Lots of very good ideas in here for @zohrankmamdani.bsky.social about what it might look like to have a tech policy agenda aligned with human rights principles.

It was clear from testimony in AAUP v. Rubio that some very senior government officials have no idea at all what the First Amendment means. We're seeing that again here. These officials have an obligation to uphold constitutional rights but they don't know what the constitution says or means.

Lots of people are concerned enough about press freedom that they're willing to spend their lunch hour talking about it, and trying to figure out what to do to protect it. (The photo is from today's @knightcolumbia.org event on press freedom in an era of authoritarianism.)

More than 200 people in the room for this @knightcolumbia.org panel on the future of press freedom. Thanks to @columbiajournalism.bsky.social for hosting!

If this were an atheist teacher posting a “God is a Fairytale” sign in a 7th grade classroom, every single person piously insisting it’s a matter of personal religious expression would be screaming themselves hoarse (justly) demanding her firing. www.friendlyatheist.com/p/federal-ju...

Debs ran for president from his prison cell after being sentenced to 10 years behind bars for his anti-war advocacy. First Amendment hero, even to people who don’t like his socialist politics.

Today at Columbia Journalism School--with @azmatzahra.bsky.social @sulliview.bsky.social @joelsimonsays.bsky.social @attorneynora.bsky.social @randersenjones.bsky.social & @sonjawest.bsky.social . Register at @knightcolumbia.org below. knightcolumbia.org/events/the-f...

Fourteen years later, I *still* think one of the best ways for us to repudiate Cheney's legacy of torture would be to recognize and honor the courageous soldiers and public servants who exposed the torture policies and tried to end them. www.nytimes.com/2011/04/28/o...

This is the Cheney obituary to read. www.thenation.com/article/poli...

This yet-to-be produced Cheney obit is the one to read.

This is deeply sad, journalistically. Teen Vogue has done much brave political coverage in an age when few outlets are willing.

Just in: Eleventh Circuit gives Judge Aileen Cannon 60 days to rule on @knightcolumbia.org petition for access to Jack Smith's report about Trump's absconding to Mar-a-Lago with classified docs.

We @knightcolumbia.org are doing two online events on chilling effects: First on 11/17 on the state of 1A doctrine and current cases involving chilling effects claims, and 2nd on 12/10 on using social science to study the chill caused by particular laws and policies. RSVP links below & in next post:

Summer legal internships at @knightcolumbia.org. Send us the best people! knightcolumbia.org/page/summer-...

People three hops away in your social network are people you don't know - Your friends' friends' parents - Your partner's parents' friends - Your boss's kid's teachers - Your friend's doctor's parents - Your ex's partner's colleague List goes on and on for why this is terrible criteria

This three-hops theory is especially insane. Even if you assume each person is connected to only 100 other people, there are 1m people within three hops of every suspected drug trafficker—and remember that even *known* drug traffickers aren’t legitimate targets. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/30/u...

Not drawing an equation between Trump's missile strikes on suspected drug traffickers and Obama's drone strikes on suspected militants, but it's worth remembering the bloody history of Obama's "signature strikes" in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

They don’t even know who they’re killing. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/30/u...

The OLC memo is definitely nonsense, as @jahimes.bsky.social says. There is nothing the memo could say that would make these strikes anything other than murder.

Register for our 40th annual Fordham Debate, held Nov. 20 from 12-1:30 p.m. Earn CLE and hear @jameeljaffer.bsky.social and Professor Nadine Strossen debate merits, drawbacks + dimensions of institutional neutrality and related academic freedom issues. lp.constantcontactpages.com/ev/reg/pz5fgzg

“Narco-terrorist” isn’t a thing. This is just lawless killing.

This piece by Fabio Bertoni about the law firms that surrendered to Trump is really excellent--and it makes me even more glad that we (that is, @knightcolumbia.org) sued last week for the settlement agreements. www.newyorker.com/news/the-led...

"An American judge has discovered what Palestine activists have known for a long time: that governmental trampling of the rights of Palestinians and their supporters is a thin edge of a wedge by which everyone’s rights are being rolled back." @jacobinmagazin.bsky.social jacobin.com/2025/10/pale...

Thank you, @jessicatarlov.bsky.social for saying what no one else will “The government has killed 32 people in 7 strikes with no proof they were traffickers. The admiral leading the mission quit. If we had evidence, they’d face a court, not a drone.”

It is continually astonishing to me the lengths the US government goes to in order to protect Israel from criticism. This journalist would have been left alone if he’d criticized the United States, but criticism of Israel is treated as lèse-majesté.

Congress and the courts should force the Justice Department to release the Office of Legal Counsel memo that purportedly authorizes these strikes--even if there's *nothing* the OLC memo could say that would make these summary executions lawful. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/23/o...

“A quarter-century after the Sept. 11 attacks, then, we find ourselves in a familiar place: Our government is once again committing grave human rights abuses on the ostensible authority of a legal opinion that is being kept secret,” Jameel Jaffer writes.

This turns out to have been one of the most insightful things Trump ever said, though it vastly understated the magnitude of the crimes he could commit with impunity as well as the cravenness and moral vacuousness of his enablers. www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-...

We’re suing for the agreements the Trump admin reached with law firms. @knightcolumbia.org knightcolumbia.org/content/knig...

This is an excellent piece from @charliesavage.bsky.social that covers some of the ground I covered in my NYT essay yesterday but provides more context and has great comments from Jack Goldsmith and Geoffrey Corn, among others. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/24/u...

Whatever their flaws, the Obama-era drone-strike memos don’t supply authority for the missile strikes the United States is carrying out in the Caribbean and Pacific now. My essay for the NYT: www.nytimes.com/2025/10/23/o...

“The truth is, the Knight Institute is doing just fine. It’s our democracy that I’m more worried about,” @jameeljaffer.bsky.social tells @insidehighered.com's @jessicablake.bsky.social. He shares more about our work taking on the Trump administration below ⬇️. www.insidehighered.com/news/governm...

I wrote about Trump’s missile strikes in the Caribbean and Pacific, and about the secret Justice Department opinion that underwrites them. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/23/o...

Unfortunately this statistic does not seem to hold for members of Congress, Justices of the Supreme Court, or the people in charge of the largest media organizations and technology platforms.

They’re rarely framed this way, but the arrests and deportations of foreign students and faculty for constitutionally protected advocacy are also attacks on the university. www.nytimes.com/article/trum...

DOJ lawyer Drew Ensign arguing to Third Circuit that Mahmoud Khalil filed his habeas petition in the wrong district. Says it shouldn't matter that the government misrepresented where he was being held. Shameless. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nimm...

Pleased to again join my brilliant friends, @tessbridgeman.bsky.social and @becingber.bsky.social on the @justsecurity.org podcast to discuss the latest developments with US strikes in the Caribbean, the prospects for US military action against Venezuela, and incoherent US policy towards Colombia.

All of my tweets and skeets are off the record, btw.

The Justice Department's just-filed brief defending the expulsion of the AP from the White House press pool makes one wonder whether the Justice Department has ever watched an Oval Office press conference.

This piece in the @bostonreview.bsky.social by Jed Purdy and Dave Pozen is exceptionally insightful and spurred me to think more deeply about what we're living through. Highly recommend. www.bostonreview.net/articles/wha...

This is the most thoughtful and moving interview with a unicorn you'll ever see. (I'm serious!)

Powerful sign at No Kings in Cleveland

This DC Circuit ruling broadly endorsing the secrecy of OLC opinions would be disappointing in any circumstances, but it is especially so right now, given that Trump is relying on a secret OLC memo to justify the extrajudicial killing of suspected drug traffickers. knightcolumbia.org/content/cour...

Suddenly remembered this passage from Judge Anna Diggs Taylor's 2006 decision in ACLU v. NSA, holding that President GW Bush could not rely on his Commander-in-Chief powers to authorize warrantless wiretapping. www.aclu.org/files/pdfs/safefree/nsamemo.opinion.judge.taylor.081706.pdf

I haven't been on the staff of the ACLU for nine years, but Steven Pinker's tendentious moderation of this panel about "free speech in the academy" provoked me to defend the organization's work. Our exchange starts at the 1:00 mark. vimeo.com/1128006345?f...

Bill Grueskin‬: Administrators at Indiana University baselessly fired the student media director and ordered the student paper to cease its print edition, so it'd sure be a shame if this excellent digital front page were to be widely shared today

New challenge to social-media surveillance brought by @eff.org @mfia-clinic.bsky.social & @muslimadvocates.bsky.social on behalf of major unions. An important First Amendment case. www.eff.org/press/releas...

I don't know precisely why Penn rejected the Trump admin's proposed "compact," but this scathing analysis--by Penn's Amanda Shanor and @serenamayeri.bsky.social--can't have hurt. knightcolumbia.org/blog/a-brief...

The more quickly and publicly prestigious institutions reject this, the easier it is for the rest to do the same (and, indeed, the more embarrassing it becomes to consider folding)

From former Columbia Provost and University Professor Johnathan Cole, in the Columbia Daily Spectator www.columbiaspectator.com/opinion/2025...