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The Knight First Amendment Institute July 11 filed a lawsuit against President Donald Trump and his communication teams, claiming they are violating the Constitutions First Amendment by blocking people on Twitter.

The lawsuit was filed in the Southern District of New York on behalf of seven people who were blocked by the presidents @realdonaldtrump account because they criticized the president or his policies on the social media, the institute said in a news release.

The suit hopes to have the court determine that Trump and his teams actions constitute viewpoint-based blocking and is unconstitutional.

President Trumps Twitter account has become an important source of news and information about the government, and an important forum for speech by, to, or about the president, Jameel Jaffer, the Knight Institutes executive director, said in a statement. The First Amendment applies to this digital forum in the same way it applies to town halls and open school board meetings. The White House acts unlawfully when it excludes people from this forum simply because theyve disagreed with the president.

About a month prior to the lawsuit being filed, the institute wrote a letter to the White House suggesting it would file suit if the president didnt unblock the individuals.

The institute, which never received a response from the White House, said that the Trump administration has promoted the @realdonaldtrump account as a primary communication channel between the president and the public including making formal announcements thus constituting it as a public forum protected by the First Amendment.

The blocking prevents or impedes these people from reading the presidents tweets, responding directly, or participating in the discussions that take place in the comment threads generated by the presidents tweets, the institutes release said. The complaint argues that the @realDonaldTrump account is a public forum under the First Amendment, meaning that the government cannot exclude people from it simply because of their views, it added.

The lawsuit also contends that the White House is violating the seven individual plaintiffs First Amendment right to petition their government for redress of grievances.

The White House is transforming a public forum into an echo chamber, said Katie Fallow, a senior staff attorney at the Knight Institute, in a statement. Its actions violate the rights of the people whove been blocked and the rights of those who havent been blocked but who now participate in a forum thats being sanitized of dissent.

Prior to joining the Knight Institute as executive director in June 2016, Jaffer was deputy legal director at the American Civil Liberties Union and director of the ACLUs Center for Democracy.

Born in Canada to Ismaili Muslim parents originally from Tanzania, he is a graduate of Williams College, Cambridge University, and Harvard Law School.

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Knight First Amendment Institute Files Lawsuit Against Trump for Blocking Twitter Users - India West

A federal judge has ruled that a local anti-police-brutality activist has a legitimate free-speech argument to present to a jury about why a former top cop barred her from a weekly CompStat data-sharing meeting.

U.S. District Court Judge Stefan R. Underhill, a Clinton appointee, agreed in a decision released last week that activist Barbara Fairs First Amendment rights might have been infringed and the case should proceed. The city had sought to have the case dismissed.

Underhill ruled that Fair may proceed to seek changes in policy through her suit, but not any money.

The alleged violation stems from a spat two years ago, when the former police chief, Dean Esserman, temporarily shut community members out of the weekly CompStat meetings, after cops complained that Fair used them as a venue to protest the departments treatment of minority communities. Fair contended that Esserman was trying to bar her from meetings until controversy blew over. The day Esserman barred the public from the meeting spurred on by discomfort of some of his officers with the presence of a vocal anti-police-brutality activist he also allowed another member of the community, preacher pal Rev. Boise Kimber, to come upstairs and attend.

In his ruling, Underhill squelched Fairs pursuit of damages, but he agreed to hear her case on injunctive relief. To win the case, the longtime activist must prove that Esserman disliked the content of her speech, rather than the manner in which she gave it, and that he intended to cut off public participation until activists lost interest in using the meeting to speak out.

Fair has continued to speak out publicly against police misbehavior and clash with the department. The police arrested her July 8 for allegedly refusing an order to keep her distance when they were arresting her nephew at a counterdemonstration against a white nationalist recruiting event on the Green. (She denied the allegation.)

And Compstat meetings, less elaborate affairs since Esserman departed the department, are open to the public again.

Fairs attorney, Norm Pattis, called the judges green-lighting of a trial an early win.

Any time that a jury can can [evaluate the conduct of a police officer], thats good to do for the republic, he said. We hope that never again will [the police] decide that some members of the public arent entitled to attend a meeting, when they have invited the public in general. When the community is given a chance to speak, the police department cant put stoppers on it based on the content of what its hearing.

As part of his community policing push, Esserman had opened up these weekly reviews of crime statistics and major cases, known as CompStat, to the public. (The name comes from comparative statistics.) The meetings revolve around reports from policing districts about crimes over the past week and plans for the upcoming week. Under Esserman, they expanded to include reports to and sometimes from the community, with dozens of local people joining the cops at headquarters on Thursday mornings to listen in on the departments crime-fighting strategies. (The department brass review pending investigations in greater detail at daily intelligence briefings, which are closed to the public.)

It was not, however, a forum for discussion, Esserman stated in his deposition. It was to let people see how the police department worked in a transparent way, and if people had presentations they wanted to make we would try to schedule them in.

Fair sought to make it a forum. In March 2015, after video of a black 15-year-olds takedown during an arrest emerged, Fair joined a protest in front of City Hall. There, she allegedly overheard cops and counter-protestors making racially charged remarks. Shortly after, Fair went to a CompStat meeting to speak up.

At the meetings end, she asked the assistant chief for permission to speak. (Esserman was absent.) Unrelated to any of the discussion that morning, she proceeded to criticize the department and called out the foul-mouthed officers. Fair said that one cop looked upset by her comments, but another officer told him to let Fair voice her concerns. I know I ruffled some feathers, she admitted in a follow-up email to the assistant chief. Still, no one present reprimanded her, asked her to sit down or escorted her out of the room.

News later reached Esserman, though, that Fair had been disruptive, loud, and argumentative. When she returned to Union Avenue for Compstat the following week, Esserman asked Fair to leave, saying she had made people very uncomfortable. After an exchange, Fair said, As long as its a public meeting, Im going to sit here. Esserman decided to close it all off.

Same thing the following week: Fair and State Sen. Gary Winfield couldnt even get past the front desk to the meeting. (Rev. Kimber, on the other hand, a friend of the chief, was buzzed in and went upstairs to attend the meeting.) Esserman maintained in his response to the suit there was no ban on Fairs attendance; she didnt subsequently try to go back.

In his initial analysis of the evidence, in which he tried to give Fairs arguments the best light possible, as a jury might similarly do, Judge Underhill explained that, to prove a First Amendment violation, the plaintiff must show (1) that her speech was protected by the Constitution, (2) that the forum was public and (3) that the justifications for excluding her speech werent up to snuff.

Fairs speech, addressing racist strains in the police department, is clearly protected speech, Underhill wrote, referencing an established right to complain to public officials.

Likewise, Essermans admittedly deliberate choice to open prior CompStat meetings made them limited public forums, Underhill added. Thats true even though observers generally didnt speak, he said. The judge cited a 1991 ruling about ACT UPs intent to hold a silent protest in a state legislatures gallery: [T]he elected officials receive the message, by the very presence of citizens in the gallery, that they are being watched, that their decisions are being scrutinized, and that they may not act with impunity outside the watchful eyes of their constituents, that precedent said.

Esserman argued that, since he opened the meetings, he could have closed them at any time.

Sure, Underhill wrote, thats true of any public forum. [H]owever, as long as the forum remains open, government regulations of speech within it must meet the standards of a public forum.

What are those standards? Underhill said speech may be limited only by content-neutral regulations time, manner, place unless theres a compelling state interest. In fact, he noted, Esserman might have been on surer footing if he had shut down the public participation entirely. But because the break was only temporary, it implied that the chief didnt like what Fair had to say on a current event, the judge noted. He referenced several rulings that arbitrariness and unpredictability about when a forum is open to the public can easily cover up censorship, as in choosing to shut down a park on the day a particular person is scheduled to speak.

It seems clear that a temporary shutdown intended to stifle discussion on a particular topic, with plans to reopen the forum after controversy surrounding that topic had been suppressed constitutes impermissible censorship under any First Amendment analysis, Underhill wrote.

Esserman argued that the case is mooted, to some extent, because hes no longer on the job. Indeed, at this past Thursdays CompStat meeting, the new chief, Anthony Campbell, said the meetings are open to the public. The only restriction might be if journalists are asked not to publish information about an imminent apprehension, he said.

Pattis responded that the First Amendment rights at issue could crop up with any police chief, not just the last one. Whats important is that the department realize that it has enduring obligations to the community, and that those do have the force of law behind them, he said. This will make sure Campbell isnt tempted to do the same.

A trial will likely be scheduled for sometime in the fall, Pattis said.

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Judge Allows First Amendment Trial - New Haven Independent

HAMBURG, N.Y. -- Aspiring journalists are telling their own stories this week at Hilbert College. While they're learning everything from writing a catchy headline to how to frame an interview, there's a deeper truth here that these 12- to 18-year-olds are uncovering.

With President Donald Trump accusing the media of reporting fake news and making up sources, the students are getting an important lesson on the foundation of journalism. The hope is the junior high and high-schoolers understand the meaning behind the First Amendment and the duty they could one day have to protect the freedoms that go along with it.

"It's about wanting to do it, to be passion it about doing it, and also about defending our rights as citizens; freedom of speech, freedom of the press, it's really only the job that's protected in the constitution," Chris Gallant, associate professor of Digital Media and Communication said.

Camp may be fun and filled with field trips to the federal courthouse for example, but just two days in and Hope Artis and the others have already grasped something we strive to prove in the stories we share with you every day.

"We need to know and understand people," Artis said. "That's what news in its heart is all about."

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Campers take up defending our First Amendment rights - TWC News

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Recording police is protected under the First Amendment - Buffalo ... Buffalo Business First The Third District Court of Appeals in Philadelphia ruled in favor of the right to record police activities, affirming the activity is protected under the First ... Whitehead: First Amendment won in courtOneNewsNow all 2 news articles »

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Recording police is protected under the First Amendment - Buffalo ... - Buffalo Business First

Why it matters: On June 19, 2017, the Supreme Court held in Matal v. Tam that Section 2(a) of the Lanham (Trademark) Actcommonly known as the disparagement clauseviolates the First Amendment.

Detailed discussion: On June 19, 2017, the Supreme Court held in Matal v. Tam that Section 2(a) of the Lanham (Trademark) Act violates the First Amendment. Section 2(a), commonly known as the disparagement clause, reads in relevant part that [n]o trademark shall be refused registrationon account of its nature unless it[c]onsists ofmatter which may disparage or falsely suggest a connection with persons, living or dead, institutions, beliefs, or national symbols, or bring them into contempt, or disrepute.

Factual background and procedural history: We last discussed the Tam case in depth in our June 2016 newsletter under Supreme Court Asked to Weigh-In on Disparaging Trademarks Issue. Briefly, the underlying case involved an individual named Simon Shiao Tam (Tam), an activist and the frontman for an Oregon-based rock band, who had been attempting to register the trademark The Slants (the bands proposed name) with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) since 2011. Tams stated reason in the trademark application for wanting to name his band The Slants was to reclaim and take ownership of Asian stereotypes. Citing Section 2(a) of the Lanham Act, the examiner refused to register the mark because he found it disparaging to people of Asian descent and felt that a substantial composite of Asians would find the mark offensive. The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board (TTAB) affirmed, and Tam appealed to the Federal Circuit.

The Federal Circuit also initially affirmed, but then sua sponte called for en banc review of the constitutionality issue. In December 2015, the en banc panel reversed, vacating and remanding the case back to the TTAB, holding that:

[t]he government cannot refuse to register disparaging marks because it disapproves of the expressive messages conveyed by the marks. It cannot refuse to register marks because it concludes that such marks will be disparaging to others. The government regulation at issue amounts to viewpoint discrimination, and under the strict scrutiny review appropriate for government regulation of message or viewpoint, we conclude that the disparagement proscription of 2(a) is unconstitutional.

The PTO filed a petition for writ of certiorari with the Supreme Court in April 2016, which agreed to consider the issue and heard oral argument on Jan. 18, 2017.

Supreme Court opinion: In a unanimous opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito, the Court affirmed the Federal Circuits ruling and held that the Section 2(a) disparagement clause violates the Free Speech Clause of the First Amendment because it offends a bedrock First Amendment principle: Speech may not be banned on the ground that it expresses ideas that offend.

In reaching this holding, the Court considered and rejected arguments raised by the PTO that would either eliminate any First Amendment protection or result in highly permissive rational-basis review.

The first of these arguments was the PTOs contention that trademarks are government speech, not private speech, and thus not subject to the restrictions that the First Amendment puts on private speech. The Court rejected this argument, stating that the PTO does not dream up the proposed trademarks, nor does it edit the ones that are submitted for registration. The PTO examiner only registers or, if a proposed trademark falls within one of the statutory exceptions, refuses to register the trademark, and it is thus far-fetched to suggest that the content of a registered mark is government speech. In addition, the Court said that the mere registration of a mark does not convert the mark into government speech (if it did, the Federal Government is babbling prodigiously and incoherently). Moreover, the Court said that [t]he PTO has made it clear that registration does not constitute approval of a mark. The Court concluded on this point that [h]olding that the registration of a trademark converts the mark into government speech would constitute a huge and dangerous extension of the government-speech doctrine and thus [t]rademarks are private, not government, speech.

The second argument put forth by the PTO was that trademarks are a form of government subsidy, pointing to Supreme Court precedent upholding the constitutionality of government programs that subsidized speech expressing a particular viewpoint. The Court rejected this argument as well, stating that it brought up a notoriously tricky question of constitutional law, but the Court had no difficulty distinguishing the cases cited by the PTO from the one before it.

The Court next considered and rejected the PTOs third argument that the constitutionality of the disparagement clause should be tested under a new government-program doctrine because the disparagement clause cannot be saved by analyzing it as a type of government program in which some content- and speaker-based restrictions are permitted.

Finally, the Court addressed the PTOs argument that trademarks are commercial speech and are thus subject to the relaxed scrutiny. The Court rejected this argument, stating that, even if that were the case, the disparagement clause could not withstand the relaxed scrutiny afforded commercial speech because it is not narrowly drawn nor does it serve a substantial interest. The Court concluded, If affixing the commercial label permits the suppression of any speech that may lead to political or social volatility, free speech would be endangered.

Justice Anthony Kennedy (joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan) authored a separate concurrence in which he explained in greater detail why the First Amendments protections against viewpoint discrimination apply to the trademark here and render unnecessary any extended treatment of the other arguments raised by the parties:

A law that can be directed against speech found offensive to some portion of the public can be turned against minority and dissenting views to the detriment of all. The First Amendment does not entrust that power to the governments benevolence. Instead, our reliance must be on the substantial safeguards of free and open discussion in a democratic society.

All eyes presumably now turn to Pro-Football, Inc. v. Blackhorse, the long-running litigation involving the cancellation by the TTAB and lower court of the six REDSKINS marks in reliance on the disparagement clause, the latest iteration of which had been put on hold in the Fourth Circuit pending resolution of the Tam case by the Supreme Court. The owners of the REDSKINS marks have been claiming victory and are assuming that the Tam case ensures that the Fourth Circuit will reinstate their marks. We will keep an eye on this litigation and report back.

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Supreme Court: Trademark Disparagement Clause Violates First Amendment - Lexology (registration)