By Gabe Rottman, Legislative Counsel, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 2:46pm
A few folks have asked me about the recent Second Circuit decision in United States v. Caronia, in which the court found that criminalizing the promotion of “off-label” pharmaceutical uses by a drug company sales representative violated the First Amendment. I cover a lot of commercial speech issues in the legislative context, so let me try to explain why I think the decision is probably right (“probably” being the operative term), and significant.
By Kade Crockford, Director, ACLU of Massachusetts Technology for Liberty Project at 2:29pm
This summer ACLU affiliates all around the country filed open-records requests seeking information about how government agencies are using automated license plate readers. One set of records, released this week to the ACLU of Massachusetts by the police department here in Boston, provides a snapshot of the data-collection practices that are taking place around the nation.
By Jay Stanley, Senior Policy Analyst, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at 12:11am
We know that photographers have been having problems all over the country with police harassment, and that demonstrators’ free speech rights have also been under assault. But with the Democratic and Republican political conventions coming up, we have all too much reason to expect that free speech rights will be swallowed up in the vortex of those events, which have become constitutional black holes in recent years.
By Farbod Faraji, National Security Project at 6:09pm
Today the ACLU and PEN American Center asked the State Department to speed the issuance of a visa to Ghassan Zaqtan, a widely-published and internationally respected poet and writer who had intended to begin a two-week book tour for his new collection, Like a Straw Bird It Follows Me, yesterday.
Mr. Zaqtan applied for a visa on March 7, 2012 at the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem and was told at the time that he would receive his visa within two weeks. Four weeks later, Mr. Zaqtan has yet to receive a response. Without a visa, Mr. Zaqtan cannot visit the United States, and the American readers who have invited him to the United States cannot meet with him and hear him speak.
By Catherine Crump, Staff Attorney, ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at 12:43pm
The ACLU charges David House's laptop, camera and a USB drive were confiscated at O'Hare airport in 2010 because of his association with the Bradley Manning Support Network.
By Carol Rose, Executive Director, ACLU of Massachusetts at 11:00am
Whether you’re a member of the ACLU, the Tea Party, or the Beer Lovers Party, one of the things that distinguishes you from people living in more authoritarian regimes — Iran, China, Libya, to name a few — is your right to form political associations without fear of government reprisal.
Freedom of association is so vital to our democracy that the framers put it in the First Amendment, alongside freedoms of speech, press, religion, and petition. After all, what good is the right to speak, pray, or petition the government if you can’t freely associate with other people who support your cause?
Yesterday, The New York Times opined about “ideological exclusion” — the practice of denying foreign citizens entry into the U.S. based on their political views and associations, rather than any suspicious activity — writing:
"The Bush administration eagerly revived the practice, barring numerous people from entering the country for speaking engagements or conferences or to teach at leading universities — all under a flimsily supported guise of fighting terrorism.
[…]Months ago, a group of free speech advocates, including the Association of American Publishers, the American Library Association and the American Civil Liberties Union called on the Obama administration to end ideological exclusions and to review dubious visa denials. We hope Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton takes heed.
Although “ideological exclusion” originated during the Cold War, when critics of U.S. policy were often excluded as supposed Communists, the misguided practice was revived in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.
By Linda Lye, Staff Attorney, ACLU of Northern California at 4:52pm
In a disturbing trend that can have a chilling effect on free speech, law enforcement agencies around the country are seeking wide-ranging information about the social networking activity of political activists. The San Francisco District Attorney recently issued subpoenas to Twitter for tweets by two political protesters, Lauren Smith and Robert Donohoe, who had been charged with rioting and unlawful assembly during a Columbus Day demonstration last year. They had been active on Twitter but disabled their accounts after the protest.
