Happening now: Private prison company Geo Group is arguing in the Supreme Court for immunity from a lawsuit filed by immigrant prisoners who say they were forced to work in Geo's prison for no pay. Read my article about the case in @newrepublic.com newrepublic.com/article/2020...

At the Supreme Court this morning, America's biggest for-profit prison company is asking for immunity from lawsuits. It's fighting claims from immigrant prisoners that it forced them to work "like slaves" at its prisons. I wrote about the case for @newrepublic.com newrepublic.com/article/2020...

It's impossible to overstate how much of what ICE is doing on the ground reflects this completely preposterous conflation of hostile *speech* and hostile *conduct.* The First Amendment protects—or, at least, is supposed to protect—the former up and until it's a "true threat," which none of this is.

And our Canal Street story on how local policing and the First Amendment get flipped inside-out when its done by feds in masks, accountable to who knows who, from elsewhere -- nyc.streetsblog.org/2025/10/27/u...

Such a great story, with all the screenshots: www.documentcloud.org/documents/26... Amazingly, Halligan goes on and on about what she admits is Anna's "reporting," but then when she finds out Anna's going to report on the convo, Halligan says it was off-the-record because "you're not a journalist"!

NEW: New York Focus reporters have had their public records requests take as long as 1,266 days — and counting. Despite promising greater transparency, Hochul vetoed a bill to speed up New York's notoriously slow public records process.

Pentagon Press Association: "Make no mistake, today, Oct. 15, 2025 is a dark day for press freedom"

"Abusing their right to protest" is quite a claim to make for an elected official who's bound by the First Amendment

This second requirement is key: agents with their faces covered and no way to individually identify them can't be held accountable by the public for anything illegal/unconstitutional they may do

Judge issues temporary restraining order against DHS in Chicago, affirming attacks on press during ICE protests "clearly violate" constitution. ln further win for transparency, agents also required to wear badges or other visible ID with unique number.

This is the obvious absurdity of pulling ICEBlock. It is obviously legal, protected speech for anyone to say, in any forum, “I just witnessed some police activity at location X”. Indeed, people have been doing this regularly on social media since its inception.

Here's the kicker: Geo’s chairman, George Zoley, is an immigrant himself. He arrived here as a child from Greece. @michaellinhorst.bsky.social looks at the company—and man—at the heart of Trump’s hard-line immigration machine. 6/6 www.fastcompany.com/91396722/the...

When you hear about someone arrested or swept up in an immigration raid, there’s a good chance they’ve ended up at a facility run by Geo Group, the nation’s largest for-profit jailer of immigrants and one of ICE’s biggest contractors. 🧵👇 1/6 www.fastcompany.com/91396722/the...

1/ DEVELOPING: A journalist was rushed to New York-Presbyterian Hospital following another incident with an ICE agent at 26 Federal Plaza, an immigration court in NYC. The last I heard, he was getting X-rays for his lower back.

Judge Young: "This case ... squarely presents the issue whether non-citizens lawfully present here in United States actually have the same free speech rights as the rest of us. The Court answers this Constitutional question unequivocally 'yes, they do.' 'No law' means 'no law.'"

AAUP v. Rubio is out, and look at how it starts. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

BREAKING: Judge William Young, a Reagan appointee, delivers the most scathing legal rebuke of the Trump era, ruling that Trump and his cabinet illegally targeted pro-Palestinian students for deportation to "strike fear" into First Amendment protesters. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

Smart move by two young upstate NY reporters: they filed a FOIA for body cameras worn by the sheriff’s deputies at an ICE raid. These are almost always civil raids so there’s no ongoing criminal investigation that would require that footage to stay confidential. Replicable by any media outlet.

This is a useful reminder: if you want to investigate CBP, or any agency, don't only FOIA them -- FOIA agencies they interact with, too

SCOOP: Justice Department asks judge to force nonprofit & reporter to post $50,000 bond to get faster release of classified docs found at Mar-a-Lago. Trump order to seek bonds for early injunctions seeps into #FOIA litigation. www.politico.com/newsletters/...

1/ I’m Till Eckert, a ProPublica reporter. For the past 2 weeks, I’ve been going to the same NY immigration courthouse. Nearly every time, I see ICE agents arresting immigrants. Today, a woman was slammed to the ground after begging officials not to take her husband away. Thread 👇

Kimmel: "This show is not important. What is important is that we get to live in a country that allows us to have a show like this."

So sad

For anyone who thinks a secrecy law purportedly for officials’ safety won’t be distorted and abused… Tell congress you don’t want even more of this nonsense with our new action center tool below.

A letter from an emmy award-winning journalist who's been detained by ICE for 2+ months just went up via @bittersouth.bsky.social. He's in the US lawfully. "The government asserted that Guevara posed a danger to the community because of his reporting." bittersoutherner.com/journalist-m...

A rule that could only be followed by state media, not an independent press

Israel’s targeted strikes on two newspaper offices in Yemen’s capital is the second deadliest single attack on the press ever recorded by CPJ, following the 2009 Maguindanao massacre in the Philippines. Read more: cpj.org?p=522184

Proud that we at the First Amendment Clinic could help wrestle out these public documents for @juliarock.bsky.social

Headlines on the Bloomberg Terminal from Air Force One: *TRUMP: TV LICENSES SHOULD BE TAKEN AWAY IF BAD PUBLICITY FOR ME *TRUMP: IF TV SHOWS 'HIT TRUMP' SHOULD BE DISCUSSED ON LICENSES *TRUMP ON TV SHOWS CRITICIZING HIM: THEY'RE NOT ALLOWED TO

When Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia student protestor, was arrested by masked men, he was shuttled to an immigrant prison owned by Geo Group, America's biggest for-profit prison company. I profiled the founder and chairman of Geo in my latest article: www.fastcompany.com/91396722/the...

George Zoley, the eye-wateringly rich founder of America's biggest for-profit prison company, Geo Group, is an immigrant himself. So how has he become ICE's largest private jailer of other immigrants? My latest for @fastcompany.com www.fastcompany.com/91396722/the...

On FCC Chair's threat to ABC/Jimmy Kimmel Executive Order 14149 (Jan. 20, 2025): Purpose: "The First Amendment ... essential to the success of our Republic..." Purpose: Stop "coercive pressure" to advance "Government's preferred narrative." Policy: Ensure no federal officer abridge free speech.

The media isn't going to get more powerful in the coming years. If they don't take a stand for free speech principles now, they never will.

For months, the Trump administration pledged to protect free speech. But after Charlie Kirk's killing, those same officials are now pledging to curtail speech. My latest @washingtonpost.com supercut:

for all the stories of firings & other penalties, it seems obvious to me that countless people have thought about posting/saying something related to our current moment, thought twice, and decided against. that's how censorship works. intimidation --> self-censorship. mission accomplished.

Sen. Bob Kerrey, medal of honor recipient: "America -- the home of the free and the brave -- is my home, and I give thanks to God that it is. America -- the home of the free and the brave -- does not need our government to protect us from those who burn a flag." www.c-span.org/clip/senate-...

In my lifetime, I have read probably 10,000 stories about municipal government in some place or other… and this is easily in the top 5. www.thecity.nyc/2025/08/20/w...

Reporter Eddie Kim went downtown to cover the detainment of an immigrant by ICE this morning. Then he was pepper-sprayed in the face by an ICE agent standing a foot away. Completely unprovoked. See our exclusive story and video from @eddiekimx.bsky.social here: sf.gazetteer.co/i-reported-f...

Conglomerates cave to official threats while small local publishers with a fraction of the resources just report on them and keep it moving. Good for River Reporter for not letting an embattled town supervisor's veiled threat of a SLAPP stop it from doing its job.

‘We are arresting the mayor right now, per the deputy attorney general’ politi.co/4fHe0tX w/ @mattfriedmannj.bsky.social & Erica Orden

Stanford's student paper sues Noem and Rubio, saying their policies cause non-citizen students to avoid expressing themselves freely in the Daily's pages due to fear of detention and deportation h/t @joshgerstein.bsky.social www.thefire.org/sites/defaul...

MORE: Whistleblower Aid says that one of its clients “has lawfully disclosed evidence to the DOJ’s Office of the Inspector General that corroborates the thrust of the whistleblower claims regarding Emil Bove and other senior DOJ officials actively and deliberately undermining the rule of law.”

Once again, great reporting from @thecity.nyc www.thecity.nyc/2025/07/24/e...

NEW: U.S. Border Patrol says it needs "advanced AI" to "identify and track suspicious activity in urban environment[s]" and "dense residential areas," according to a presentation document I obtained theintercept.com/2025/07/23/c...

"Without intervention, the remaining journalists in Gaza will die... Since AFP was founded in August 1944, we have lost journalists in conflicts, we have had wounded and prisoners in our ranks, but none of us remembers seeing a colleague die of hunger."

"For almost all of these people, there’s no records whatsoever. No court records, nothing." What an immigration expert told us when we dug through the data for three legally contested deportation flights to El Salvador. www.404media.co/flight-manif...

More people than the government previously admitted may have been on those flights that took off while Drew Ensign (who I profiled for Politico this month) was telling Judge Boasberg he had no info about any flights.

Prosecutors who charge journalists for refusing to unpublish news reports "don’t know the first thing about the constitution they’re sworn to uphold, or don’t care," Seth Stern told @njglobe.bsky.social's @wildstein.bsky.social.

“We’re not really doing names publicly,” one public servant said about another.