In her ruling, US District Judge Nancy Torresen called the #ExecutiveOrder an #unconstitutional infringement on #FreeSpeech.
"The executive order appears to restrict substantially more speech than necessary to further that end," she wrote.
"The executive order broadly prohibits any speech-based services that benefit the prosecutor, regardless of whether those beneficial services relate to an #ICC investigation of the United States, Israel, or another US ally."

"classic #authoritarian playbook... Today it’s non-citizens who “don’t deserve” #FirstAmendment protections. Tomorrow it could be naturalized citizens whose loyalty is questioned. Then citizens who associate with the “wrong” people or express the “wrong” views...

#DonaldTrump is already talking about stripping citizenship from #Americans whose speech he dislikes."
- @mmasnick.bsky.social

https://www.techdirt.com/2025/07/18/appeals-court-judge-claims-against-all-historical-evidence-that-the-first-amendment-doesnt-apply-to-non-citizens/

Update. Bravo to the Knight First Amendment Institute (@knightcolumbia) for weighing in against the #IHRA definition of #antisemitism.
https://knightcolumbia.org/content/knight-institute-sounds-alarm-over-new-restrictions-on-campus-speech

"It’s disappointing that some of the nation’s leading institutions of higher education are agreeing to curtail and punish criticism of #Israel in the name of fighting discrimination [and antisemitism]. As major free speech groups have recognized, using the IHRA definition of antisemitism to delineate the outer boundaries of free speech will have the effect of proscribing or deterring legitimate political speech and scholarship. The lawyer who drafted the IHRA definition has raised similar concerns."

The #Trump admin has claimed it is trying to force change at #Harvard & other top-level #universities across the #US, contending they have become bastions of leftist "woke" thought & *#antisemitism*.
[support for #Palestinian #HumanRights is not equivalent to antisemitism.]

The #DOJ letters, along w/ interviews w/ several people close to the university, provide new details about the lengths the agency was prepared to go to to compel changes at #UVA — part of escalating actions by the #Trump admin to root out #DEI from institutions & reshape the country’s colleges & #universities.

letters: https://www.washingtonpost.com/documents/9fd88174-ebf4-4878-9fce-cc20f23e6a9f.pdf

“Time is running short, & the Department’s patience is wearing thin,” read a June 17 letter from top #DOJ ofcls Harmeet K. Dhillon & Gregory W. Brown, both #UVA alumni. “Dramatic, wholesale changes are required, now, to repair what appears to be a history of clear abuses & breaches of our nation’s laws & our Constitution by the University of Virginia under its current administration.”

The letters, obtained by WaPo through a records request, revealed the agency’s increasing frustration at #UVA. They warned that a failure by the #university to take “immediate corrective action” could lead to punitive steps, including possible termination of federal #funding.

#FreedomOfThePress Foundation, a #FirstAmendment group, has said it planned to file a lawsuit on behalf of shareholders against Redstone & the #Paramount board in the event of a settlement with #Trump; the group has retained the prominent litigator Abbe Lowell for its effort.

Paramount is planning to make changes to its board on Wednesday.

Many lawyers had dismissed #Trump’s lawsuit as baseless & believed that #CBS would have ultimately prevailed in #court, in part because the network did not report anything factually inaccurate, & the #FirstAmendment gives #publishers wide leeway to determine how to present information.

The court says that the #Texas #law "simply requires proof of age to access content that is obscene to minors" & therefore "does not directly regulate the protected speech of adults."

The court doesn’t seem to have considered the violation of #privacy implications .

#porn #SCOTUS #FirstAmendment

The very short summary of the ruling in
#FreeSpeech Coalition v. Paxton: "The power to require age verification is within a State's authority to prevent children from accessing sexually explicit content."

So #SCOTUS is basically simplifying down to a #StatesRights issue.

#privacy #Texas #porn #SCOTUS #FirstAmendment