“Justice Kavanaugh Unlocked Ways to Fight Foreign Interference”

Ellen Weintraub NYT oped:

Among many other recent developments not likely on anyone’s 2020 bingo card, a Supreme Court decision about foreign aid and legalized prostitution has shattered perceived constraints on the authority of the United States to robustly defend its elections against foreign interference.

This summer, in U.S. Agency for International Development v. Alliance for Open Society Internatonal, Inc., the Supreme Court, in a 5-to-4 decision, with the majority opinion written by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, ruled that the U.S. government can compel overseas public health organizations that receive U.S. foreign aid to publicly oppose prostitution.

Yet Justice Kavanaugh’s decree — that “foreign citizens outside U.S. territory do not possess rights under the U.S. Constitution” — is so expansive that it spills into election law, giving federal and state governments ample authority to defend us against the full range of foreign political warfare, without fear of violating the First Amendment.

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