June 2017

Free Press and Free Press Action Fund sent a letter to the Federal Communications Commission’s general counsel calling on the agency to address its crackdowns against First Amendment freedoms during recent FCC meetings. “We write to express grave concerns about recent actions that call into serious question the Federal Communications Commission’s commitment to fostering free expression,” reads the letter authored by Free Press and Free Press Action Fund Deputy Director and Senior Counsel Jessica J. González and Policy Director Matt Wood. “In particular, the actions of FCC security and other FCC staff have chilled free speech and public participation in FCC decision-making processes that are supposed to be open to the public, and they have violated the due-process rights of Free Press and Free Press Action Fund staff and members.”

The letter details a series of incidents in which the federal agency and members of its security staff have silenced dissenting voices, manhandled a reporter and barred members of the public from attending the agency’s monthly open meeting without due process. During one incident, on the morning of March 23, 2017, two Free Press Action Fund members, Joe DeGeorge and David Combs, attempted to attend the FCC’s open meeting wearing plain white T-shirts that read “Protect Net Neutrality” in black letters. FCC security personnel informed the two that they would not be allowed to enter the public meeting room unless they removed the T-shirts or flipped them inside out to conceal their message.

The Supreme Court next term will decide whether law enforcement authorities need a warrant to track a suspect through his cellphone records, justices announced June 5. The case seeks to resolve a digital-age question that has divided lower courts relying on past Supreme Court precedents about privacy.

“Only this court can provide the guidance they seek about whether and how a doctrine developed long before the digital age applies to the voluminous and sensitive digital records at issue here,” wrote American Civil Liberties Union lawyers representing Timothy Carpenter. Investigating a string of armed robberies in the Midwest in 2010 and 2011, a prosecutor sought access to more than five months of historical cellphone location records for Carpenter, his lawyers said. Law enforcement officials did not seek warrants based on probable cause, but asked for the records under the Stored Communications Act.