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Courts Must Distinguish Between the Bully Pulpit and Bullying to Stop Abridgements of Free Speech
Blogs
The Constitution allows the government to express its views from the bully pulpit but prohibits bullying people into silence. The government generally may select its views and say what it wishes. But the Supreme Court made clear in Bantam Books v. Sullivan (1963) that government may not resort to even “informal sanctions,” such as “the threat of invoking…
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How the Government Justifies Its Social-Media Censorship
The organization I lead, the New Civil Liberties Alliance, represents plaintiffs in Missouri v. Biden, a lawsuit challenging the federal government’s campaign to censor speech on social media. For years, officials at the White House, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Homeland Security, the Central Intelligence Agency and other agencies have pressured tech companies to suppress “misinformation.”…
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The Demise of the SEC’s Adjudication System
Earlier this month on a Friday afternoon, the Securities and Exchange Commission quietly issued an extraordinary administrative order. In one fell swoop, the SEC unconditionally abandoned more than 40 enforcement cases the agency had previously spent untold staff resources prosecuting over the past decade. In essence, the agency largely shut down what I’ve previously called its “Hotel California” adjudication system.…
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It’s Not Coercion Until They Break Your Will
Blogs
The government recently had an opportunity to attempt to convince a federal court why efforts to abridge United States citizens’ disfavored political speech are consistent with the First Amendment. As explained in NCLA’s Missouri v. Biden case, ever since 2016, the federal government has become more interested in monitoring and managing what circulates on social media. With…
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The SEC’s Other ‘Hotel California’ Docket
Blogs
In an op-ed published last fall by Law360, I called out the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for its appalling dereliction of duty in refusing to decide administrative appeals from enforcement sanctions imposed by the agency’s administrative law judges (ALJs). To summarize, more than two years ago the SEC simply stopped deciding those appeals, trapping the beleaguered…
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Nasdaq’s Discriminatory Board-Quota Rule Should Be Defeated In Court
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Gary Gensler’s attempt to politicize the whole American economy to advance his woke agenda faced a critical test last week. The SEC’s partnership with the Nasdaq stock exchange to mandate discriminatory quotas in corporate board rooms was challenged last Monday before the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans. Petitioners the National…
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