#protectedspeech — Public Fediverse posts

Judge Dismisses Loomer's Defamation Claim Against Maher

A judge dismissed Laura Loomer's defamation lawsuit against Bill Maher and HBO, ruling his joke about her and Donald Trump was protected speech and not defamation.

#LauraLoomer, #BillMaher, #DefamationLawsuit, #ProtectedSpeech, #LegalNews

https://newsletter.tf/judge-dismisses-loomers-defamation-case-against-maher/

A federal judge dismissed Laura Loomer's defamation lawsuit against Bill Maher. The judge said Maher's joke about Loomer and Donald Trump was protected speech.

#LauraLoomer, #BillMaher, #DefamationLawsuit, #ProtectedSpeech, #LegalNews
https://newsletter.tf/judge-dismisses-loomers-defamation-case-against-maher/

HT @bob

#DHS Hunts Down 67-Year-Old #USCitizen Who Criticized Them in Email

The Department of Homeland Security is using a little-known tool to go after its critics.

Hafiz Rashid/ February 3, 2026

"The #Trump administration is targeting #FreeSpeech with a little-known legal tool: #AdministrativeSubpoenas.

"The #WashingtonPost reports that a retired #Philadelphia man, Jon, 67, found himself in the government’s crosshairs after he emailed a lead prosecutor at the Department of Homeland Security, #JosephDernbach, who was handling the deportation case of an #AfghanRefugee, identified as H, asking him to consider that the man’s life was in danger from the #Taliban.

" 'Mr. Dernbach, don’t play Russian roulette with H’s life,' Jon wrote from his #GMail account. 'Err on the side of caution. There’s a reason the US government along with many other governments don’t recognise the Taliban. Apply principles of common sense and decency.'

"Later that day, Jon received an email from #Google notifying him that an administrative subpoena had been sent to them from the Department of Homeland Security 'compelling the release of information related to your Google Account.' Federal agencies can issue such subpoenas without an order from a judge or grand jury, and Google gave Jon, who withheld his last name to protect his family from the government, one week to challenge it.

"Laws are supposed to restrict the use of administrative subpoenas, but DHS has used the tool against dissent protected under the #FirstAmendment to the #Constitution. Jon could not find who in the agency issued the #subpoena, let alone a record of it to show an attorney.

"Days later, DHS agents showed up at Jon’s door. A naturalized U.S. citizen originally from the #UK, Jon was worried about potential violence. The agents showed him a copy of the email and asked to see his side of the story. They didn’t know about the administrative subpoena but said they received orders to interview Jon by #DHS headquarters in Washington, D.C.

"Eventually, the agents agreed that Jon had committed no crimes after he told them he found Dernbach’s email address through a simple Google search. Jon secured pro bono representation by #ACLU attorneys, who argue that the government is violating a statute that limits how administrative subpoenas can be used for '#ImmigrationEnforcement' and that the government targeted Jon for #ProtectedSpeech.

" 'It doesn’t take that much to make people look over their shoulder, to think twice before they speak again,' said Nathan Freed Wessler, one of Jon’s attorneys. 'That’s why these kinds of subpoenas and other actions—the visits—are so pernicious. You don’t have to lock somebody up to make them reticent to make their voice heard. It really doesn’t take much, because the power of the federal government is so overwhelming.'

"Both #Google and #Meta received a record number of subpoenas in the United States during the first half of 2025 as Trump’s second term began, with Google receiving 28,622, a 15 percent increase over the previous six months. Jon was fortunate to have his case picked up by the ACLU and later reported on by a national media outlet. How many others in the U.S. haven’t been so lucky and face legal challenges for exercising their right to free speech?"

Source / listen:
https://newrepublic.com/post/206088/homeland-security-67-year-old-us-citizen-criticized-email

#USPol #GoogleSucks #BigTech #Fascism #DefundDHS #ThoughtPolice #Orwellian #NineteenEightyFour #Authoritarianism #DepartmentOfHomelandInsecurity

Judge Tosses Out One Claim Against #ThackerPassProtectors, Five Claims Remain

Rejects 'Unjust Enrichment' Claim, But Five Other Claims Proceed in Ongoing Lawsuit Over Spring 2023 Protests

By Protect Thacker Pass, Censored News, March 11, 2024

WINNEMUCCA, Nevada — "A judge has dismissed an “unjust enrichment” charge filed against seven people sued for protesting the Thacker Pass lithium mine in Nevada, but allowed five other charges to move forward.
District Judge Michael R. Montero rejected #LithiumNevada Corporation’s claims that protesters had engaged in unjust enrichment by writing online messages encouraging supporters to donate, ruling that these messages are '#ProtectedSpeech under the #FirstAmendment.'

"'This is a very significant win for my clients and a rebuke to Lithium Nevada,' says Terry Lodge, an attorney representing six of the protesters. 'But,' Lodge says, 'we’ve still got a long way to go in this case.'

[...]

"While one portion of Montero’s ruling was favorable to the protesters, other portions were not. Judge Montero issued a prelimary ruling in Lithium Nevada’s favor on five other claims. But, Lodge says that at this stage, the judge was not determining whether Lithium Nevada’s claims are true or not. He was simply reviewing Lithium Nevada’s allegations, taking them as true, and determining whether those allegations were violations of Nevada law.

[...]

Native Land Claims “Frivolous”

"In another part of his ruling, Judge Montero called arguments that a #Paiute protester has a right to access the September 12, 1865 #ThackerPass massacre site within Lithium Nevada’s mine site to pray for massacred Paiute #ancestors 'frivolous'.

"The ruling states that recognizing traditional native land claims 'would unequivocally undermine each and every property owner’s rights' and concludes that '[t]his is a Pandora’s box the Court is unwilling to open.”
The defendants are seeking monetary donations to their legal defense fund."

FMI and full article:
https://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2024/03/judge-tosses-out-one-claim-against.html

#LandBack #NativeActivists #CulturalGenocide #ThackerPass #PeeheeMuhuh #Pauite #Shoshone #Bannock #NoMining #LithiumMining #SaveThackerPass #SLAPPs #LithiumAmerica

IANAL but I side with the Ninth Circuit here. If you are a #government official using a personal #SocialMedia account to post #PublicInformation or notices, you've made that a government forum where commentary is #ProtectedSpeech and blocking is not allowed under the #FirstAmendment (#freespeech and #petition).

If there's not an official social media site for you to use, open a second account. If you mingle government function and personal media, that's on you.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/24/politics/social-media-first-amendment-supreme-court/index.html