User:Aadamglenn/Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University
| Established | 2016 |
|---|---|
| Head | Jameel Jaffer |
| Location | |
| Website | www |
The Knight First Amendment Institute is a non-profit established in 2016 by Columbia University and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation to defend the freedoms of speech and the press in the digital age through strategic litigation, research, and public education.[1] In its mission statement, the Institute states that it works to promotes a system of free expression that is open and inclusive, that broadens and elevates public discourse, and that fosters creativity, accountability, and effective self-government.[2]
Notable litigation
[edit]- Knight Institute v. Trump — A challenge to President Trump's practice of blocking critics from his @realDonaldTrump Twitter account, in which the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held that President Trump’s practice violated the First Amendment.[4][5][6] On April 5, 2021, the Supreme Court vacated the judgment and instructed the Second Circuit to dismiss the case as moot.[7][8][9][10][11]
- Knight First Amendment Inst. at Columbia Univ. v. Paxton — A lawsuit challenging Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s blocking of critics from his official Twitter.[12]
- People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals v. Collins — A lawsuit challenging government health agencies’ practice of blocking social media comments containing keywords associated with viewpoints critical of animal testing.[13]
- Davison v. Randall — A lawsuit challenging a local government official’s blocking of a critic on Facebook, in which the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit became the first federal appellate court in the country to address whether public officials’ social media accounts can be “public forums” under the First Amendment.[14][15][16][17][18][19]
Other free speech & social media
[edit]- NetChoice LLC v. Attorney General, State of Florida — Amicus brief filed in an Eleventh Circuit case challenging a Florida law that regulates social media platforms.[20]
- NetChoice, LLC, v. Paxton — Amicus brief filed in a Fifth Circuit case challenging a Texas law that limits the power of social media companies to moderate speech on their platforms, while arguing that some of the law’s transparency provisions should be reviewed under a more deferential First Amendment framework.[21][22]
- City of Austin v. Reagan National Advertising of Austin, Inc. — Amicus brief filed in a Supreme Court case challenging a city sign code that permits on-premises but not off-premises signs to be digitized.[23]
Privacy and surveillance
[edit]- Doc Society v. Blinken — A challenge to the State Department’s social media registration requirements.[24][25]
- Knight Institute v. DHS — A Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit seeking records relating to searches of electronic devices at the U.S. border.[26]
- Knight Institute v. DHS — A FOIA lawsuit seeking records on ideological screening at the border.[27]
- Knight Institute v. Federal Bureau of Prisons — A FOIA lawsuit seeking records concerning the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ digitization and surveillance of mail.[28]
- Wikimedia Foundation v. NSA — A lawsuit challenging the NSA’s “Upstream” surveillance.[29][30]
Transparency and democracy
[edit]- Edgar v. Haines — A lawsuit challenging the government's system of "prepublication review."[31][32]
- National Association of Immigration Judges v. Neal — A lawsuit challenging a government policy silencing immigration judges.[33]
- ACLU v. United States — A motion asserting a right of access to opinions of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.[34][35]
The Office of Legal Counsel and secret law
[edit]- Campaign for Accountability v. DOJ and Francis v. DOJ — A FOIA lawsuit seeking proactive disclosure of the Office of Legal Counsel’s secret legal opinions, and a FOIA lawsuit, settled on August 13, 2021, seeking disclosure of OLC opinions issued over 25 years ago.[36][37]
- OLC Reading Room: A Knight Institute project housing the most comprehensive, searchable public database of legal opinions written by the OLC, helping shed light on the body of “secret law” produced by the OLC and long-withheld from the public.[38][39] The Reading Room contains the approximately 1,400 opinions published by the OLC in its online database and the approximately 350 opinions produced to date in FOIA litigation that the Institute has brought on behalf of historians and other researchers. In January 2022, the Institute also launched @OLCforthepeople, a Twitter account that alerts followers whenever the OLC posts a new legal opinion to its reading room.[40]
Notable research
[edit]Free speech & social media
[edit]- "Protocols, Not Platforms: A Technological Approach to Free Speech," by Mike Masnick, founder and CEO of Floor64 and editor of the Techdirt blog (21 August 2019), on altering the internet's economic and digital infrastructure to promote free speech, cited by Electronic Frontier Foundation as a "crucial contribution to the discussion about accountability, choice and competition in social media."[41][42][43][44]
- "Is the First Amendment Obsolete?" by Columbia Law School Professor Tim Wu (1 September 2017), on new free expression challenges from “troll armies,” “flooding,” and propaganda robots that aim to distort or drown out disfavored speech. The essay was credited with being "largely responsible for pushing the [debate] onto center stage."[45]
- "Amplification and Its Discontents," by the Stanford Center for Internet and Society's Daphne Keller (8 June 2021), on why regulating the reach of online content is hard.[46]
- "An Illustrated Field Guide to Social Media," by Chand Rajendra-Nicolucci & Ethan Zuckerman (14 May 2021), on alternative logics for social media.[47]
- "The Case for Digital Public Infrastructure," by Ethan Zuckerman (17 January 2020), on harnessing past successes in public broadcasting to build community-oriented digital tools.[48][49]
- "How to Regulate (and Not Regulate) Social Media," by Yale Law School's Jack Balkin (25 March 2020), on creating incentives for social media companies to be responsible and trustworthy institutions.[50]
- "The Rise of Content Cartels," by evelyn douek (11 February 2020), urging transparency and accountability in industry-wide content removal decisions.[51]
Privacy & surveillance
[edit]- "From Private Bads to Public Goods: Adapting Public Utility Regulation for Informational Infrastructure," by Brooklyn Law School's K. Sabeel Rahman & Fordham Law School's Zephyr Teachout, on dismantling surveillance-based business models.[52]
- "Why Rely on the Fourth Amendment To Do the Work of the First?" by Knight Institute's Alex Abdo, on how the First Amendment might become a bulwark against overreaching government surveillance.[53]
Transparency & democracy
[edit]- "A Safe Harbor for Platform Research," by Knight Institute's Alex Abdo et al. (19 January 2022), on a proposal for legal protection for certain research and newsgathering projects focused on platforms.
- "A Standard for Universal Digital Ad Transparency," by Laura Edelson et al. (9 December 2021), on a proposal spelling out criteria that trigger transparency requirement, with ad data to be collected by government agency.[54]
- "The Democratic Regulation of Artificial Intelligence," by Carnegie Endowment President Mariano-Florentino Cuellar and the University of Chicago's Aziz Z. Huq (31 January 2022), on a case for focusing on forward-looking policy considerations rather than a rights framework in regulating “AI systems.”
- "What We Owe Whistleblowers," by Jameel Jaffer, adapted from an essay published in National Security, Leaks & Freedom of the Press (Lee C. Bollinger & Geoffrey R. Stone, eds. 2021).
Notable public education activities
[edit]Research symposia
[edit]Recent public events include the Reimagine the Internet virtual conference exploring what the internet could become over the next decade (2021)[55]; the Data and Democracy symposium considering how big data is changing our system of self-government (2020); The Tech Giants, Monopoly Power, and Public Discourse, a symposium examining free speech implications of "breaking up" today's giant online platforms, (2019)[56]; Freedom of Expression in the Digital Age, a series of events examining the role of the First Amendment in assessing the lawfulness of government surveillance (2018); and A First Amendment for All? Free Expression in an Age of Inequality, a symposium on the future of the First Amendment (2018).
Other events
[edit]- "Roads Not Taken" (with Elisa Massimino, former president and CEO of Human Rights First; Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the ACLU; Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch; Linda Sarsour, co-chair of the 2017 Women’s March and former executive director of the Arab American Association of New York; and Jameel Jaffer of the Knight First Amendment Institute) on reflections on the 9/11 anniversary (Sept. 9, 2021).[57]
- "How Rights Went Wrong: Why Our Obsession with Rights Is Tearing America Apart" (with Jamal Greene, author, and Dwight Professor of Law at Columbia Law School; and Katy Glenn Bass of the Knight First Amendment Institute) on why our obsession with rights is tearing America apart (May 6, 2021).[58]
- "A Conversation with Edward Snowden" (with Snowden, Jameel Jaffer of the Knight First Amendment Institute and Amy Davidson Sorkin of The New Yorker) about secrecy, surveillance, security, and the role of whistleblowers in exposing government wrongdoing (Oct. 29, 2019).[59]
Reading Room
[edit]- The OLC's Opinions: Opinions published by the Office of Legal Counsel, including those released in response to a Knight Institute FOIA lawsuit. [60]
Press Freedom Work
[edit]- Julian Assange Case [61][62][63][64][65]. Testimony of Executive Director Jameel Jaffer in Assange extradition proceeding.
- Reading Room for Press-related prosecutions under the Espionage Act: Legal filings in Espionage Act prosecutions of individuals accused of disclosing information to the press and public.[66][67]
Books
[edit]- The Perilous Public Square (Columbia University Press, 2020): A volume of essays exploring new or intensifying threats to the system of free expression, edited by Knight Institute inaugural Senior Visiting Research Scholar David Pozen of Columbia Law School.[68][69]
Executive director and board
[edit]Jameel Jaffer is the inaugural executive director. Board members are Lee C. Bollinger, Alberto Ibargüen, Eve Burton, Steve Coll, Nicholas Lemann, Gillian Lester, Theodore Olson, and Gerald Rosberg.
References
[edit]- ^ McPhate, Mike (17 May 2016). "Columbia University to Open a First Amendment Institute". The New York Times. Retrieved February 1, 2022.
- ^ "About Knight First Amendment Institute". knightcolumbia.org. Retrieved April 21, 2022.
- ^ Moynihan, Colin (3 April 2019). "If Trump Can Legally Block Critics on Twitter, Your Local Politician May Do It, Too". The New York Times. Retrieved 18 March 2022.
- ^ Savage, Charlie (9 July 2019). "Trump Can't Block Critics From His Twitter Account, Appeals Court Rules". The New York Times. Retrieved 9 February 2022.
- ^ Marimow, Ann E. (9 July 2019). "President Trump cannot block his critics on Twitter, federal appeals court rules". The Washington Post. Retrieved 9 February 2022.
- ^ The Editorial Board (28 March 2019). "The Constitution and the President's Tweets". The New York Times. Retrieved 9 February 2022.
- ^ Order List (04/05/2021) https://www.supremecourt.gov/orders/courtorders/040521zor_3204.pdf
- ^ 20-197 Biden v. Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia Univ. (04/05/2021)
- ^ "Supreme Court Ends Four-Year-Long Lawsuit Challenging Trump's Blocking of Critics on Twitter". First Amendment Watch at New York University. 5 April 2021. Retrieved 6 May 2022.
- ^ Rottman, Gabe (19 April 2021). "Justice Thomas suggests social media platforms qualify as 'common carriers'". Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. Retrieved 6 May 2022.
- ^ Brandom, Russell (5 April 2021). "Clarence Thomas really wants Congress to regulate Twitter moderation". The Verge. Retrieved 6 May 2022.
- ^ Bidar, Musadiq (12 July 2021). "Texas attorney general agrees to stop blocking constituents from following him on Twitter". CBS News. Retrieved 2 February 2022.
- ^ Masnick, Mike (17 September 2021). "PETA Sues NIH And HHS Directors For Blocking Comments With 'PETA' And '#StopAnimalTesting'". Techdirt. Retrieved 2 February 2022.
- ^ Times-Mirror, Staff (24 May 2018). "Federal court rules that Trump's blocking of Twitter critics violates First Amendment; case has ties to lawsuit against Loudoun County chairwoman". Loudon Times-Mirror. Retrieved 18 March 2022.
- ^ Stempel, Jonathan (7 January 2019). "Politicians cannot block social media foes: U.S. appeals court". Reuters. Retrieved 18 March 2022.
- ^ Farhi, Isabel (29 October 2018). "Twenty-First Century First Amendment: Public Forums in the Digital Age". Media Freedom and Information Access Clinic, Yale Law School. Retrieved 18 March 2022.
- ^ "PODCAST: When does Twitter blocking violate the First Amendment?". American Constitution Center. 1 August 2019. Retrieved 18 March 2022.
- ^ Fonzone, Christopher (26 September 2018). "Why it's unconstitutional for politicians — including the president — to block people on social media". The Washington Post. Retrieved 18 March 2022.
- ^ Stern, Mark Joseph (7 January 2019). "Appeals Court Rules Lawmakers Cannot Block Their Critics on Social Media". Slate. Retrieved 18 March 2022.
- ^ Klasfeld, Adam (16 November 2021). "Free Speech Group Asks Appeals Court to Reject 'Florida's Version of the First Amendment' and Keep Gov. DeSantis's Social Media Law Blocked". Law & Crime. Retrieved 9 February 2022.
- ^ https://knightcolumbia.org/documents/6aw5xf6e12
- ^ Larson, Erik (1 December 2021). "Texas Law Targeting Facebook, Twitter Put on Hold By Judge". Bloomberg. Retrieved 6 May 2022.
- ^ "Brief amici curiae of Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University and Professor Genevieve Lakier filed" (PDF). SCOTUSblog. 20 August 2021. Retrieved 9 February 2022.
- ^ Chang, Ailsa (6 December 2019). "Lawsuit Aims To End Rule Requiring Visa Applicants To Disclose Social Media Accounts". All Things Considered. Retrieved February 1, 2022.
- ^ "Opinion: A new U.S. visa requirement is silencing foreign filmmakers". Los Angeles Times. 6 December 2019. Retrieved 11 February 2022.
- ^ Ackerman, Spencer (27 March 2017). "US government sued over 'suspicionless' device searches by customs officials". The Guardian. Retrieved 9 February 2022.
- ^ McParland, Tom (6 January 2022). "Agencies Seek Reversal in FOIA Suit Over Trump Administration Vetting at US Border". New York Law Journal. Retrieved 9 February 2022.
- ^ Gill, Lauren (26 September 2021). "FEDERAL PRISONS' SWITCH TO SCANNING MAIL IS A SURVEILLANCE NIGHTMARE". [The Intercept_]. Retrieved 9 February 2022.
- ^ Singh, Kanishka (16 September 2021). "U.S. court upholds dismissal of lawsuit against NSA on 'state secrets' grounds". Reuters. Retrieved 9 February 2022.
- ^ Wikimedia Foundation (15 September 2021). "Federal Appeals Court Dismisses ACLU Challenge to NSA Internet Surveillance". Wikimedia Foundation. Retrieved 9 February 2022.
- ^ Savage, Charlie (2 April 2019). "Ex-National Security Officials Sue to Limit Censorship of Their Books". The New York Times. Retrieved 11 February 2022.
- ^ Albanese, Andrew (23 November 2021). "Supreme Court Asked to Rein In Government Pre-Publication Reviews". Publishers Weekly. Retrieved February 1, 2022.
- ^ Williams, Erika (25 January 2022). "Immigration judges take free speech case to Fourth Circuit". Courthouse News Service. Retrieved 10 February 2022.
- ^ Savage, Charlie (19 April 2021). "A.C.L.U. Asks Supreme Court to Let It Seek Secret Surveillance Court Rulings". The New York Times.
- ^ Cole, David D. (2 June 2021). "What Is America's Spy Court Hiding From the Public?". The New York Times. Retrieved 10 February 2022.
- ^ Buble, Courtney (23 August 2019). "Office of Legal Counsel Is Illegally Withholding Opinions from Public Scrutiny, Suit Alleges". Government Executive. Retrieved 11 February 2022.
- ^ Farias, Cristian (29 August 2019). "The Justice Department Can't Keep Its Own Law Secret Forever". Politico Magazine. Retrieved 11 February 2022.
- ^ "STATEMENT: The Office of Legal Counsel and the Rule of Law" (PDF). American Constitution Society. 30 October 2020. Retrieved 11 February 2022.
- ^ Twitter announcement on STATEMENT The Office of Legal Counsel and the Rule of Law, American Constitution Society. https://twitter.com/acslaw/status/1322242555686379521
- ^ Syed, Nabiha (26 January 2022). The Markuphttps://twitter.com/nabihasyed/status/1486447734357909505. Retrieved 11 February 2022.
- ^ "Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)". Facebook. 26 January 2021. Retrieved 6 May 2021.
- ^ Lawson, Abagail (13 October 2021). "Can competition tools fix social media?". Observer Research Foundation. Retrieved 6 May 2022.
- ^ Robertson, Adi (11 December 2019). "Twitter is funding research into a decentralized version of its platform". The Verge. Retrieved 6 May 2022.
- ^ Errick, Kirsten (12 December 2019). "Twitter Funds Research for a Decentralized Version of its Platform". Law Street Media.
- ^ Edsall, Thomas B. (6 January 2021). "Have Trump's Lies Wrecked Free Speech?". The New York Times. Retrieved 8 February 2022.
- ^ Hendrix, Justin (20 June 2021). "Hard Problems: Regulating Algorithms & Antitrust Legislation". Tech Policy Press. Retrieved 8 February 2022.
- ^ "A Field Guide to Social Media". New_Public. 30 May 2021. Retrieved 11 February 2022.
- ^ Benton, Joshua (22 January 2020). "Public infrastructure isn't just bridges and water mains: Here's an argument for extending the concept to digital spaces". Neiman Lab. Retrieved 18 March 2022.
- ^ Maréchal, Nathalie (July 2021). "The Future of Platform Power: Fixing the Business Model". Journal of Democracy.
- ^ Volokh, Eugene (26 August 2021). "Jack Balkin, "How to Regulate (and Not Regulate) Social Media"". Reason. Retrieved 11 February 2022.
- ^ Hu, Taylor (31 August 2020). "Online Platforms and the First Amendment Problem". The McGill International Review. Retrieved 11 February 2022.
- ^ Cited in written testimony of K. Sabeel Rahman, president, Dēmos, before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial and Administrative Law (1 October 2020). https://docs.house.gov/meetings/JU/JU05/20201001/111072/HHRG-116-JU05-Wstate-RahmanS-20201001.pdf
- ^ Abdo, Alex (25 October 2017). "Why Rely on the Fourth Amendment To Do the Work of the First?". The Yale Law Journal. Retrieved 6 May 2022.
- ^ "Researchers' audit reveals flaws in Facebook's identification of political ads". Cybersecurity for Democracy. 9 December 2021. Retrieved 11 February 2022.
- ^ "Can We Conceive of a New Internet?". Columbia News. 23 June 2021. Retrieved 21 April 2022.
- ^ "How to Tackle the Tech Giants". Columbia News. 24 February 2020. Retrieved 21 April 2022.
- ^ Glenn, A. Adam (1 October 2021). "Are Human Rights Violations Becoming More Difficult to Hide?". Columbia News. Retrieved 9 March 2022.
- ^ "Global Freedom of Expression, Columbia University: Newsletter, w/e 15 May 2021". The International Forum for Responsible Media Blog. 15 May 2021. Retrieved 9 March 2022.
- ^ Harting, Caroline (8 November 2019). "Edward Snowden on Surveillance and Free Speech". Columbia News. Retrieved 9 March 2022.
- ^ Wang, Xiangnong (George) (14 July 2021). "Long-Withheld Office of Legal Counsel Records Reveal Agency's Postwar Influence". Just Security. Retrieved 9 March 2022.
- ^ Gessen, Masha (24 May 2019). "Charging Julian Assange Under the Espionage Act Is an Attack on the First Amendment". The New Yorker. Retrieved 6 May 2022.
- ^ Savage, Charlie (23 May 2019). "Assange Indicted Under Espionage Act, Raising First Amendment Issues". The New York Times. Retrieved 6 May 2022.
- ^ Jaffer, Simon, Jameel, Joel (18 January 2019). "Why US intelligence should release any Khashoggi files". CNN.com. Retrieved 6 May 2022.
{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ "UK Judge Refuses to Extradite Julian Assange to the U.S. to Face Espionage Charges". First Amendment Watch. 4 January 2021. Retrieved 6 May 2022.
- ^ "Assange and the Espionage Act". WHYY. 29 May 2019. Retrieved 6 May 2022.
- ^ Barakat, Matthew (31 March 2021). "Analyst pleads to leaking secrets about drone program". ABC News. Retrieved 6 May 2022.
- ^ Caplan, Lincoln (21 June 2021). "The Pentagon Papers case today". Harvard Law Bulletin. Retrieved 6 May 2022.
- ^ Calvert, Clay (September 2021). "THE PERILOUS PUBLIC SQUARE: STRUCTURAL THREATS TO FREE EXPRESSION TODAY". Criminal Law and Criminal Justice Books, Rutgers University. Retrieved 18 March 2022.
- ^ Rush, Mark (December 2022). "THE PERILOUS PUBLIC SQUARE: STRUCTURAL THREATS TO FREE EXPRESSION TODAY". Law and Politics Book Review. Retrieved 18 March 2022.