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Jane E Kirtley, University of Minnesota An FBI raid on Project Veritas leader James O'Keefe’s home in early November 2021 has sparked an unusual demonstration of support from the very establishment media that O'Keefe has spent his career targeting and trashing. The raid was conducted on the suspicion that O’Keefe and former Project Veritas staffers were implicated in the theft of President Joe Biden’s daughter Ashley’s diary before the 2020 election. The Department of Justice said the cellphones sought in the raid would reveal evidence of aiding and abetting the transport of stolen property worth $5,000 or more across state lines, and of failure to report the theft to law enforcement in violation of federal law. Project Veritas says that the phones contain attorney-client privileged inf...

Free speech advocates have long believed that suing a news organization threatens free speech. Democracy needs a press to be free to report, without fear or favor, the facts as it sees them. But two recent legal actions against news organizations indicate that the First Amendment provides sufficient free speech protection, even when punishing lawsuits are filed against the press. Falsehoods have flooded public discourse in recent years through outlets including talk radio, cable TV channels and social media such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Reddit and Instagram. The proliferation of these falsehoods has seemingly normalized the practice of spreading lies. Earlier this year Smartmatic, a little-known voter technology firm, sued cable channel Fox News for US$2.7 billion alleging defamat...

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Strange Allies In The Fight To Protect Press Freedom: Project Veritas And The Mainstream Media

Freedom Of The Press: Why Lawsuits Against The Media May Not Hurt