U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan sent shockwaves through Washington yesterday by ruling that State Department officials and top aides to Hillary Clinton will be subject to discovery on whether they intentionally violated federal open records laws by using or allowing the use of a private email server throughout Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state from 2009 to 2013. The case opens up another front for Clinton who is facing rising criticism over her decision to exclusively use her own private server for communications as Secretary of State — a decision that gave her control over her email system but exposed classified information to interception. The State Department supplied a secure system for her use but Clinton opted not to use that system. Over 1,700 emails on Clinton’s private email system have been classified (22 at the highest level of “top secret”). While Clinton insists that the information was not marked classified at the time, that is not the test under federal law. Yet, this case concerns the use of the private server to circumvent open record laws. The court also indicated that it may order subpoenas for Clinton officials in light to the failure to fully disclose information. Sullivan, who I have appeared before regularly over the last two decades, is a widely respected judge and a Clinton appointee.
Category: Media
Federal and state courts have handed down a virtually uniform line of rulings protecting the right of citizens to film police in public. That is until the February 19th decision of U.S. District Judge Mark Kearney. Kearney was only put on the federal courts in 2014 by President Obama but has written his first major ruling in curtailing the rights of citizens under the First Amendment. Kearney used that there is no First Amendment right to film police unless they can show that they are challenging or criticizing the police conduct.
While the Obama Administration has staked a great deal on moderates in the Iranian regime, it is hard to see much progress in the Islamic Republic. That was made clear this week with the news that forty state-run Iranian media outlets have jointly offered a new $600,000 bounty for the death of British Indian author Salman Rushdie. Ayatollah Khomeini, the First Supreme Leader of Iran, issued the fatwa against Rushdie on charges of blasphemy for his novel The Satanic Verses on 15 February, 1989. Ayatollah Khomeini’s successor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said in 2005 in the hateful fatwa remains in full force not just against Rushdie but anyone associated with the book. The fatwa captures the continuing problem that Islamic countries have with basic free speech and free exercise rights.
By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor
In an interview with the Washington Examiner, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai expressed his worry of the waning of free speech rights in American. The suppression of dissenting speech on college campuses and Twitter he believes are prime examples.
“I think th[is] poses a special danger to a country that cherishes First Amendment speech, freedom of expression, even freedom of association. I think it’s dangerous, frankly, that we don’t see more often people espousing the First Amendment view that we should have a robust marketplace of ideas where everybody should be willing and able to participate.
Largely what we’re seeing, especially on college campuses, is that if my view is in the majority and I don’t agree with your view, then I have the right to shout you down, disrupt your events, or otherwise suppress your ability to get your voice heard.”
The text of the First Amendment is enshrined in our Constitution, but there are certain cultural values that undergird the amendment that are critical for its protections to have actual meaning.”
Below is my column in USA Today on some of the possible nominees to fill the vacancy left with the death of Associate Justice Antonin Scalia. There is a long list of potential nominees and only some are discussed in this column. One of the more interesting prospects is Jane Kelly from the Eighth Circuit who would bring badly needed trial experience to the Court and particularly a rare criminal defense background. As a threshold matter, it is worth noting that the current chaos that we are witnessing over Scalia’s replacement is the result of a long-standing flaw on the Court. As I have argued for many years, our Supreme Court is demonstrably too small and should be expanded by Congress to 19 members – roughly the size of other large nations – to avoid so much power being concentrated in so few hands. If the Court was larger, there would likely be no question that President Obama could get a nominee confirmed because there would be greater turnover on the Court and less at stake with each justice. However, as it stands, even a moderate nominee would move the center of gravity of the Court significantly to the left and would likely produce a host of sweeping changes on gun rights, abortion, affirmative action, and other areas. That is something that the Republicans have pledged to bar, at least until we know who the next president will be.
So our dysfunctionally small Court has left us in another dysfunctional standoff. However, we have some added issues due to the timing of this vacancy as discussed in the column below.
In a direct violation of international rules governing these sporting events, the Iranian government barred women from entry to the Beach Volleyball World Tour event on Kish Island. The FIVB had expressly required Iran to guarantee that women would be allowed to enter and watch the matches. However, the Iranians barred them anyway at the five-day competition.
Continue reading “Iranian Women Barred From International Volleyball Competition”
Apple has decided to fight an unprecedented and highly controversial order by U.S. Magistrate Judge Sheri Pym that the company has to assist the government in breaking into one of its encrypted phones. Apple says that it does not have the technology and does not want to be part of such an effort to create a privacy stripping tool for the FBI. Pym seems to believe that she can order companies to become unwilling participants in surveillance research and development. I fail to see her legal basis for such an extraordinary order against a private company.
One of the most basic functions of government should be to require accurate descriptions of products in the market. I am a big believer in the free market and tend to resist government regulation whenever possible. However, the free market functions best when the government enforces the rules to prevent misleading and fraudulent practices. This week is an example of how labeling continues to mislead consumers. While parmesan cheese is often advertised as “100%” pure, it can include wood pulp and cheaper cheeses such as cheddar, Swiss, and mozzarella. One manufacturer, Castle Cheese, supplying Target actually had no parmesan in its “100 percent” parmesan cheese product.
China is again showing that it remains an authoritarian government fearful of its own people learning the truths of history or politics. This week, China barred Yang Jisheng, 76, a former journalist with China’s official news agency, from traveling to the United States to accept a Harvard University prize for Tombstone, a 2008 book uncovering the devastating toll of the Great Chinese Famine of 1958-1961.
Poland has added its name to the countries seeking to criminalize unpopular opinions or speech. In a law that attacks both free speech and historical scholarship, the Polish government is seeking to make it a crime to imply the country bears any responsibility for atrocities carried out on Polish soil by Nazi Germany. Violators who simply argue Polish complicity in war crimes could face five years in prison.
We recently discussed the highly disturbing cases of 12 protesters who called for the boycotting of Israeli products. France’s Supreme Court (the Court of Cassation) upheld the shocking prosecution of the twelve anti-Israel activists in a blow to free speech. Now, England is moving to bar local councils, public bodies and even university student unions from boycotting “unethical” companies.
Continue reading “England Moves To Bar Support For Israeli Boycott Movement”
Below is my column today in USA Today on the prospect of a recess appointment fight in the filling of the vacancy left on the Court by the passing of Associate Justice Antonin Scalia. The White House could well use any refusal to consider a nominee as a license to use a recess appointment while the Senate could move to stay in session to preempt such a recess appointment. In my view, the Senate should consider any nominee submitted by the President and, for his part, the President should forego any recess appointment if the nomination is not successful. Here is the opinion:
The Washington Post posted my column on Sunday discussing the passing of Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, a towering figure on the United States Supreme Court and an icon for conservative jurists. It is regrettable that people today often demonize those with whom they disagree. Scalia was personally a warm and engaging person. Indeed, liberal justices Ginsburg, Breyer, and Kagan appeared quite close to Scalia as not just a colleague but a friend. I expect that Scalia has left a lasting legacy that will withstand the test of time, as I discuss below. He was a man of principle. One could certainly disagree with those principles, as I sometimes did. However, he left 30 years of opinions that challenged and often changed doctrines in a wide array of areas. These opinions show a depth and scope that sets them apart in the annals of the Court. Liberals and conservatives alike should be able to recognize the impactful and brilliant life of Nino Scalia. Here is the column: Continue reading “SCALIA AND HIS LEGACY”
There is a new disturbing video that seems to reaffirm the growing intolerance for free speech on (or in this case near) our campuses. In the confrontation between a preacher named Joshua and University of Texas at Austin police, the preacher was told that, even though he was not on campus, he was still guilty of “offending someone” with this speech and would be given a citation.
Pakistan is the latest Muslim country to ban a holiday as a threat to Islam. In this case, it is not Christmas but Valentine’s Day. The Interior Ministry has proclaimed that the harmless holiday is now deemed an “insult” to Islam and banned by order of Interior Minister Nisar Ali Khan (right). Khan is one of the leading and most senior members of Pakistan Muslim League.
Continue reading “Pakistani Government Bans Valentine’s Day As “Insult” To Islam”