civilliberties
Last Friday, activist Shannon Watts took to social media to respond to the Supreme Court's 8–1 ruling in U.S. v. Rahimi, in which the justices ruled it is legal for the government to temporarily disarm someone whom a court has found poses a safety threat to others. "The Rahimi case should never have been taken up by SCOTUS," she said in a now-deleted post on X, formerly Twitter. "To even question whether domestic abusers should have access to guns shows just how extreme this court has become." It was an odd thing to say, for a few reasons. For one, the decision, by pretty much all accounts, wa...
Reason
When someone claims to have been arrested in retaliation for constitutionally protected speech, what sort of evidence is necessary to make that case? Five years ago in Nieves v. Bartlett, the Supreme Court held that an arrest can violate the First Amendment even if it was based on probable cause, provided the claimant can present "objective evidence that he was arrested when otherwise similarly situated individuals not engaged in the same sort of protected speech had not been." Today in Gonzalez v. Trevino, the Court said that showing does not require "very specific comparator evidence" indica...
Reason
Though still on the books, Arizona's near-total ban on abortion was buried deep in the state's history—until recently. An April decision from the state's Supreme Court breathed new life into this long-dormant law. The ban in question—first passed by the territory of Arizona in 1864 and later codified into Arizona state law—mandated two to five years' prison time for intentionally acting "to procure the miscarriage" of a pregnant woman "unless it is necessary to save her life." This law became unenforceable in 1973 when Roe v. Wade recognized a federal right to an abortion. Since then, the stat...
Reason
A Florida man has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit three years after a Marion County sheriff's deputy arrested him for filming officers from a public sidewalk. In 2021, Marion County Sheriff's Deputy Neil Rosaci arrested George Nathansen and charged him with obstruction of justice for refusing to follow his orders to leave the scene of an investigation. However, body camera footage showed Nathansen standing at least 30 feet away on a public sidewalk before Rosaci walked over and handcuffed him. In Nathansen's lawsuit, filed last Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of ...
Reason
With the stroke of his pen, President Joe Biden could take a stand against authoritarian restrictions on free speech by issuing a posthumous pardon to D.M. Bennett, the freethought publisher convicted of violating the Comstock Act in 1879. Over the past year, judges have revived the long-dead Comstock Act to justify restrictions on speech and abortion drugs. Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas even approvingly cited the moribund law in recent arguments. For these reasons, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) has submitted a petition to the president se...
Reason
In this week's The Reason Roundtable, editors Matt Welch, Katherine Mangu-Ward, Nick Gillespie, and Peter Suderman pore over recent Supreme Court decisions regarding the abortion pill mifepristone and the Trump administration's ban on gun bump stocks. 02:01—Supreme Court rulings on abortion pill and bump stocks 16:45—Secret recording of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito 27:45—Weekly Listener Question 37:11—Hunter Biden's conviction 44:30—This week's cultural recommendations Mentioned in this podcast: "Unanimous Supreme Court Rejects Abortion Pill Challenge," by Elizabeth Nolan Brown "The Igno...
Reason
The House passed a large defense bill Friday evening that included a provision that would automatically enroll young men between the ages of 18 and 26* for the Selective Service. The House's version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which would authorize $895 billion in military spending, passed by a vote of 217–199. It's unlikely to be picked up by the Democrat-controlled Senate because of numerous amendments regarding abortion, diversity efforts, and transgender medical treatments. The Selective Service provision, though, is part of an enduring bipartisan effort to keep the f...
Reason
Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry last week signed a law that criminalizes approaching police officers within 25 feet, provided that the officer tells any would-be approachers to stand back, effectively creating a legal force field that law enforcement can activate at their discretion. "No person shall knowingly or intentionally approach within twenty-five feet of a peace officer%20%C2%A0%22Peace%20officer,and%20parole%20officers.) who is lawfully engaged in the execution of his official duties after the peace officer has ordered the person to stop approaching or to retreat," the law states. Offender...
Reason
For nearly a decade, the transit authority in Washington, D.C., has faced controversy over restrictive guidelines governing advertisements in the city's subways and busses. Now, it might have to scrap some of them. The controversial rules prohibit any ad that is "issues-oriented" or "intended to influence members of the public regarding an issue on which there are varying opinions." The guidelines also single out religious ads, prohibiting "advertisements that promote or oppose any religion, religious practice or belief." Last month, a D.C. district court ruled in favor of a Christian group se...
Reason
Last September, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung caused a kerfuffle by mistakenly reporting that the former president had bought a Glock 19 pistol decorated with his portrait during a visit to a gun dealer in Summerville, South Carolina. At the time, Trump faced four criminal indictments, which would have made him guilty of several federal felonies—the purchase itself, plus two more felonies related to falsely presenting himself as an eligible buyer—if he had actually completed the transaction that Cheung described. Now that a New York jury has convicted Trump of 34 felonies involving fa...
Reason
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