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Plaintiffs Alleges “Harassment by Posting of … News Accounts … Referenc[ing His] Ongoing Litigation … [with] His Ex-Wife”

From Kitsap County Superior Court Judge William Houser in Mavy v. Tomashefsky (Wash. Super. Ct. Clallam County), decided May 28:

Petitioner requests the court to amend the existing restraining order [which is currently on appeal -EV] to include the additional restraints of:

  1. Respondent is to have no contact with Petitioner’s minor children; and
  2. Respondent is restrained from publishing statements intended to harass, intimidate, or threaten the protected person.
  3. Respondent shall not encourage or use a third person to post or share statements on line or via any other mode intended to harass, intimidate, or threaten the protected person; and
  4. Respondent is restrained from publishing identifying information about the protected person or the protected person’s children.

For the following reason, the Motion for Additional Restraints is DENIED….

Mr. Mavy askes that his minor children be included in the order. They were not included in the original petition. The relationship between the children and Mr. Tomashefsky is one of step-parent/step-child. There is insufficient credible evidence presented to support the finding that they have been the subject of harassment as defined by law.

Mr. Tomashefsky is the husband of Mr. Mavy’s ex-wife. There is significant litigation history between the parties, including this litigation on a civil harassment order. Mr. Tomashefsky posts news accounts online that involve various issues of interest to the community. He posts these news accounts under the banner of The Olympic Herald.

Included in these posts are news accounts of litigation between Mr. Mavy and his ex-wife. Often these news accounts include information obtained from public court records. Other stories include information that was obtained by public records requests.

Mr. Mavy maintains that Mr. Tomashefsky is engaging in harassment by posting of some of these news accounts, particularly when they reference the ongoing litigation between Mr. Mavy and his ex-wife. He argues Mr. Tomashefsky is intending to harass, intimidate or threaten him.

The First Amendment free speech clause does not have a “categorical harassment exception,” Rodriguez v. Maricopa Cnty. Cmty. Coll. Dist. (9th Cir. 2010) citing Saxe v. State Coll. Area Sch. Dist. (3d Cir.2001). “Speech that harasses does not lose its constitutional protection by virtue of that fact alone.” Catlett v. Teel (Wash. App. 2020).

Publication of information obtained via the Public Records Act is protected by the First Amendment. It is also protected under the Washington Constitution.

Information contained in other depositories of public records such as court records are likewise protected. Our state Supreme Court has stated that “an individual has no constitutional privacy interest in a public record.”

Under the first amendment, the government (including the courts via orders like this) has no power to restrict expression because of its message, its ideas, its subject matter, or its content. Mr. Mavy suggests the limiting language that proposes the court restrict publishing statements intended to harass, intimidate or threaten is an acceptable narrowing of the order to protect the constitutionally protected speech of Mr. Tomashefsky. The Court disagrees with this assessment. Statements or stories that a reader finds to be harassing are protected by the Federal and State constitutions.

News accounts that could be considered threatening in certain ways, or intimidating in certain ways may lose their protections under the constitutional provisions. However, the conduct of publishing the accounts as shown in this case are not threatening or intimidating, and certainly not to the point of going beyond the point of constitutional protection.

Finally, Mr. Mavy requests the Court restrain publication of statements “intended to harass, intimidate, or threaten” the protected person. This is an order of content-related prior restraint. Publication of accurate and lawfully obtained public records is constitutionally protected speech. Exceptions to prior restraint prohibitions include prohibitions against obscenity, incitements or violence, and restrictions during times of war. Mr. Mavy proposes language that he believes narrows the court ordered restraints to fall within the constitutional standard. This Court disagrees….

The legal reasoning seems correct to me; see generally my Overbroad Injunctions Against Speech (Especially in Libel and Harassment Cases).

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Trump Administration Continues Push for Liberalized Gun Rules


President Donald Trump and a backdrop of semiautomatic rifles | Illustration: Midjourney

Waiting for the government to shed power and voluntarily reduce its intrusions into people’s lives can be an exercise in frustration, but gun owners are getting some welcome news from the feds. Through administrative action, litigation, and promises of legislation, the Trump administration is reversing some of the anti-gun policies implemented by the Biden administration and otherwise offering a little more breathing room for people who want to own, buy, and sell firearms.

‘Scrapping More Than Three Dozen Firearms Regulations’

“The Trump administration is scrapping more than three dozen firearms regulations, abandoning a crackdown on illegal sales, restoring gun rights to some people with mental illness, and loosening oversight of private weapons transactions,” Aishvarya Kavi of The New York Times reported over the weekend.

As is often the case in an age when much “law” involves administrative interpretations of deliberately vague statutes, many of the changes involve White House-directed reinterpretations by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF). I’ve reported on such changes in the past and the latest proposed reinterpretations appear even more substantial.

Unsurprisingly, given the newspaper’s track record on the issue, Kavi added, “in the view of critics and even some ATF veterans, the agency, in closely mirroring the demands made by gun owners and manufacturers to lighten their regulatory burden, is enacting changes at the expense of public safety.”

That may be the view of critics and former ATF enforcers, but relief is welcomed by gun owners and sellers who have come to assume that rules always get more restrictive, not looser. Among the proposed changes is one that would allow gun dealers to do background checks remotely and ship firearms directly to the buyers’ homes, so long as they’re in the same state. That would substantially reduce hassle and expense for consumers seeking specific firearms who currently must make long trips to distant dealers or else order a gun for an extra fee through a local dealer.

The ATF says it is also “revising regulatory changes it made to the definition of the ‘engaged in the business’ of dealing in firearms. The rule rescinds certain provisions of the definition of ‘engaged in the business'” that were adopted by the Biden administration.

The Biden-era interpretations turned many hobbyists selling personal firearms into potential felons if they didn’t get a Federal Firearms License (FFL). The Biden administration’s enthusiasm for strict enforcement of paperwork rules resulted in the death of Bryan Malinowski, executive director of the airport in Little Rock, Arkansas, and a gun collector. He was targeted at home by a pre-dawn ATF raid when agents decided he’d crossed the line from hobby sales to commercial transactions. Rather than send him a letter, they kicked in his door and started a lethal gun fight.

In 2024, a federal judge ruled against the broad Biden-era “engaged in the business” interpretation that criminalized many private sales.

The ATF also proposes eliminating the ban on stabilizing braces for pistols, as well as the definition of “bump stocks” as machine guns. The term “straw purchase” is to be clarified so that giving a firearm as a gift is less legally fraught. Also, mailing and personal transportation of firearms are to be eased.

Federal Challenges to State-Level Restrictions

While speaking recently at the Mack Trucks facility in Macungie, Pennsylvania, President Donald Trump also promised: “National right to carry. Yeah, we’re working on it,” to a cheering audience. Such a change, which would potentially allow Americans to carry concealed weapons across the country without complicated reciprocity agreements among states, requires congressional action.

Given that some of the most egregious restrictions on self-defense rights are inflicted on the public by state governments, it’s important that the federal government is suing Colorado, California, and Virginia. The Colorado litigation goes after a ban on standard-capacity magazines which take more than 15 rounds. California is in the crosshairs for its prohibition of popular Glock handguns, while Virginia drew the Justice Department’s ire for its new ban on so-called “assault weapons”—semi-automatic firearms with a military appearance. Denver has been separately sued for its own “assault weapons” ban.

“On April 10, I promised Governor Spanberger that we would sue Virginia if she signed this unconstitutional weapons ban into law. I keep my promises,” commented Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “Law-abiding Americans should not have to live under threat of criminal sanction for simply exercising their Second Amendment right to possess arms owned by millions of their fellow citizens.”

Good News for Liberty, but More, Please!

While the Trump administration’s rhetoric and some of its actions are a welcome reversal of Biden-era hostility to self-defense rights, not everybody is convinced that the changes go far enough.

Gun Owners of America (GOA) warns that “ATF still treats everyday behavior by gun owners as suspicious: keeping a simple list of your firearms, reselling the same model within a short window, or even just offering to sell a firearm can be used as evidence that you are ‘engaged in the business’ without a license.” Instead of tweaking the last administration’s rule regarding what turns a hobbyist into a commercial gun dealer, GOA says “the rule must be rescinded in its entirety.”

The Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) similarly cautions that the ATF isn’t fully implementing the U.S. Supreme Court’s Hemani decision, which found that laws denying gun rights to users of “controlled substances” are unconstitutional.

“The Supreme Court’s recent Hemani decision requires the agency to make additional changes to prevent unconstitutional disarmament of peaceable people,” commented FPC. “Even apart from the Second Amendment, Congress lacks constitutional authority to broadly disarm peaceable people under its Commerce Clause power—a position advanced by FPC and cited by Justice Thomas in his Hemani concurrence.”

It’s worth noting the Supreme Court will soon consider the constitutionality of “assault weapons” bans.

The Trump administration’s changes don’t constitute the full repeal of gun restrictions, which many owners and activists favor. Some of the revisions might be reversed by administrations to come via their own reinterpretations. But any reduction in authoritarian rules and regulations should be welcomed by all Americans.

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NATO Chief Backs Renewed US Strikes On Iran As ‘Absolutely Necessary’ 

NATO Chief Backs Renewed US Strikes On Iran As ‘Absolutely Necessary’ 

Even if most individual NATO members are still reluctant to jump on board Trump’s Iran war, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte is busy praising American military action there amid the annual summit in Ankara.

Rutte has freshly described the overnight fresh US military strikes on Iran in response to Tehran attacking multiple international shipping vessels “absolutely necessary”. Rutte voiced agreement with Trump that Iran’s actions violated the MoU ceasefire agreement with the US, which required a response.

Getty Images

“When you have a ceasefire and Iran ​is basically violating the ceasefire, I think it is totally ​crucial that the US forcefully react,” Rutte told reporters.

The new US actions resulted in a swift Iranian response, in the form of Iranian drones and missiles on Kuwait and Bahrain, which the latter country decried as a “dangerous escalation”.

“The era of bullying and extortion is over,” Iran’s Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf wrote on X. “It leads nowhere. We don’t fold.”

As we reported earlier, President Trump has called the Iranians “scum” and declared the ceasefire “over”: “To me, I think it’s over. I don’t want to deal with them anymore; they’re scum,” Trump told reporters. 

All this naturally brings up the question of ‘what’s next?’

Certainly the Iranians seem in the mood for a fight, and Washington feels it can’t let attacks on international shipping slide – so all for this could portend a return to all-out war.

It’s been 129 days since the start of Operation Epic Fury – a conflict which US officials had promised would be ‘fast’ – and the public has been ‘assured’ it is not a quagmire. Yet here we are.

As for Rutte, it’s unclear what his strategy for Iran, if any, might be. He’s clearly trying to keep Trump happy, playing Trump whisperer in Turkey, vis-a-vis the NATO alliance and its continued funding. Here was some Trump commentary on NATO ‘unity’ in Ankara:

“Spain is a terrible partner in NATO. They don’t participate. They don’t pay. I don’t want anything to do with Spain. Cut off all trade with Spain, please, including visits,” he said at a press conference in Ankara with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte.

Trump also reignited inter-alliance tensions when he resurfaced his desire to take control of Greenland, a territory of NATO member Denmark.

The NATO chief has also newly stated could be no doubt over the “complete commitment of the United States to NATO” – which he claimed also defends the United States and is thus invaluable.

via CNBC

“But there’s ​also the expectation ​that the ⁠Europeans and the Canadians will equalize their spending with the United States, which I ​think is completely fair,” he added.

“The good ​news ⁠is that this is the big win today. It’s the loss for Putin, it is a win for President ⁠Trump ​that the Europeans and the Canadians ​are doing exactly that,” Rutte said.

Tyler Durden
Wed, 07/08/2026 – 08:25

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Senate Defense Bill Would Establish Fund For Government To Buy Into Private Companies

Senate Defense Bill Would Establish Fund For Government To Buy Into Private Companies

Authored by Kevin Stocklin via The Epoch Times,

A new bill in Congress would enshrine into law the ability of the executive branch to buy into private companies, and create a fund to finance the purchases.

The Pentagon in Arlington, Va., in this file photo. Carolyn Kaster/AP

The current Senate version of the National Defense Authorization Act gives the Defense Department explicit authority to take ownership stakes in companies. A provision titled “Equity Investments and Related Matters” establishes a new “Department of Defense Equity Investment Account” within the Treasury Department, which the Defense Department can use to make equity investments in critical minerals, materials, chemicals, and batteries.

While administration officials say this move allows the Defense Department to better align its goals with the private sector and for taxpayers to earn a return if the companies do well, critics have raised concerns about establishing a legal basis for government expansion into the private sector.

Government investments in companies under this bill would be limited to a 50 percent stake, non-voting shares, and a dollar cap of $500 million.

Michael Duffey, under secretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment, stated in January that the Trump administration is “fundamentally shifting our approach to securing our munitions supply chain.”

“By investing directly in suppliers we are building the resilient industrial base needed for the Arsenal of Freedom,” Duffey said.

The Pentagon has been actively buying stakes in private companies over the past year, including a $400 million investment in MP Materials, a rare-earths mining company, in 2025, and a $1 billion investment a L3Harris Technologies, a rocket motor manufacturer, in April, as well as a 10 percent stake in chipmaker Intel.

“Equity ownership can align incentives in ways that grants and subsidies cannot,” Carliss Chatman, a law professor at Southern Methodist University, told The Epoch Times.

“If taxpayers are assuming significant financial risk to help develop strategically important industries, an equity stake allows the public to participate in the upside if those investments succeed,” she said. “Equity may also provide the government with governance rights, access to information, or long-term alignment that grants generally do not.”

Potential For Conflicts Of Interest

Critics, however, say this initiative marks a new expansion of the state into private industry. While the U.S. government has taken stakes in banks, insurers, and carmakers in the past, those have been short-term measures to rescue companies from bankruptcy, and typically done with congressional approval and oversight.

“The problem begins with creating the statutory architecture for a Pentagon stock portfolio in the first place,” Cato economist Tad DeHaven stated in a June 16 report. “That means Congress would not merely be tolerating a one-off emergency action but would instead provide the Pentagon with a standing legal pathway to acquire ownership stakes in private companies.”

The Defense Department can legitimately support strategic industries through grants, loans, and government contracts, DeHaven states, but “ownership means continuing federal financial interest in a company’s valuation, which is precisely what creates the favoritism, conflict of interest, and political pressure risks Congress should be avoiding.”

Duffey stated at a March 4 House Armed Services Committee hearing that these equity investments “create a partnership with industry, an opportunity, not only for government to provide capital to lead to the kind of growth such as in the L3 deal, but it also crowds in additional private capital.”

However, the purchases have drawn scrutiny. Critics say that the Defense Department’s investment in L3 Harris Technologies could create a conflict of interest, with the government’s role as L3’s largest customer and decision-maker regarding procurement, as well as a shareholder that will benefit if the company performs well.

This raises questions about whether procurement decisions will be truly impartial, analysts say, given that companies such as Northrop Grumman and Anduril Industries, in which the state has no stake, also manufacture rocket motors and compete in the same markets as L3.

“More money can help, but we also don’t want to discourage fair competition that encourages people to get into this space,” Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.) stated at the House Armed Services Committee hearing. “If they think the government’s going to come in and just put their their thumb on the scale, it could discourage some of the investment we’ve seen.”

State ownership raises other issues, as well.

Corporate Governance

“Equity ownership introduces governance questions that grants typically avoid,” Chatman said.

“Once the government becomes a shareholder, questions arise regarding voting rights, fiduciary expectations, political influence over corporate decision-making, and eventual exit strategies,” she said. “The legal design of the investment therefore matters as much as the decision to invest itself.”

Federal ownership of private companies is becoming popular on both sides of the political aisle. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) recently proposed the American A.I. Sovereign Wealth Fund Act, in which the government would take a 50 percent stake in America’s largest artificial intelligence companies.

“This would guarantee that the trillions created by AI are used to improve the lives of all of us – and block oligarch decisions that harm the American people,” Sanders posted on X on June 1.

Critics, however, say this is a slippery slope to more government control over Americans’ private lives. They point to attempts by the Biden administration to pressure private companies to censor Americans and to fire employees who refused COVID-19 injections, as well as the Canadian government’s use of private banks and insurance companies to crush truckers’ protests of that country’s COVID-19 policies.

“Consider the Biden administration’s pressure applied to social media firms during the COVID lockdowns,” Jeffrey Degner, a policy expert at the American Institute for Economic Research, told the Daily Signal. “Imagine the silencing of free speech if the government had already taken ownership stakes in these firms!”

Reuters contributed to this report.

Tyler Durden
Wed, 07/08/2026 – 08:05

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Trump Tells Bessent To Halt US Trade With Spain, Calls Madrid A “Wasted Cause”

Trump Tells Bessent To Halt US Trade With Spain, Calls Madrid A “Wasted Cause”

During a NATO summit in Ankara, President Trump instructed Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to cut off trade with Spain over defense spending.

“I didn’t speak to Spain. Spain is a wasted cause. We don’t want to do any trade business with Spain anymore,” Trump told reporters.

“By the way, I’d like you to cut it off,” the president said, turning to Bessent, who replied: “Yes, sir.”

Trump then added, “Take it immediately. Don’t even talk to them. They’re hopeless. They’re bad people … They make so much money with us, and we’re going to make sure they make a lot less.”

Trump told NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte that Spain “doesn’t agree to anything, and you shouldn’t carry them.”

Rutte later tried to ease tensions by saying that Madrid “made a huge step last year” by raising its spending to 2%, although he added that “there are still issues we have to solve”.

Important to note: Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez is a socialist and has been sharply critical of Trump’s foreign policy, including denying US military access to Spanish bases during the US-Iran campaign.

Spain is also the world’s largest olive oil exporter.

How Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent will follow through on Trump’s order to halt trade with Spain remains unclear.

However, if trade restrictions materialize, US olive oil importers may have to rethink their supply chains and look more aggressively to Italy, Tunisia, Portugal, and Greece as alternatives to Spanish suppliers.

Tyler Durden
Wed, 07/08/2026 – 07:45

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Most Americans Don’t Believe NATO Would Assist If The Country Were Attacked

Most Americans Don’t Believe NATO Would Assist If The Country Were Attacked

Via The Libertarian Institute

Most Americans do not believe that European members of the North Atlantic Alliance would come to the United States’ aid if attacked. 

Politico reported that a NATO poll found that just 43% of Americans believe the bloc would assist the US if needed. While Politico was unable to view survey results from previous years, a NATO official said that American confidence in the bloc was down about eight percent. 

via Associated Press

The foundation of NATO is Article 5 of the bloc’s charter. Article 5 is viewed as a mutual defense pact that calls on each member to come to the aid of any state that is attacked. 

In recent years, Americans have begun to question the United States’ membership in the bloc. Americans have long pointed to the US footing the majority of the alliance’s military spending. 

The drift away from supporting NATO intensified when the bloc backed Ukraine in the war against Russia. Many Americans argued that NATO providing billions of dollars of assistance to non-member Ukraine unnecessarily created tensions with Russia. 

President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently criticized the alliance over Europe’s lack of assistance in the war against Iran:

President Donald Trump declined Tuesday to say whether he plans to announce additional US troop reductions in Europe, telling reporters, “we’re going to see,” during a bilateral meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan ahead of the NATO summit in Ankara.

“Well, we’re going to see,” Trump said when asked whether he is likely to announce further drawdowns of US forces in Europe.

The US president also renewed his criticism of NATO, suggesting he had considered skipping the summit altogether.

Trump is meeting other NATO leaders in Turkey this week, where he is expected to push member states to increase military spending. 

Ahead of the summit, NATO Ambassador Matthew Whitaker downplayed the tensions between Washington and the bloc as growing pains. “The target is that Europe takes over the conventional defense of the European continent. We’re not going away, we’re just doing less.” He added, “I see these as just the challenges that we’ve worked through before.”

Tyler Durden
Wed, 07/08/2026 – 07:20

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“They’re Scum”: Trump Says US-Iran Ceasefire Is Over, Sending Oil Higher

“They’re Scum”: Trump Says US-Iran Ceasefire Is Over, Sending Oil Higher

Brent crude futures jumped more than 6% in London after President Trump told reporters at a press conference in Ankara that the tentative ceasefire with Iran is over.

“To me, I think it’s over. I don’t want to deal with them anymore; they’re scum,” Trump told reporters. 

Trump’s remarks came after Iran launched missiles and kamikaze drones at several merchant vessels in the Hormuz chokepoint on Tuesday. This was countered by overnight US strikes, as fears of conflict erupting once more are on the rise.

However, Trump stopped short of saying the U.S. would restart the war and said he would let talks continue if the parties were willing.

In European trade, front-month Brent crude futures jumped 6% to $78.63 a barrel, while West Texas Intermediate rose 6.2% to $74.85 a barrel. Natural gas prices rose as well, with the benchmark Dutch TTF contract up 4.8% to 49.04 euros per megawatt-hour.

Hours before the strikes, the US Treasury revoked a sanctions waiver that had allowed Tehran to sell oil, reversing a key element of the interim deal.

Trump also told reporters that he would continue to let his negotiators talk to Tehran, though he thought “they’re wasting their time.”

On Tuesday afternoon, the Joint Maritime Information Center upgraded the Hormuz risk rating to “Severe” after three tankers were targeted by Iran. This renewed uncertainty in the critical waterway will only pressure the normalization of vessel flows.

“Every renewed attack on commercial shipping further erodes confidence in the Strait’s reopening, making each future recovery more fragile than the last,” said Michelle Brouhard, head of policy and geopolitical risk at Kpler. “If every reopening is assumed to be temporary, freight rates remain elevated, insurance costs remain high and fewer vessels are willing to re-enter the Gulf.”

Dominic Ellis, UBS equity analyst covering oil and gas, wrote in a note:

The US carried out a new round of strikes against Iran in response to recent Iranian attacks on commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz. Iran in turn launched missile and drone attacks on US assets in Kuwait and Bahrain. While this latest escalation does not mean an end to the diplomatic progress made in recent weeks, it underscores the challenges of diplomacy when both sides believe they have the upper hand.

Markets were too quick to buy into the de-escalation narrative in my view, and while there has been evidence of progress and of a rebound in vessel flows via the Strait of Hormuz, the latest developments may lead to more realistic expectations on the return to normalcy and a slightly higher range for oil in the near term.

The likelihood of a spike above $100/b remains low, however, even in the event of further tit-for-tat strikes in the Middle East, given the surprise sustained drop in Chinese crude imports.

Latest Bloomberg data tracking ships transiting the Hormuz chokepoint with transponders on remain elevated, but the number of vessels making the East-West route has fallen dramatically, while West-East remains steady.

Also, note that the oil market’s forward curve has shifted into backwardation. This occurs when near-term futures trade at a premium to longer-dated contracts. The shift shows traders are once again willing to pay up for immediate crude supplies.

Tyler Durden
Wed, 07/08/2026 – 07:05

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Plaintiffs Alleges “Harassment by Posting of … News Accounts … Referenc[ing His] Ongoing Litigation … [with] His Ex-Wife”

From Kitsap County Superior Court Judge William Houser in Mavy v. Tomashefsky (Wash. Super. Ct. Clallam County), decided May 28:

Petitioner requests the court to amend the existing restraining order [which is currently on appeal -EV] to include the additional restraints of:

  1. Respondent is to have no contact with Petitioner’s minor children; and
  2. Respondent is restrained from publishing statements intended to harass, intimidate, or threaten the protected person.
  3. Respondent shall not encourage or use a third person to post or share statements on line or via any other mode intended to harass, intimidate, or threaten the protected person; and
  4. Respondent is restrained from publishing identifying information about the protected person or the protected person’s children.

For the following reason, the Motion for Additional Restraints is DENIED….

Mr. Mavy askes that his minor children be included in the order. They were not included in the original petition. The relationship between the children and Mr. Tomashefsky is one of step-parent/step-child. There is insufficient credible evidence presented to support the finding that they have been the subject of harassment as defined by law.

Mr. Tomashefsky is the husband of Mr. Mavy’s ex-wife. There is significant litigation history between the parties, including this litigation on a civil harassment order. Mr. Tomashefsky posts news accounts online that involve various issues of interest to the community. He posts these news accounts under the banner of The Olympic Herald.

Included in these posts are news accounts of litigation between Mr. Mavy and his ex-wife. Often these news accounts include information obtained from public court records. Other stories include information that was obtained by public records requests.

Mr. Mavy maintains that Mr. Tomashefsky is engaging in harassment by posting of some of these news accounts, particularly when they reference the ongoing litigation between Mr. Mavy and his ex-wife. He argues Mr. Tomashefsky is intending to harass, intimidate or threaten him.

The First Amendment free speech clause does not have a “categorical harassment exception,” Rodriguez v. Maricopa Cnty. Cmty. Coll. Dist. (9th Cir. 2010) citing Saxe v. State Coll. Area Sch. Dist. (3d Cir.2001). “Speech that harasses does not lose its constitutional protection by virtue of that fact alone.” Catlett v. Teel (Wash. App. 2020).

Publication of information obtained via the Public Records Act is protected by the First Amendment. It is also protected under the Washington Constitution.

Information contained in other depositories of public records such as court records are likewise protected. Our state Supreme Court has stated that “an individual has no constitutional privacy interest in a public record.”

Under the first amendment, the government (including the courts via orders like this) has no power to restrict expression because of its message, its ideas, its subject matter, or its content. Mr. Mavy suggests the limiting language that proposes the court restrict publishing statements intended to harass, intimidate or threaten is an acceptable narrowing of the order to protect the constitutionally protected speech of Mr. Tomashefsky. The Court disagrees with this assessment. Statements or stories that a reader finds to be harassing are protected by the Federal and State constitutions.

News accounts that could be considered threatening in certain ways, or intimidating in certain ways may lose their protections under the constitutional provisions. However, the conduct of publishing the accounts as shown in this case are not threatening or intimidating, and certainly not to the point of going beyond the point of constitutional protection.

Finally, Mr. Mavy requests the Court restrain publication of statements “intended to harass, intimidate, or threaten” the protected person. This is an order of content-related prior restraint. Publication of accurate and lawfully obtained public records is constitutionally protected speech. Exceptions to prior restraint prohibitions include prohibitions against obscenity, incitements or violence, and restrictions during times of war. Mr. Mavy proposes language that he believes narrows the court ordered restraints to fall within the constitutional standard. This Court disagrees….

The legal reasoning seems correct to me; see generally my Overbroad Injunctions Against Speech (Especially in Libel and Harassment Cases).

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