U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty’s July 4 injunction barring dozens of Biden administration officials from conversing with social media companies about content moderation is an “unconstitutional prior restraint” on the rights of organizations to speak “freely and petition the government for a redress of grievances,” said an amicus brief Friday (docket 23-30445). Filed at the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in support of the government’s efforts to vacate the injunction, the brief was submitted by the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law and Common Cause.
Journalists in Montana should be free “to exercise their right to gather the news,” including through the use of “modern tools of the trade,” like TikTok, said the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and the Media Law Resource Center (MLRC). They seek leave to file an amicus brief in support of a preliminary injunction to bar Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen (R) from enforcing SB-419, the state’s TikTok ban, when the measure takes effect Jan. 1, said their motion Thursday (docket 9:23-cv-00056) in U.S. District Court for Montana in Missoula. They join previous motions for leave from the Computer & Communications Industry Association, plus the ACLU in tandem with Electronic Freedom Foundation and NetChoice together with the Chamber of Progress (see 2307270022). All the motions are unopposed, and they seek by Aug. 4 to file amicus briefs in support of the injunction. They all picked the proposed deadline because it’s two weeks before Knudsen’s consolidated brief is due. Montana’s effort to restrict access to TikTok forecloses an entire medium for “gathering and publishing the news,” said the Reporters Committee and MLRC motion. That burdens the rights of local journalists “who rely on TikTok for its unique features” and to reach an audience that couldn’t be reached nearly as well by other means, it said.
U.S. District Judge Victoria Calvert denied in part and granted in part Georgia Public Service Commissioner Tim Echols’ motion to dismiss a freedom of speech complaint against him (see 2302070006), said her Thursday order (docket 1:22-cv-04548) in U.S. District Court for Northern Georgia in Atlanta. Plaintiff Patty Durand sought injunctive relief in the freedom of speech case after Echols blocked her and others from accessing his social media accounts. Durand is a “concerned and active citizen” who has voiced her opposition to policy positions articulated by Echols on his Twitter account; she was also a candidate for Echols’ seat on the PSC before that election was enjoined in 2022, Calvert noted. Before being blocked, Durand “repeatedly engaged” with Echols on Twitter, and after “years of ‘tweet’ exchanges," he blocked her, said the order. Durand “never made any threatening posts directed at Commissioner Echols or anyone else,” Calvert noted. Echols also blocked her from interacting with his Facebook posts. Echols argued he's entitled to qualified immunity on Durand's first count, retaliation for exercise of First Amendment free expression, and the second count, violation of Durand’s First and 14th amendments right to free speech, because there are no U.S. Supreme Court, 11th Circuit or Georgia Supreme Court cases where a state government employee in similar circumstances was held to have violated the First Amendment. Durand sued Echols in his individual and official capacities. Qualified immunity isn't a proper defense to official capacity claims, said Calvert: “To the extent Commissioner Echols’s Motion argues that the official capacity claims against him should be dismissed, the Motion is denied.” He's entitled to qualified immunity on the individual capacity claims, but counts one and two are allowed to proceed against him, she said. The parties’ preliminary report and discovery plan are due within 21 days of the order.
The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission published the following Federal Register notices July 31 on AD/CVD proceedings:
The Commerce Department has released the preliminary results of its antidumping duty administrative review on steel concrete reinforcing bar from Turkey (A-489-829). In the final results of this review, Commerce will set assessment rates for subject merchandise for the seven companies under review entered July 1, 2021, through June 30, 2022.
The Commerce Department has released the final results of the antidumping and countervailing duty administrative reviews on softwood lumber products from Canada (A-122-857/C-122-858). These final results will be used to set final assessments of AD/CVD on importers for subject merchandise entered Jan. 1, 2021, through Dec. 31, 2021.
The Commerce Department and the International Trade Commission published the following Federal Register notices July 31 on AD/CVD proceedings:
Governments throughout the U.S. have designated certain areas that aren’t “appropriate for minors to occupy,” said Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin (R) in his opposition Thursday in U.S. District Court for Western Arkansas in Fayetteville to NetChoice’s July 7 motion for a preliminary injunction to enjoin him from enforcing the state’s social media age verification law when it takes effect Sept. 1 (see 2307100005).
The Commerce Department improperly refused to accept relevant factual information submitted by importer Shelter Forest International Acquisition showing that its hardwood plywood was actually made in Vietnam and not China, Shelter Forest said in a complaint at the Court of International Trade. The importer said that its submissions show that its products imported from Vietnamese producer Lechenwood were made of hardwood plywood with a core made in Vietnam, thus excluding the goods from the antidumping and countervailing duty orders on hardwood plywood from China per Commerce's own definition (Shelter Forest International Acquisition v. United States, CIT # 23-00144).
The Stanford Internet Observatory (SIO), the cyber policy center headquartered at Stanford University in California, was a founding member of the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP) and the Virality Project (VP), groups that improperly figured prominently in U.S. District Judge Terry Doughty’s July 4 injunction barring dozens of Biden administration officials from conversing with social-media companies about content moderation. So said the university, SIO Director Alex Stamos and Renee DiResta, SIO’s research director, in their amicus brief Friday (docket 23-30445) at the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in support of the government’s appeal to defeat the injunction.