Free Speech

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit heard oral arguments in a lawsuit seeking to uphold the Seattle Middle East Awareness Campaign’s free speech rights on Metro buses. It is when we are faced with speech which is upsetting to some people that support of the First Amendment is most important.

The Seattle’s park permitting law gives officials too much arbitrary discretion in granting or denying applications. It needs to be changed to meet constitutional standards.   

The ACLU-WA is appealing its lawsuit seeking to have Sound Transit run a paid ad by Working Washington touting the importance of good jobs at SeaTac. “ When a public agency operates an advertising program open to a wide variety of messages, individual government officials should not be left to decide subjectively what is ‘controversial.’

The ACLU of Washington has decided not to appeal the April 10, 2012 ruling by the U.S. District Court in Spokane against library patrons’ challenge of the Internet filtering policy of a regional library system. While the ACLU supports the American Library Association’s position that public libraries should not filter Internet content for patrons, the current facts in the case do not support an effective appeal.

The ACLU of Washington has decided not to appeal the April 10, 2012 ruling by the U.S. District Court in Spokane against library patrons’ challenge of the Internet filtering policy of a regional library system. While the ACLU supports the American Library Association’s position that public libraries should not filter Internet content for patrons, the current facts in the case do not support an effective appeal.

The ACLU-WA has joined the legal team representing Working Washington in its lawsuit challenging Sound Transit’s refusal to run an ad promoting good jobs for low-income workers at Sea-Tac Airport.

Text messaging, chats, Facebook, blogs, YouTube, and a host of other new avenues raise both new and old questions about legal rights. Now the ACLU-WA has published the first-ever guidebook laying out the rights of Washington public school students in using electronic communications devices.