Category «Free Speech»

Arsenal PAC

ARSENAL PAC – WE ARE democracy’s digital arsenal. We deploy democracy’s digital defenses: cutting edge technology for activists, journalists, academics, campaigns, and vulnerable communities. Crowdsourced reports + volunteer review = info without the noise. ResistMap lets anyone share what they see – from hate crimes to discrimination and law-enforcement overreach – so communities can stay …

Subjects: Censorship, Civil Liberties, Free Speech, Freedom of Information, Government Documents, Internet, Legal Research

USPS Announces Changes to the Postmark Date System – Impacts Mail Ballots

Democracy Docket – “The United States Postal Service (USPS) finalized a rule on postmarks to reflect changes in its mail pickup processes that could cause an uptick in blown deadlines for documents sent by post, including mail-in ballots…By the time the overhaul is finished, it’ll affect pick-ups at roughly 24,000 of the country’s 33,700 post …

Subjects: E-Records, Free Speech, Government Documents, Legal Research

The New Surveillance State Is You

Wired [no paywall]: “Privacy may be dead, but civilians are turning conventional wisdom on its head by surveilling the cops as much as the cops surveil them. The Department of Homeland Security secretary has spent 2025 trying to convince the American public that identifying roving bands of masked federal agents is “doxing”—and that revealing these …

Subjects: Censorship, Civil Liberties, Free Speech, Freedom of Information, Legal Research, Privacy, Social Media

Age Verification Is Coming For the Internet

EFF – We Built You a Resource Hub to Fight Back. “Age verification laws are proliferating fast across the United States and around the world, creating a dangerous and confusing tangle of rules about what we’re all allowed to see and do online. Though these mandates claim to protect children, in practice they create harmful censorship …

Subjects: Censorship, Civil Liberties, Free Speech, Freedom of Information, Government Documents, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Privacy

The year the government broke

The Verge [no [paywall] –  “2025 was the year the federal government and consumer protections were gutted…There was the record 43-day government shutdown that threatened food access for millions of low-income Americans, threw air travel into chaos, halted space launches, and delayed consumer products that needed regulatory approval. There was Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan …

Subjects: Censorship, Congress, E-Government, E-Mail, E-Records, Economy, Financial System, Free Speech, Freedom of Information, Government Documents, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Privacy

Trump Administration Plans to Break Up Premier Weather and Climate Research Center

The New York Times (Gift Article): Trump Administration Plans to Break Up Premier Weather and Climate Research Center. “The Trump administration said it will be dismantling the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, one of the world’s leading Earth science research institutions. The center, founded in 1960, is responsible for many of the biggest …

Subjects: Censorship, Climate Change, Environmental Law, Free Speech, Freedom of Information, Government Documents, Knowledge Management, Legal Research

World Trends in Freedom of Expression and Media Development Report 2022-2025

New report: UNESCO warns of serious decline in freedom of expression and safety of journalists worldwide. “UNESCO’s flagship report on global trends in freedom of expression and journalism points to a historic 10% decline in freedom of expression globally between 2012 and 2024. This trend is a consequence of the alarming rise in self-censorship by …

Subjects: Censorship, Civil Liberties, Free Speech, Freedom of Information, Legal Research

The Military Suppliers Behind Immigration Raids

Bloomberg (no paywall): “In the final weeks of the 2025 fiscal year, the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement agencies went on a spending spree to outfit officers as they fanned out across American cities: $12.2 million for rifles, $11.3 million on tasers and $3.7 million worth of chemical munitions and less lethal materiel. Those were among …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Free Speech, Freedom of Information, Government Documents, Legal Research

Civicus downgraded US civic space rating from “narrowed” to “obstructed

“Civicus downgraded the United States’ civic space rating from “narrowed” to “obstructed,” citing a sharp erosion of fundamental freedoms under a year of Trump-era actions—including militarized crackdowns on protests, expanded ICE deployments, restrictive laws, surveillance and harassment of civil society, suppression of campus speech, pressure on journalists, threats to revoke broadcast licenses, lawsuits against media …

Subjects: Censorship, Civil Liberties, Education, Free Speech, Freedom of Information, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Search Engines, Social Media

Donald Trump’s War on Free Speech & the Need for Systemic Resistance

Free Press: “We took the freedom of speech away.” President Trump in opening remarks at his “antifa roundtable” (October 2025) Download the Report  Key Findings  Timeline of Attacks “This Free Press report examines the Trump administration’s hostile relationship with dissent and free expression in 2025. It analyzes how President Trump and his political enablers have …

Subjects: Censorship, Civil Liberties, Free Speech, Freedom of Information, Government Documents, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research

Official White House Site Adds Purported Media Bias Tracker

Washington Post [and The Hill] – “A new White House webpage presents a “Hall of Shame” for news reports the president disagrees with, coming after the president has voiced personal attacks on female reporters at ABC, CBS, the New York Times and Bloomberg. The White House launched a page on its website Friday devoted to …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, E-Government, Free Speech, Freedom of Information, Government Documents, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research

Tennessee public libraries close for Trump-inspired book purge

Popular Information: “One hundred and eighty-one public libraries in Tennessee are reviewing their children’s collections after Tennessee Secretary of State Tre Hargett (R) ordered them to remove books with LGBTQ themes or characters. Hargett suggested that libraries that made such books available to children were violating federal and state law. Some libraries have closed for days …

Subjects: Censorship, Civil Liberties, Free Speech, Freedom of Information, Legal Research, Libraries