First Amendment

In a battle between the public's First Amendment rights and law enforcement's application of policy, the public recently found an unlikely ally in the U.S. Department of Justice when it submitted a letter to the Baltimore Police Department supporting a citizen's right to record police activity.

The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that a defamation suit over online accusations of child sexual abuse could still proceed, even though the plaintiff could not show he was harmed.

The decision upheld a 2010 appeals court ruling that New Jersey First Amendment attorneys hoped would lead to a change in the law by the state's Supreme Court.

A military judge avoided ruling on whether members of the news media and the public will have access to the testimony about the prison treatment of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the alleged mastermind of the USS Cole bombing in 2000 which killed 17 Americans. Instead, at Wednesday's pretrial hearing in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, the judge ordered the prison camp to unshackle al-Nashiri when he met with his lawyers, making the accused terrorist's testimony unnecessary.

A federal judge dismissed a $5 million libel lawsuit by a former tax preparer against a Virginia television station that allegedly referred to him as “unscrupulous.”

A New Jersey-based transit system has removed photography from its list of “suspicious activities," after receiving a letter from a photojournalist advocacy group.

A photojournalist advocacy group wants a New Jersey-based transit system to reconsider its policy asking riders to report any photography involving trains or stations to authorities as "suspicious activity."

A Texas district judge unhappy about media coverage has loosened -- but not completely eliminated -- a court order that severely limited news gathering in a murder trial in Fort Worth after a newspaper requested her to reconsider.

A federal judge in Maryland has ruled that the First Amendment protects an online speaker - who made derogatory comments about a religious leader through Twitter - from being prosecuted under the federal anti-stalking law.

An unnamed manufacturer challenging an online database of safety complaints has asked the court to allow it to proceed anonymously, arguing that the public filing of legal documents implicates the very interests the company seeks to protect by bringing the litigation.