Category: reason

Jacob Mchangama and Jeff Kosseff are co-authors of The Future of Free Speech, a new book examining what they describe as a global “free speech recession.”

In this episode, Mchangama and Kosseff talk with Nick Gillespie about why democracies are increasingly embracing speech restrictions once associated with authoritarian regimes, how fears about misinformation and child safety are reshaping internet policy, and why both the political left and right have grown more skeptical of free expression. They discuss the rise of government pressure on social media companies, the future of anonymous speech and Section 230 protections, and why they believe counter-speech, transparency, and decentralized online platforms offer a better alternative to censorship.

This interview was taped in front of a live audience at an event in New York City.

 

0:00—What is the free speech recession?

7:36—Speech after the collapse of communism

15:06—How important is technology for escaping censorship?

22:38—EU hate speech laws

27:55—Sullivan v. Times decision

30:19—Afroman’s legal victory

34:53—Is there a crackdown on political speech in America?

39:22—Jawboning

42:44—Social media censorship

51:40—Solutions to reverse the free speech recession

The post The Global War on Free Speech appeared first on Reason.com.

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Let’s say you’ve worked hard, saved money, and decided to buy a house to rent out. You want to purchase it outright, with cash, through an LLC to save thousands on financing costs and limit your personal liability. You’re not laundering drug money. You’re not funneling proceeds from some shadowy foreign government. You’re doing exactly what millions of Americans do every year for perfectly boring, legitimate reasons.

Under a sweeping rule finalized by the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) in 2024, that kind of transaction would be automatically treated as “suspicious” and reported to the federal government. The rule would affect between 800,000 and 850,000 transactions per year, at a compliance cost of over half a billion dollars annually.

Not so fast, says a federal court in the Eastern District of Texas. 

In March, Judge Jeremy Kernodle held in Flowers Title Companies v. Bessent that FinCEN had exceeded its authority. The court vacated the rule entirely, wiping it off the books for everyone. 

The Bank Secrecy Act authorizes FinCEN to require reporting of “any suspicious transaction relevant to a possible violation of law.” FinCEN argued that nonfinanced real estate transfers to entities and trusts are categorically “suspicious” because some bad actors have used them to launder money. The agency cited a statistic that suggested 42 percent of covered transactions involved parties who had been flagged for supposedly suspicious transactions elsewhere.

The court was unpersuaded. As Kernodle put it, just because some bad actors have conducted nonfinanced real estate transactions doesn’t make all such transactions categorically suspicious. He also noted that banks may be overreporting supposedly suspicious transactions to begin with. And the 42 percent figure proved to be far less than FinCEN claimed: It came from a limited sample of transactions, not a representative national sample. 

As a fallback, FinCEN pivoted to a more general provision of the Bank Secrecy Act, which allows it to require financial institutions to maintain “appropriate procedures, including the collection and reporting of certain information.” But the court rejected that too, since accepting it would let the agency circumvent the very limits Congress imposed.  

The plaintiff at the center of the ruling is Celia Flowers, who spent years building her own title company before buying her first agency in 1993. Today, she and her daughter, Erica Hallmark, own and operate Flowers Title Companies, licensed in more than 80 counties across Texas and serving thousands of property buyers every year. They are the kind of small, family-owned business that politicians in both parties claim to champion.

Under FinCEN’s rule, they would have been required to collect and report pages of detailed personal information on every client who paid cash. Compliance would have meant new procedures, new staff time, new legal costs, and the constant threat of severe penalties for any inadvertent mistake. Worse, they would have been conscripted by the federal government into performing surveillance on their own clients. That’s a strange reward for a lifetime of entrepreneurship. So they challenged the rule in federal court, represented by the Pacific Legal Foundation, and won.  

Preventing money laundering may be a worthy goal, but it doesn’t justify treating every American who buys property in cash or holds it through an LLC as a presumptive criminal. These are ordinary people making sensible financial decisions, not money launderers. 

Where to draw the line on reporting requirements is a policy judgment for Congress, not for FinCEN. Congress has not given the agency the power it claims here, and the court was right to say so.

The Trump administration may still appeal the ruling. Not only is it important to affirm the decision striking down this rule, but also to affirm that statutes shouldn’t give federal agencies a blank check to pursue whatever regulation they find convenient. 

The post The Federal Government Tried To Spy on Your Financial Transactions. A Texas Court Just Said No. appeared first on Reason.com.

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From Trump v. Dow Jones & Co., decided Wednesday by Judge Darrin Gayles (S.D. Fla.):

On July 18, 2025, President Donald J. Trump filed his Complaint … for defamation based on an article in the Wall Street Journal … linking President Trump to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. On April 13, 2026, on Defendants’ motion, the Court dismissed the Complaint without prejudice based on President Trump’s failure to plausibly allege that Defendants acted with actual malice …. [See this post on the dismissal. -EV]

On April 14, 2026, President Trump filed the Motion, requesting leave to conduct limited discovery on (1) “[h]ow each Defendant acted with actual malice”; (2) “[h]ow Defendants purposefully avoided the truth of the statements at issue”; and (3) “[h]ow Defendants allegedly obtained the letter and supposedly verified its contents, including Plaintiff’s signature.” …

“As the Supreme Court has noted, … the doors of discovery do not unlock for a plaintiff armed with nothing more than conclusions.” “Rather, discovery follows ‘the filing of a well-pleaded complaint. [Surely,] [i]t is not a device to enable the plaintiff,” like President Trump here, “to make a case when his complaint has failed to state a claim.'”

Moreover, President Trump’s request to conduct discovery on issues related to actual malice before filing a well-pleaded complaint contravenes the purpose behind the actual malice standard. As detailed in the Dismissal Order, in defamation cases involving a public figure plaintiff:

[T]here is a powerful interest in ensuring that free speech is not unduly burdened by the necessity of defending expensive yet groundless litigation. Indeed, the actual malice standard was designed to allow publishers the “breathing space” needed to ensure robust reporting on public figures and events. Forcing publishers to defend inappropriate suits through expensive discovery proceedings in all cases would constrict that breathing space in exactly the manner the actual malice standard was intended to prevent. The costs and efforts required to defend a lawsuit through that stage of litigation could chill free speech nearly as effectively as the absence of the actual malice standard altogether.

Michel v. NYP Holdings, Inc. (11th Cir. 2016) (quoting New York Times v. Sullivan (1964)). Thus, allowing President Trump to conduct discovery on actual malice, where his initial attempt at pleading a defamation claim fell short, is exactly the type of “expensive yet groundless litigation” the Eleventh Circuit has cautioned against.

Amanda B. Levine, Katherine M. Bolger, and Meenakshi Krishnan (Davis Wright Tremaine LLP), Andrew J Levander and Steven A. Engel (Dechert LLP), and Eric Corey Edison, George S. LeMieux, and Timothy John McGinn, Jr. (Gunster Yoakley & Stewart, P.A.) represent defendants.

The post No Discovery into Alleged "Actual Malice" in Trump's Lawsuit Against WSJ Over Jeffrey Epstein Birthday Letter Story appeared first on Reason.com.

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Mail-order abortion is preserved, for now: “We are pleased that a safe and effective drug Americans depend on will continue to be available while this litigation proceeds,” a spokesperson for Danco Laboratories (makers of mifepristone) said in the wake of the Supreme Court deciding to grant a stay to a federal appeals court decision that had briefly required patients seeking abortions to make an in-person visit to a provider vs. getting the drugs dispensed by mail.

Pills are used in more than 60 percent of abortions nowadays. This decision allows them to be distributed by mail in the meantime while litigation continues to unfold.

“Applicants are not entitled to a stay of an adverse court order based on lost profits from their criminal enterprise,” writes Justice Clarence Thomas in his dissent. “They cannot, in any legally relevant sense, be irreparably harmed by a court order that makes it more difficult for them to commit crimes.”

“What is at stake is the perpetration of a scheme to undermine our decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization,” writes Justice Samuel Alito, referring to the 2022 decision that overturned Roe v. Wade. This is true: Louisiana is one of the states with a full abortion ban in the wake of Dobbs. The state argued to the justices that remote prescriptions are making its prohibition toothless. It’s not totally clear why the justices decided to allow mail-order mifepristone to continue in the meantime, but this isn’t the last we’ve heard of this issue. Stay tuned.

No real conclusion from Beijing: “We’ve settled a lot of different problems that other people wouldn’t have been able to settle,” President Donald Trump said of his meetings this past week with Chinese President Xi Jinping, announcing approximately zero results from the summit. “We have established a new bilateral relationship, based on constructive strategic stability,” said Xi, which is buzzword-speak for “nothing at all.”

Trump said China agreed to purchase 200 new planes from Boeing. But he wouldn’t say whether he and Xi made progress on Taiwan relations, since Trump has held off on signing a $14 billion weapons deal with Taiwan, trying to approach the issue with Xi with some finesse. It doesn’t look like any export restrictions were hammered out. No progress on getting Hong Kong democracy activist Jimmy Lai freed. No clarity on whether Nvidia can continue selling chips in China, or whether China has any use for Nvidia chips at all. It seems like very little is actually going to emerge from this summit based on early reports. (Happy to change my tune if wrong.)

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Scenes from New York: “New York lawmakers are planning a new tax on New York City homes purchased in cash for at least $1 million, according to people familiar with the state budget negotiations,” reports Bloomberg. “The proposed tax would be levied at 1% of the purchase price and would be paid by the buyer, according to the people.” It’s like they’re trying to drive out their tax base!

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QUICK HITS

• “We will beat the far-right extremists,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D–N.Y.) said Wednesday about…gerrymandering. “We’re going to win in November, and then we’re going to crush their souls as it relates to the extremism that they are trying to unleash on the American people.”
• “Yale University’s medical school discriminated against white and Asian applicants, a Justice Department investigation found Thursday,” reports The Wall Street Journal. “The findings are part of broader Trump administration probes into alleged racial bias at medical schools. Last week, the Justice Department reached a similar conclusion regarding UCLA’s medical school.”
• “‘Quality’ can be a maddeningly vague term, subject to debasement by under-informed enthusiasts and marketing con artists alike,” notes Blackbird Spyplane. “So I’m always curious about anyone who promises genuine, insidery, nuts-and-bolts bywords of top-notch garment construction.” This all culminates in a bigger question: “What constitutes ‘true’ value” in the products we buy? And a related thing I wonder about: Is craftsmanship declining over time in normal household goods? How do we judge and seek out quality?
• True:

The hantavirus ship’s route is niche for very serious birders and extreme country counters—it’s like a population specifically designed to get a pathogen to the actual ends of the earth in 60 days, especially the counters. https://t.co/KcHPDTpnDF pic.twitter.com/fgPYvCpYK1

— worms cited (@christapeterso) May 14, 2026

• Checking in on the French:

The french are a tolerant, broad-minded people, but they will not forgive a president for the crime of not fucking his mistress. https://t.co/Vlme3sHwJi

— Unworthy Hand (@kisstheblade_) May 14, 2026

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Yesterday evening, as expected, the Supreme Court granted mifepristone manufacturers’ requests for a stay of an order of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit blocking a 2023 Food and Drug Administration regulation allowing doctors to prescribe mifepristone as an abortifacient via telemedicine. The order was issued shortly after the expiration of an administrative stay entered, and then extended, by Justice Alito. Justices Thomas and Alito each dissented. There are no other recorded votes.

As is common in such situations, the order in Danco Laboratories v. Louisiana stays that of the lower court pending the disposition of the appeal and any subsequent petition for certiorari. This means the case will find its way back to the Court, perhaps even later next term.

The order was unsurprising because, as I noted here, the Fifth Circuit’s order blocked the implementation of a federal regulation on questionable grounds. Louisiana’s suit is based upon an aggressive and somewhat speculative theory of standing and the Fifth Circuit’s order relies upon faulty reasoning from a prior, since-vacated, opinion from the prior round of mifepristone litigation. Thus there were at least two stay considerations weighing strongly in the manufacturers’ favor: The Fifth Circuit had blocked a federal regulation and the manufacturers have a strong argument they are likely to prevail on the merits.

That said, Justices Thomas and Alito make some weighty points in their defense, and the issuance of a stay here was never certain. As I noted last week, while an army of amici filed briefs with the Court, the federal government did not. The federal government neither sought a stay from the Court nor filed a brief supporting the manufacturers’ defense of the FDA’s rule. So while blocking a regulation may presumptively constitute irreparable harm to the federal government, it is not clear that such concerns should carry much weight if the federal government does not raise them. The federal government is not obligated to defend every agency regulation at every turn, even against questionable judgments. (And, for what is worth, this is not the first time this has happened with the FDA. For example, the agency dropped its appeal to  American Association of Pediatrics v. FDA, in which a district court accepted a questionable standing claim and forced the agency to regulate vaping products more aggressively.)

Absent an FDA filing, the manufacturers had to establish irreparable harm on their own, and this is where Justices Thomas and Alito found their stay requests wanting. Neither found the manufacturers’ concerns about reduced mifepristone sales particularly compelling. Nor was either moved by concerns that the Fifth Circuit order would make it more difficult to obtain mifepristone in jurisdictions that (unlike Louisiana) allow its use.

As Justice Thomas noted, federal law (the Comstock Act) already prohibits the distribution of abortifacients via the mail. Therefore, he reasoned, the manufacturers were effectively complaining that the Fifth Circuit order would deprive them of “lost profits from their criminal enterprise.” I take Justice Thomas’ point in the Comstock Act, which remains on the books even if it is never enforced, but the FDA order at issue is not limited to mail-order prescriptions.

Justice Alito made some similar points, while also stressing that mifepristone manufacturers are well aware that the FDA’s 2023 order facilitates the provision of mifepristone in jurisdictions where its use to terminate pregnancies is illegal, that the FDA has acknowledged concerns about the analyses upon which the 2023 regulation was based, and that the manufacturers’ claim of irreparable harm is undermined by the fact that the FDA has given no indication it would take any enforcement action against manufacturers were the 2023 rule stayed, and it could not be forced to take such actions by federal courts. Prescribing doctors and potential users of mifepristone may be affected, but neither were parties to the case.

Justice Alito’s dissent validates Louisiana’s concern that it’s post-Dobbs ability to enforce its own abortion laws has been undermined by “certain medical providers, private organizations, and States that abhor” its laws. No doubt this is true. If other states and the federal government allow the distribution of something, whether mifepristone or marijuana, other states may have a more difficult time enforcing their own prohibitions. The federal government has the unquestioned power to limit the distribution of mifepristone into states where its use is barred, but it has chosen not to, and the FDA is not required to base its regulations on such concerns. [As for what other states can or cannot do, I recommend Professor Steve Sachs’ comments at this Federalist Society panel on abortion law post-Dobbs]

Justice Alito also paused to note that the Court’s issuance of an “unreasoned order” granting stays of a lower court action, no doubt to tweak those (both on and off the Court) who routinely complain about “shadow docket” orders issued without explanation (and, in this case, on behalf of private corporations too). He can be forgiven for thinking that many complaints about “shadow docket” orders are driven as much or more by disagreements on the merits as they are concerns about process.

The post Supreme Court "Shadow Docket" Order Preserves Mifepristone Via Telemedicine–For Now appeared first on Reason.com.

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From Bisogno v. Libertella, decided two months ago by the New York Appellate Division, Justices Francesca E. Connolly, Paul Wooten, Helen Voutsinas, and James P. McCormack:

On May 9, 2013, the plaintiff and the defendants appeared for a hearing in the Family Court, Richmond County, relating to a child support proceeding between the defendant John Libertella (hereinafter John) and his former wife. The plaintiff, a lawyer, appeared on behalf of his sister-in-law, John’s former wife. John was accompanied by his father, the defendant Giovanni Libertella. As the parties left the hearing, they were involved in a verbal altercation, which John video-recorded on his phone. The defendants told a court officer that the plaintiff punched John in the face and that John wanted the police called. The police were called, and the plaintiff was arrested.

In November 2013, the District Attorney’s office dismissed the charges against the plaintiff. Multiple news outlets reported on the altercation and the plaintiff’s subsequent arrest.

The plaintiff commenced this action against the defendants asserting, inter alia, causes of action sounding in defamation per se, false arrest, and malicious prosecution. After a trial, the jury returned a verdict in favor of the plaintiff and against both defendants on the cause of action alleging defamation per se and against John on the causes of action alleging false arrest and malicious prosecution….

The court upheld the finding of liability:

[B]ased on the evidence adduced by the plaintiff at trial, there was a valid line of reasoning and permissible inferences from which the jury could have concluded that the statements made by the defendants were defamatory per se, because they falsely accused the plaintiff of a serious crime, attempted assault….

“To be held liable for false arrest, a [civilian] defendant must have affirmatively induced the officer to act, such as taking an active part in the arrest and procuring it to be made or showing active, officious and undue zeal, to the point where the officer is not acting of his or her own volition.” “[O]ne who wrongfully accuses another of criminal conduct and induces or procures that person’s arrest may be liable for false arrest.”

In order to recover damages for malicious prosecution, a plaintiff must establish “that a criminal proceeding was commenced; that it was terminated in favor of the accused; that it lacked probable cause; and that the proceeding was brought out of actual malice.” “A civilian defendant who merely provides information to law enforcement authorities, who are free to exercise their own independent judgment as to whether to make an arrest and file criminal charges, will not be held liable for false arrest or malicious prosecution.” “[T]o be held liable for malicious prosecution, it must be shown that the defendant played an active role in the prosecution, such as giving advice and encouragement or importuning the authorities to act.” “Merely giving false information to the authorities does not constitute initiation of the proceeding without an additional allegation or showing that, at the time the information was provided, the defendant knew it to be false, yet still gave it to the police or the District Attorney.”

Here, the record demonstrated that the plaintiff would not have been arrested but for the defendants’ false statements that the plaintiff had punched John, as well as John’s statements importuning the police to arrest the plaintiff. John instigated the arrest, making the police his agents in confining the plaintiff, based upon false information that the plaintiff had assaulted him. Furthermore, the criminal proceeding was instituted by the District Attorney based upon, among other things, false information given by John.

But the court concluded that the jury’s damages awards ($10M in compensatory damages and $250K in punitives) were excessive, and ordered a new trial unless the plaintiff agreed to reducing the damages to $400K in compensatory damages and $100K in punitives.

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From Robinson v. Damphousse, decided Wednesday by Judge Alan Albright (W.D. Tex.):

Plaintiff Dr. Idris Robinson is a non-tenured, but tenure track Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Texas State University. On June 29, 2024, Dr. Robinson delivered a speech in Asheville, North Carolina titled “Strategic Lessons from the Palestinian Resistance” (“Asheville Speech”). Professor Robinson in no way affiliated the talk with Texas State University. During the Asheville Speech, audience members who disagreed with Dr. Robinson’s views attempted to livestream the event. A scuffle broke out. The police report documenting the incident does not identify Dr. Robinson as a suspect or witness. Defendants do not contend that Dr. Robinson incited or encouraged the violence.

Dr. Robinson resumed teaching in the fall without incident. After the 2024 fall semester, and again in March 2025, Dr. Robinson received excellent performance reviews. ECF No. 1-3 at 74 (“Dr. Robinson is a fantastic colleague, excellent in all areas of review. Worthy of Merit.”); id. at 109 (2024-2025 3rd Year Tenure-Track Reappointment) (noting that the Associate Provost’s Action Recommendation is to reappoint Dr. Robinson for one-year and that Dr. Robinson is “making good progress towards tenure”).

On June 5, 2025, individuals who disagreed with the content of Dr. Robinson’s Asheville Speech began calling for Dr. Robinson’s firing on Instagram. That day, due to the posts, Texas State University began receiving complaints about Dr. Robinson. One day later, Dr. Robinson was placed on administrative leave due to “multiple complaints and allegations regarding an incident that occurred in the summer of 2024.” In July 2025, Dr. Robinson was informed that “the decision has been reached not to extend your contract beyond the 2025-2026 academic year….” …

Dr. Robinson contends the University’s non-renewal decision was due to the content of the Asheville Speech, which Dr. Robinson contends violates his First Amendment Rights. To date, Defendants have not offered any other reason for Dr. Robinson’s non-renewal, nor do Defendants refute Dr. Robinson’s contention that he was not renewed due to the Asheville Speech….

The court issued a preliminary injunction requiring that Robinson be reinstated; an excerpt from the analysis:

To demonstrate a prima facie case for a First Amendment retaliation claim, a plaintiff must establish that: “(1) he suffered an adverse employment [action]; (2) his speech involved a matter of public concern; (3) his interest in speaking outweighed the governmental defendant’s interest in promoting efficiency; and (4) the protected speech motivated the defendant’s conduct.” Here, retaliation elements 2, 3, and 4 are not disputed by Defendants. {Further, Defendants do not contend that the Asheville Speech’s content fell within the First Amendment’s “permitted restrictions” [referring to exceptions such as for incitement, true threats, and the like -EV].} The Court, having reviewed Dr. Robinson’s evidence, finds that he has met his burden of persuasion for retaliation elements 2, 3, and 4. Dr. Robinson satisfied element 2 because the Israel-Palestine conflict is a matter of public concern. Dr. Robinson satisfied element 3 because the Asheville Speech did not disrupt university operations. Dr. Robinson satisfied element 4 because Defendants essentially admit, and the timeline confirms, that Dr. Robinson’s speech motivated Defendants’ decision not to renew his contract. Thus, the only question remaining for the Court is whether Dr. Robinson suffered an adverse employment action….

The Fifth Circuit has elaborated what constitutes an adverse employment action in the context of a First Amendment retaliation claim: “Adverse employment actions are discharges, demotions, refusals to hire, refusals to promote, and reprimands.” … According to Defendants, “non-renewal of a term contract does not appear on” [this] list and, thus, is not an adverse employment action…. [But] Defendants’ refusal to renew is materially indistinguishable with a refusal to hire or a discharge …. The Fifth Circuit has confirmed that a refusal to re-appoint can constitute an adverse employment action equal to a discharge….

JT Morris (Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression) and Michael Thad Allen and Samantha Harris (Allen Harris PLLC) represent plaintiff.

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