Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes famously wrote in a 1929 dissent that if any Constitutional principle is paramount, “it is the principle of free thought — not free thought for those who agree with us but freedom for the…
In a showdown worthy of Cochise County, Arizona — the site of ruthless Indian wars and legendary Old West shootouts — citizen journalist David Morgan has scored a landmark First Amendment victory. On March 2, a superior court judge rejected…
Nowadays when you hear about intolerance for free speech on college campuses, the speaker coming in for the silencing treatment is somewhere to the right of center on the political spectrum and the muzzlers hail from the left. Not so…
Critics of H.R. 1865, the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA), which passed the U.S. Senate 97 to 2 on March 21, warned that the bill’s broad language targeting online adult ads would have a devastating effect on freedom of…
The smile on Michael Lacey’s face as he exited the Sandra Day O’Connor U.S. Courthouse in Phoenix, Arizona, at a little after noon on Friday was worth a million dollars. Literally. That morning, Lacey posted a $1 million bond, secured…
If you didn’t know that the Backpage case was about online classified advertising, you might think the U.S. Department of Justice was mounting a prosecution against the Mafia. Late on Thursday, the DOJ announced that it has turned Backpage CEO…
Looking as hale and hearty as a man can while clad in prisoner’s stripes, Michael Lacey inched closer to freedom on Wednesday afternoon during an appearance before a federal judge in Phoenix to determine the terms of his release. The…
Zero sex-trafficking charges. That’s the most glaring aspect of a Phoenix federal grand jury’s belatedly unsealed 93-count indictment against seven current and former owners and operators of the online listings site Backpage.com. The defendants include veteran newspapermen Michael Lacey and Jim…
Bowing to pressure from a right-wing group, Walmart will exile Cosmopolitan magazine from checkout lanes in its 5,000-plus stores across the United States. Henceforth, people who want to pay to read “10 Things Guys Crave in Bed” or “The New Science of…
Our long national nightmare is over: Stormy Daniels broke her silence Sunday about her alleged assignation with Donald Trump. During a segment on the CBS news program 60 Minutes, Daniels told Anderson Cooper that she’d been threatened by an unknown man…
