of kicking them out of a digital town hall.

Trump has definitely used his Twitter account as an official platform. The White House confirmed that his tweets are official statements, and its preserving them as public presidential communications. However, its much less clear that it counts as a public forum, or that being prevented from viewing or participating in a Twitter thread chills free speech. Users can still view tweets by logging out or creating a new account, and as First Amendment lawyer and blogger Ken White told Vox, a successful lawsuit could make it difficult for any official Twitter account to block trolls or spammers without worrying about legal action.

Nonetheless, the Knight Institute has printed statements from its seven plaintiffs, who say they feel measurably impacted by the block. My Twitter following is relatively small, but because my tweets show up in the comment threads under the presidents tweets and can be seen by his millions of followers, my replies could gain traction, says surgery resident Eugene Gu. Now I have extremely limited access to the public forum where I once could be heard. I feel cut off and as though Im being treated like an outsider in my own country.

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Trump is being sued by a First Amendment group for blocking Twitter users - The Verge