“Free speech is what we do instead of violence. Civilization started the day man first cast a word instead of a stone.” We must not lose sight of this civilization-defining distinction. 🎙️: @nicoperrino.bsky.social 📺: @cnn.com

BREAKING: The judge in the Rümeysa Öztürk case just issued his written opinion after ordering her release from the bench last week.

The photo doesn't come close to the legal standard for a true threat. Even still, the government will surely make Comey's life miserable for the foreseeable future. As former FBI Director, he will be familiar with all the ways it can do so.

The DOJ filed another revealing brief in the Mahmoud Khalil case late yesterday. I was naturally interested in the section titled "Khalil’s As-Applied Challenged Does Not Account for His Reported Conduct."

Perverting language is endemic to politics. Here, the feds are weaponizing government in the name of opposing its weaponization. It is not DOJ's proper role to play a modern day Joseph McCarthy and use the power of the state to engage in cancel culture.

Local Chicago guy calls for free speech during first press conference in new gig.

Nobody is obligated to defend anybody else's rights. Nevertheless, there is a proud tradition within the Jewish civil libertarian community of defending free speech rights for all speakers.

Some will argue that Rümeysa Öztürk has no free speech rights the government is bound to respect. On the contrary, the whole premise of America is that certain rights are "unalienable" and that we establish governments to preserve these rights.

The court in the Khalil case ordered the gov't to report every instance where a Secretary of State invoked the "serious adverse foreign policy consequences" statute for a deportation action.

This is a tax targeting speech, which the First Amendment forbids. The Stamp Act of 1765 was also a protectionist tax on speech — and its backlash inspired the American Revolution and our constitutional safeguards for free speech and a free press.

President Trump's repeated targeting of Harvard's tax-exempt status is blatantly illegal under federal law. The IRS must not be weaponized to target political and ideological opponents — not under Nixon, not under Obama, and not under Trump.

It's not "tortious interference" for The New York Times to report that Trump's lawsuit against Paramount is baseless. Because it is.

Wow, finally we get some answer as to what happened! They really did just run all names through law enforcement databases and terminate SEVIS status for anyone with a match, no matter the circumstances or magnitude of the "offense" (including things like speeding tickets and even dropped charges).

Trump is suing 60 Minutes for $20 billion under Texas' Deceptive Trade Practices Act. The FCC is investigating the show for "news distortion." Skydance's merger with 60 Minutes' parent company, Paramount, depends on FCC approval.

How it started vs. how it's going: Ed Martin edition.

The "conduct" in this case was speech. College admins have many "tricks" to get away with censorship. One is to pretend speech is "conduct." Another is to pretend disciplinary meetings are simply "conversations." In either case, the intention is to shut the student up.

Ron Paul asked me about my path to becoming a free speech advocate. It began when my 5th grade class performed the Trial of John Peter Zenger. And continued through college, when Douglas Wilson taught me an important lesson about the search for truth.

Listen, I know the military is a highly regimented institution. Even still, what does it say about the confidence of a nation whose military academy removes hundreds of books from its library and then censors an invited speaker?

“The problem is power. When you have power, the scent, the allure of censorship is so strong that most people can't resist it and that's what you're seeing with Elon Musk.” @nicoperrino.bsky.social on how Elon Musk is doing everything possible to censor free speech.

BREAKING: Harvard sues.

“Because this is America.” Every fucking word of this.👇

Christopher Hitchens called Reagan “a liar and trickster" and Clinton "corrupt and selfish." He sued the Bush admin over its surveillance program and was anti-Zionist. ... all while in America on a green card. And nobody even thought of deporting him. Because this is America.

Free speech is a value of convenience for many people, something they appeal to when their side is censored. That's why it was seen as a liberal value during the McCarthy, Civil Rights, and Vietnam War eras, and as a conservative value during the age of political correctness and cancel culture.

Yes, FIRE spent a lot of time defending the rights of conservatives on campus these past 10 years. But the enemy of free speech isn’t necessarily partisanship, it’s power. And in recent months, the boot has been on the other foot. I share the threats w/ @mehdirhasan.bsky.social and @zeteo.com

President Trump says Harvard hires "almost all woke, Radical Left, idiots" and that it's a “JOKE” that "teaches Hate and Stupidity." Maybe he's right. That doesn't matter.

I've defended free speech for long enough to realize that there are many free speech hypocrites. In this line of work, you accept that you have no permanent friends and no permanent enemies — work with all to do right and none to do wrong. You drive the bus into the wall if you have to.

Sec. Rubio says the admin is smashing the disinformation industrial complex. Meanwhile, the FCC Chairman is rebranding "misinformation" as "news distortion" to do the exact same speech policing. How do we square image 1 and 2? The travesty continues in another name.

What's good for the goose is good for the gander. The tactics we use against our opponents today will be used against us when power changes hands. I'll shout it from the rooftops. I'll shout it on CNN. I'll shout it into the void if nobody will listen — because it's true.

So are we defunding Harvard because of anti-Semitism or because it has left-wing bias? This is a gift to Harvard's lawyers that I'm sure will end up as an exhibit in a lawsuit.

This line from a 1991 speech by EFF co-founder John Gilmore pretty much encapsulates my political philosophy: "Our society, and our permanent rules, must assume that bad people -- criminals even -- will run the government, at least part of the time." www.toad.com/gnu/cfp.talk...

This is an extraordinary letter from the federal government to Harvard. It goes far beyond anything the Obama and Biden administrations did in their unlawful Title IX dictates.

Nothing to see here. Just the President of the United States not-so-subtly directing the Chairman of the FCC to "impose the maximum fines and punishment" against a news program and its affiliates because he doesn't like its coverage of him. Will the Chairman oblige? (See second image.)

There is a hearing today in the case of Rumeysa Ozturk, the Tufts student who was grabbed off the street by plain-clothed ICE agents last month. New reporting from The Washington Post sheds light on what happened:

The tension between liberty and security is nothing new. However, the premise of the United States' founding is that we err on the side of liberty, not security.

Financial indicators might signal an economic recession, but more data point to a free speech recession. I touch on these and other worrying global trends in this fantastic discussion with @nicoperrino.bsky.social, @sarahemclaugh.bsky.social, and James Kirchick. www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKk2...

BREAKING: Associated Press wins a preliminary injunction against White House over "Gulf of America" flap. "[I]f the Government opens its doors to some journalists ... it cannot then shut those doors to other journalists because of their viewpoints. The Constitution requires no less."

NEWS: More than 500 law firms sign on to an amicus brief in support of Perkins Coie amid the firm’s legal battle against Trump’s executive order targeting its business. Read the list of firms that signed the brief authored by former SG Don Verrilli: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

A couple of points on the feds' letter to Harvard: 1) Many of these Ivies don’t have clean hands. They censored too much and became too permissive of unlawful behavior. 2) HOWEVER, the solution cannot be worse than the disease. And this response is worse than the disease. How?

Head of ADL comes out against Trump admin's approach to deportations. "We can hold perpetrators of unlawful antisemitism accountable while maintaining a commitment to the Constitution." "We should be holding people accountable for actual crimes, not Orwellian thoughtcrimes."

In the 1990s, Congress explicitly cabined the "adverse foreign policy consequences" provision that the feds are using to deport pro-Palestinian speakers. www.nytimes.com/2025/04/01/u...

How has the Trump administration and its officials threatened free speech rights since inauguration day?

Freedom needs defenders. Today, Substack and @thefireorg.bsky.social are rising to the defense of writers targeted by the government for the content of their writing. Need help? Get in touch.

Everyone is entitled to legal representation and their day in court — but the administration is undercutting that right by attempting to freeze its opponents out of the system. - If you are a lawyer who worked on cases against administration officials, good luck finding a job.

Let's pretend that one day the federal government decides to start referring to Greenland as "Americaland." Could government officials condition press access on outlets adopting this new name in their coverage?

This is a false dichotomy. Just because an issue involves immigration law, doesn't mean it can't implicate the First Amendment. First Amendment questions can be raised by various areas of the law — from corporate law to zoning law.

The provision being used to deport Mahmoud Khalil was ruled unconstitutional by the only judge to ever review it. Who was the judge? President Trump’s late sister, Maryanne Trump Barry.

How? Political power, which always and everywhere beguiles. The answer? Limit political power.

I've always wondered if I should visit places like China and Turkey. They are full of cultural treasures I'd like to see. But I worry that my public criticisms of their authoritarian governments would make traveling there risky. I've long been proud that America was not that way ...

A chilling exchange between NPR and DHS Deputy Secretary Troy Edgar on the Mahmoud Khalil affair. www.npr.org/2025/03/13/n...

I joined Jake Tapper and Priscilla Alvarez on CNN to discuss the Mahmoud Khalil imbroglio ... Today, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the administration will rely on an obscure clause of the Immigration and Nationality Act to deport Khalil.