Censorship

President Donald Trump’s arrival in Beijing on Wednesday will serve as a test of reach for his preferred communications tool, Twitter. The White House is declining to comment on the president’s ability to tweet in China or the precautions being taken to protect his communications in the heavily monitored state. It’s about more than cybersecurity. Knowing the president’s penchant for showmanship, some aides are trying to build up social media suspense before Air Force One is wheels-down in Beijing. Spoiler alert: The American president will get his way.

Georgetown Law’s Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection (ICAP) filed a friend of the court brief on behalf of seven professors Monday in support of the Columbia Knight First Amendment Institute’s lawsuit challenging Trump’s ability to block opponents from his @realDonaldTrump Twitter feed.

On October 17, President Donald Trump launched a vague, yet ominous Twitter-driven attack on NBC, rhetorically asking, “With all of the Fake News coming out of NBC and the Networks, at what point is it appropriate to challenge their License?  Bad for country!” The short answer to the President’s question is “never.”  A slightly longer answer is that there is no license to challenge and, even if there were, no broadcaster should worry that its license would ever be in jeopardy because of disagreement with its programming. [Andrew Jay Schwartzman]

On October 23, 2017, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai responded to multiple Members of Congress regarding First Amendment freedoms and the independence of the FCC. Numerous lawmakers, notably House Commerce Committee Ranking Member Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ), Communications Subcommittee Ranking Member Michael Doyle (D-PA), and Rep Anna Eshoo (D-CA), had written to Chairman Pai over the influence of a radio network funded by the Russian government being used on U.S. airwaves to influence the 2016 presidential election.

Instant-messaging apps, video streaming and other new content platforms in China will face closer scrutiny under new rules issued by the country’s internet regulators. In a statement Oct 30, the Cyberspace Administration of China said messaging apps and other new forms of information dissemination can be used to engage in illegal behavior.

[Commentary] President Donald Trump’s appetite for shutting down the free press is a reminder of his open admiration for strong men dictators like Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Turkey’s Recep Erdogan and the Philippines’ Rodrigo Duterte. Those strongmen limit the freedom of the press and, in some cases, kill and jail journalists.

[Commentary] In this age of “new” censorship and blunt manipulation of political speech, where is the First Amendment? Americans like to think of it as the great protector of the press and of public debate. Yet it seems to have become a bit player, confined to a narrow and often irrelevant role. It is time to ask: Is the First Amendment obsolete? If so, what can be done? These questions arise because the jurisprudence of the First Amendment was written for a different set of problems in a very different world.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai got a grilling from Democratic members of the House Communications Subcommittee, who were unhappy with his deregulatory thrust and his perceived failure to sufficiently parry the President's threats against TV licenses. Committee Ranking Member Frank Pallone (D-NJ) was among a host of Democrats who upbraided the chairman for what they said was a delayed, and "tepid," as Rep Anna Eshoo (D-CA) put it, response to the President's tweeted threats against TV licenses and NBC over a news story he called fake.

Chairman Pai said he had repeated "again and again and again" that the First Amendment must be and would be at the heart of the FCC's work, including journalists reporting as they see fit without government interference. He said that was why he opposed a news diversity study under his predecessor. Chairman Pai said his record is clear, but that presidential attacks on the press were not new. But it was not as clear to Democrats that the chairman was not leaving room in his past statements for actions beyond just not pulling licenses. Pressed for more clarity from Pallone, Pai committed to not affecting license transfers in other ways due to the content of newscasts, not to launch investigations based on the content of newscasts, and that the FCC would not retaliate against companies based on the content of newscasts.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai said he has not talked to the White House about his response to the President's tweets about challenging broadcast licenses. President Donald Trump, unhappy with an NBC News story be branded fake and fiction, had tweeted that someone ought to challenge the licenses and they should be revoked, "if necessary."

Chairman Pai was asked repeatedly about the issue in a press conference following the FCC meeting Oct 24. Asked if the President or White House had reached out to him on the license challenge issue, Pai said no. The chairman was asked about why it took him so long to respond to the President's tweets. Chairman Pai countered that he responded the first time he was asked, which response had been to reiterate that he supports the First Amendment, that the FCC is an independent agency, and to say that the FCC can't pull a license over the content of a newscast, no matter who asked it to. Chairman Pai said that his independence as a regulator was clear and suggested that the focus on his response was politically motivated. "I understand that those who oppose my agenda would like me to be distracted by the controversy of the day," he said.

The chairman would not say whether he thought the President's threats had had a chilling effect on the First Amendment, sticking with a regulator's answer that he was going to apply the facts and the law and make the appropriate decision. The FCC can actually pull a license over content in specific circumstances, but those don't include what news stories are covered or how they are covered.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Oct 18 said he could not make a “blanket commitment” to not putting journalists in jail. During testimony in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) asked AG Sessions if he could pledge to not place “reporters in jail for doing their jobs.” “Well, I don’t know that I can make a blanket commitment to that effect. But I will say this, we have not taken any aggressive action against the media at this point,” Sessions replied. “But we have matters that involve the most serious national security issues that put our country at risk and we will utilize the authorities that we have legally and constitutionally if we have to.” “We always try to find an alternative way, as you probably know, Sen. Klobuchar, to directly confronting media persons, but that’s not a total blanket protection,” Sessions said.