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The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press is partnering with the Pulitzer Center to offer pro bono legal support to the Centers first cohort of Artificial Intelligence Accountability Fellows.

The ten journalists representing four continents are pursuing stories of local and global scope that touch on themes crucial to equity and human rights, such as AI in hiring, surveillance, social welfare, policing, migration, and border control.

Reporters Committee attorneys will work with the journalists to vet stories before they are published to reduce legal risk, and to provide other pro bono legal assistance related to newsgathering and First Amendment issues.

Were thrilled to partner with the Pulitzer Center on its new initiative supporting journalists reporting on the impact of artificial intelligence and surveillance in their communities, said Katie Townsend, deputy executive director and legal director for the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. Our attorneys are looking forward to providing the AI fellows with much-needed legal support to help them pursue and publish this important work with greater confidence.

Reporting on the impact of AI technologies, especially in marginalized and vulnerable communities, is urgent and foundational to democracy, said Marina Walker Guevara, the Pulitzer Centers executive editor. We are grateful that the AI Fellows will have the support of the Reporters Committees world-class and dedicated attorneys as they pursue their stories.

The Pulitzer Center empowers a global community of journalists and media outlets to deepen engagement with critical underreported issues, bridge divides, and spur change. It supports more than 200 journalism projects annually that are published in local, regional and global outlets. The Centers K-12 and university programs connect journalists and stories with students and teachers, fostering critical thinking and media literacy in classrooms.

Through the AI Accountability Network, the Pulitzer Center seeks to address the knowledge imbalance on artificial intelligence that exists in the journalism industry, especially at the local level, and to build the capacity of journalists to report on this fast-evolving and underreported topic with skill, nuance, and impact.

The Reporters Committee regularly files friend-of-the-court briefs and its attorneys represent journalists and news organizations pro bono in court cases that involve First Amendment freedoms, the newsgathering rights of journalists and access to public information. Stay up-to-date on RCFPs work by signing up for their monthly newsletter and following them on Twitter or Instagram.

For media inquiries, contact the Reporters Committee at media@rcfp.org, or Sarah Swan at the Pulitzer Center, sswan@pulitzercenter.org.

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RCFP partnership with Pulitzer Center will support journalists reporting on AI, surveillance - Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press

Religion has no place in a public school

A public school coach leading his team in prayers at a school activity cannot be assumed to be voluntary for the students. With the uneven balance of authority, pressure even duress is implicit. Players follow their coach. While peer pressure on students is intense, coach authority, teacher authority is more so.

In the late 1950s my public school day at George Washington Elementary started with the Pledge of Allegiance followed by the "Lord's Prayer." Later my public Eber Baker junior high conducted weekly "non-denominational" Protestant Christian religion classes. My parents wrote the required excuse for me, a Jewish child, to not participate. A couple of Catholic students and I were taken to a separate school room to do homework. I had no wish to participate in the indoctrination. It was also very discomforting to be singled out. I often had stomach aches on those religion class days.

I heard with deep distress the June 27, 2022, Supreme Court decision on Kennedy v. Bremerton School District that enables leading religious practices in public schools.

Our constitutions First Amendment protects us from the government establishing religion. The only proper place for prayer in a public school is an individual's voluntary and silent expressions a moment of silence.

Beth Babich, Marion

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Letter to the Editor: Religion, public schools and the Supreme Court - Marion Star

The three words that best describe the Supreme Courts decisions this term are text, history and tradition. If thats one word too many, try this: Originalism Rules! And thats a good thing.

The court considered several important constitutional cases this term. The split in most of these cases was six-to-three, with the conservative justices in the majority and the liberal justices in dissent.

In the biggest case,Dobbs v. Jackson Womens Health Organization, a five-justice majority ruled the Constitution has no right to obtain an abortion. This overturnedRoe v. Wade(1973) andPlanned Parenthood v. Casey(1992).

Nearly 50 years ago, Justice Byron White, in hisRoedissent, wrote that the errant ruling represented an exercise of raw judicial power. Similarly, John Hart Ely, an eminent scholar who supported abortion rights, stated thatRoewas not constitutional law and g(ave) almost no sense of an obligation to try to be.

>>>5 Monumental Cases That Highlighted the Supreme Courts 2021-2022 Term

Those views were reflected in the majority opinion forDobbs, written by Justice Samuel Alito. He noted that the right to an abortion is not in the Constitutions text, nor was it part of our nations history or traditions. Indeed, virtually every state outlawed abortion when the Constitution and the 14th Amendment were ratified.

The court also decided on an important Second Amendment case,NY State Rifle & Pistol Assoc. v. Bruen. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the six-to-three majority opinion, striking down a New York law requiring law-abiding citizens who passed a background check to demonstrate a special needbeyond a general desire to defend oneselfbefore being permitted to carry a firearm outside the home.

The court said that such a restriction was not supported bydrumroll pleaseeither the amendments text or the nations historical traditions. The court further stated that the amendment was the product of an interest balancing by the people and that it was improper for a court to engage in a judge-empowering interest-balancing inquiry once the protections of the amendment had been properly invoked.

In an important religious liberty case,Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote the six-justice majority opinion ruling that a school violated the free exercise and free speech rights of a high school football coach when it fired him for offering a silent post-game prayer at midfield. The court relied uponyou guessed ithistorical practices and the original meaning of the First Amendments text in reaching its decision.

The court also finally declared that the courts much-criticized three-part test for analyzing Establishment Clause cases, promulgated inLemon v. Kurtzman(1971)which Justice Antonin Scalia once described as some ghoul in a late-night horror movie that repeatedly sits up in its grave and shuffles abroad, after being repeatedly killed and buriedwas indeed dead.

The court also sided with religious adherents in other significant religious liberty and free speech cases, includingCarson v. Makin,Shurtleff v. City of Boston, andRamirez v. Collier. Senator Ted Cruz also won a significant victory against the Federal Election Commission in which the court, again by a six-to-three vote, held that an FEC rule violated the First Amendment rights of candidates wishing to make personal loans to their own campaigns to engage in pure political speech.

And inNFIB v. OSHA,West Virginia v. EPAandAlabama Assoc. of Realtors v. HHS, the court (again via 6-3 votes) held that separation-of-powers principles require Congress to speak clearly before an administrative agency consisting of unaccountable bureaucrats can exercise nearly unlimited power over decisions of great economic and political significance.

>>>Supreme Courts Ruling in West Virginia v. EPA Delivers Win for Self-Government, Affordable Energy

In his dissenting opinion in the infamous case ofDred Scott v. Sandford, Justice Benjamin Curtis stated: When a strict interpretation of the Constitution, according to the fixed rules which govern the interpretation of laws, is abandoned, and the theoretical opinions of individuals are allowed to control its meaning, we have no longer a Constitution; we are under the government of individual men who, for the time being, have power to declare what the Constitution is according to their views of what it ought to mean.

During this momentous term, the court made great strides toward interpreting the Constitution with fidelity and restoring the rights of all Americans to govern themselveswith the exception of those few individual rights that are delineated in our Constitution or firmly rooted in our nations historical traditionsdebating, persuading and deciding contentious issues directly or through their elected representatives.

In terms of interpreting and adhering to the Constitution, I give the court an A-plus.

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Grading the SCOTUS: Originalism Rules, and That's a Good Thing - Heritage.org

Gun Owners of America (GOA) is suing New York state over new restrictions on the public carrying of firearms that were rushed through the state Legislature and signed into law after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the states requirement that a carry permit applicant must demonstrate a special need for self-defense.

The lawsuit takes aim specifically at the Concealed Carry Improvement Act (CCIA), which New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, signed into law earlier this month. It takes effect on Sept. 1.

At the time, Hochul denounced the court for issuing what she called a reckless decision removing century-old limitations on who is allowed to carry concealed weapons in our statesenselessly sending us backward and putting the safety of our residents in jeopardy.

The name of the statute itself is ironic because it is New Yorks attempt to flout the Supreme Courts June 23 ruling in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen, according to the legal complaint (pdf) filed July 11 in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York. The new law puts into effect several blatantly unconstitutional new infringements of the enumerated right to keep and bear arms, the complaint states.

The case is Antonyuk v. Bruen, 1:22-CV-734. The plaintiffs are gun owner Ivan Antonyuk, Gun Owners of America Inc., its foundation, and its New York affiliate. Defendant Kevin Bruen is superintendent of the New York State Police.

We are confident that we will pretty much overturn everything they did in this legislative package because they were clearly in violation of the direct ruling in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen,Sam Paredes, the executive director of Gun Owners of California, a member of GOAs board of directors, and treasurer of its affiliated foundation, told The Epoch Times in an interview.

Specifically, the lawsuit targets the CCIAs good moral character requirement for permit applicants, the requirement that applicants supply character references at in-person interviews with police and submit their own social media posts for government inspection, the vastly expanded ban on sensitive locations where concealed weapons may not be brought, and a raft of new administrative fees the lawsuit calls a Second Amendment tax.

Applicants must undergo 18 hours of combined training where presently its only four hours. The fact of the matter is that we know that this is just an angry, vicious response to the Supreme Court ruling because concealed carry weapons permit holders in New York are amongst the most law-abiding of all citizens in the state, just like they are in California and across the country, Paredes said.

The four-hour training requirement and background checks were sufficient to maintain that level of purity amongst the CCW [i.e. concealed carry weapons permit] holders, but the new mandates serve no purpose other than to limit gun ownership, he said.

So what they did is they shifted from the good cause [requirement] to a display of good moral character. There is no plain definition of good moral character in New York statutes or California statutes, or any statutes.

So, they have added this great amount of subjectivity to the process, he said. Subjectivity is the enemy of the Second Amendment, and they are adding it in spades.

Paredes recalled that California Attorney General Rob Bonta, a Democrat, also recently embraced his states own good moral character requirement for permit applicants, a development The Epoch Times reported on.

In a statewide memo to law enforcement, Bonta encouraged permit-issuing authorities to include the absence of hatred and racism as a positive factor in determining whether to grant a permit, leading to concerns among Second Amendment advocates that an applicants political views, expressed on social media or elsewhere, could lead to a permit denial.

Although Paredes said as far as he knows the CCIA doesnt specifically reference hatred or racism, these potentially inflammatory terms, which are malleable in todays politically polarized environment, could still somehow find their way into the New York permitting process.

On social media people will say stuff that they dont understand what it means, or they do understand, but they want to express something. And they have the First Amendment right to do so. Now, New York and California want to use the expression of a First Amendment right, as a reason to deny a Second Amendment right.

You cannot use a constitutional right to invalidate another constitutional right, Paredes said.

The Epoch Times reached out to state officials.

We are not commenting, the New York State Police replied by email.

The office of New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat, didnt respond by press time.

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Matthew Vadum is an award-winning investigative journalist and a recognized expert in left-wing activism.

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2nd Amendment Advocacy Group Sues New York Over New Concealed Carry Restrictions - The Epoch Times

OPINION Heres an Independence Day quiz intended for our local elected officials in Fayette County for the city councils and the county commission and the Board of Education.

The quiz is about what local officials in their public meetings seem to have overlooked, or forgotten or just plain ignored about the last clause of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Mayors, council members, commissioners and school board members, you all know about freedom of religion and its free exercise, about freedom of speech and of the press. Some of you worry about the right of the people peaceably to assemble.

Heres the final right expressly listed in the First Amendment: to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

I have been covering and reporting on local government meetings since 1970. Yep, thats a long time and a lot of elected officials. And I have observed a common reaction of elected officials (many if not most) during public meetings throughout that half century.

They gavel down and even threaten to remove members of the public who dare to speak their actual grievances about public officials.

I have seen it personally during the past year at the following meetings: Fayette County Board of Education (the most egregious), the Fayetteville City Council, the Peachtree City Council, the Fayette County Commission. It likely happened at the Tyrone Council as well, but I havent personally witnessed it.

Why likely? Because thats just how public meetings of elected bodies operate.

You may argue that they all have set aside (more about that insult later) a limited amount of time for the public to have comments.

But the deal is this: They will not allow name-specific criticism of any person on the public payroll under their jurisdiction, elected, appointed or otherwise. They cut you off if you try. If you persist, they tell you to shut up or they will have a law enforcement officer remove you from the room.

At the recent Fayetteville City Council meeting, it got worse.

Fayetteville Mayor Ed Johnson (who is a good man and whom I like and respect) gaveled down a public speaker who began to criticize the Fayette County Development Authority. The FCDA was the applicant for a controversial annexation and rezoning for a mid-county data center next to long-established residential neighborhoods. The mayor ruled she was out of order.

The woman tried to continue about the FCDA. Mayor Johnson said if she continued, he would have a police officer remove her from the council meeting room. After asking, What did I do? she sat down.

She had a grievance about the government authority that was the official applicant for the rezoning. A meeting room was packed with folks who opposed the FCDA request.

Under threat of removal (and possible arrest) this member of the public speaking in measured words, without visible anger and using no curse words or obscenities was muzzled and her First Amendment right to voice her grievance during the designated time and place was trampled on.

What do these people in power think a grievance is? Heres a dictionary definition: a real or imagined wrong or other cause for complaint or protest, especially unfair treatment . an official statement of a complaint over something believed to be wrong or unfair a feeling of resentment over something believed to be wrong or unfair.

In other words, it is by definition something negative. And according to the First Amendment of our U.S. Constitution, the mayor and council are obligated to hear that grievance. To speak that grievance is a constitutional right, in clear text and without boundaries.

The only person in that meeting who was out of order out of constitutional order was Mayor Ed Johnson.

But he is not the only one out of order.

The Fayette County Board of Education routinely silences criticism from members of the public. Let a parent bring up a specific grievance about a principal or a school disciplinary problem, and the gavel comes down with a bang.

The Peachtree City Council also dislikes criticism about city personnel or applicants for a zoning change during a public meeting.

Again, who do they think they are that they can routinely set strict limits on what a grievance can be? The First Amendment sets no boundaries on what is a proper, allowable grievance and what grievance is out of order.

I can hear elected officials argue, If we let just any grievance be aired, no telling what will be said and how long we will have to be there. Amen, brothers and sisters, preach that First Amendment! It is your elected privilege to listen to the people who put you in that position.

More about that set aside time that elected officials ordain for the public that elected them. Heres the truth: Most officials dont want to hear it. Thats why they move public comments to near the end of the public meetings, or set strict, timed limits on how long somebody can speak (they have no such limits on their own talk time, though many wish they would), and make speakers sign up before the meeting begins. What an insult!

Two evenings a month, they could make the time to serve the public by simply listening to the public as long as the speakers want to come, let them speak. But, sadly, many elected officials who campaigned for your vote at all hours and for many days once elected would rather you didnt disrupt their twice-a-month evening schedule.

To any attorneys in the audience, I suggest this is a mostly untouched area of First Amendment jurisprudence, ripe for precedents to be adjudicated. Unlike the Second Amendment, the text of the First Amendment is easily understood, without limiting qualifications: To petition the government for a redress of grievances. By definition, you could find a lot of aggrieved citizens.

People have a First Amendment right to tell the government what its doing wrong and to request that the wrong be righted. The biggest wrong is to gavel a member of the public down because the official dislikes the grievance being aired. And to shut them up at the 2-minute or 3-minute mark. In this democratic republic, we are under the impression that we elect public servants, not royalty who hold timed audiences.

With deep respect, I suggest to the mayors and chairpersons running these meetings, Shut up and listen.

[Cal Beverly has been the editor and publisher of The Citizen in Fayette County since 1993.]

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Local elected officials routinely ignore and violate part of 1st Amendment - The Citizen.com