Freeman hired a lawyer, though it wasnât clear what could actually be done. But, in 2021, the lawyer was approached by a nonprofit called Protect Democracy. The group had been founded a few years earlier by former lawyers in the office of the White House counsel during the Obama Administration. Protect Democracy, which now has more than a hundred employees and a budget of thirty million dollars, aims to defend America from authoritarianism; it has worked on a range of litigation, legislation, research, communications, and software projectsâincluding VoteShield, a platform now monitoring the integrity of voter-registration data in two dozen statesâand has successfully advocated for changes to election laws. One of its founders, Ian Bassin, was recently given a MacArthur âgeniusâ grant. But P.D. has often pursued its goals in novel ways. It has recently begun to use defamation lawâwhich was designed to protect against reputational damage rather than authoritarian takeoverâto fight against the flood of disinformation. If the group sued the right liars, its members believed, they could stop dangerous lies from spreading. The strategy has concerned some free-speech advocates. But Bassin believes that targeted defamation suits can âproduce a systemic rebalancing of incentives to advance truth.â In late 2021, Protect Democracy sued Giuliani, and a half dozen others, for defamation of Freeman and Moss. Freeman, who often quotes from the Bible, told me that she felt like an underdog in the fight. âI think about David and his slingshot,â she said. âHe had five smooth stones.â…
As this was unfolding, P.D. was working on what it called its âLaw for Truthâ strategy. âWe could see the dominoes,â Rachel Goodman, a former A.C.L.U. attorney, who heads the Law for Truth project, told me. A relatively small number of individuals and media outlets, she explained, account for most election-related disinformation online. According to one study, more than half the retweets of the forty-three most prominent false or misleading stories about voting, prior to the 2020 election, originated from three dozen users. Since 1964, the protective standard in libel law has been âactual maliceâ: if you could show that someone had willfully lied or recklessly spread mistruths, and damaged a reputation in the process, you might hold him legally responsible. âThe idea of getting accountability for people defamed as part of the Big Lie was really interesting,â Goodman said….
If thereâs a center-left consensus on the perils of democratic instability at the moment, it does not extend to P.D.âs use of defamation law. Some of the pushback concerns free speech. âThis kind of litigation may make liars more cautious,â Eugene Volokh, who teaches First Amendment law at U.C.L.A., told me. âBut the good chilling effect on lies and the bad chilling effect on truths walk hand in hand.â In an age of incipient authoritarianism, itâs especially important that speech protections be broad, critics say, so that news organizations are not afraid of reporting on what they believe to be true. Fox invoked free speech in a recent counterclaim against Smartmatic, saying that its lawsuit is âdesigned to serve as a warning to others to think twice before exercising their own free speech rights.â In January, a judge allowed Fox to advance its claim. Nora Benavidez, a free-speech attorney in Atlanta, explained, âGoing after the purveyors of disinformation must be very carefully done so we donât develop case law that ultimately undermines free speechâwhich, by its very nature, includes lies.â
Samantha Hamilton, an attorney at the University of Georgia Law Schoolâs First Amendment Clinic, told me that defamation law was a deficient tool in the fight against disinformation because the biggest lies, such as âThe election was stolenâ or âVaccines donât work,â typically donât cause reputational harm to a specific individual. âDefamation really doesnât have a role to play,â she said. Bassin defends the projectâs results so far. Ten days after OAN was served with the lawsuit, DirecTV informed OAN that it would not renew the networkâs contract that spring. Bassin acknowledged that several factors were at play but told me, âOur complaint was the straw that broke the camelâs back.â Soon after, Verizon also cut ties with OAN. âAs a result of us filing, thereâs a good case to be made that OAN lost access to a quarter of U.S. households with TVs,â Bassin said. (A spokesperson for DirecTV told me that its decision was primarily financial.) Still, as Benavidez pointed out, even millions in damages might have little long-term effect on behemoths like Fox. âItâs just the cost of doing business now,â she said.
Behavioral experts have also found that most people tend to discount or reframe new information, like legal verdicts, that donât fit into their belief systems. This form of cognitive bias complicates the problem of disinformation and potentially undermines attempts to fix it with verdicts. âIf weâre expecting defamation law to do much of the heavy lifting in solving a complex issue like disinformation, I think weâre expecting too much,â Hamilton said. During the Giuliani trial, I noticed an audience member in the courtroom, a lawyer named Fletcher Thompson, who seemed distressed. During a bathroom break, I approached him. After days of testimony, he was still convinced that Biden had stolen the election. âI can see what happened,â he told me. âI make my own inferences. I think there was a plan to do this.â
Law for Truth plans to file more suits in the coming months. Ultimately, though, Bassin and his colleagues understand that P.D.âs impact has limits. Democracy is neither a natural system nor an easy one to maintain…
“A flyer in her name told migrants to vote for Biden. But she says she didn’t write it”
NPR deep dive into a story previously featured on ELB from the NYT:
Zavala said a “blanket of fear” fell over her in the days after the flyers went viral.
“I didn’t know how to respond. I didn’t know if I should respond,” Zavala said. “If I say something, is it going to fuel the fire more? Will this cause more death threats?”
She shut down her social media accounts as the hateful messages kept coming.
She said it bothered her that no one publicizing the flyer on social media or in Congress had checked with her about whether she or anyone at RCM had written it.
“They never cared to call me and find out whether it was true or not,” Zavala said. “I mean, that really is, you know, an attack on my character as a person.”
Rubin told NPR that it “certainly occurred to me” to ask RCM to verify the flyer when he visited, but he didn’t want to bring attention to himself because he said he had previously been kidnapped by the Gulf Cartel near there. “I need to maintain a low profile here because I am in enemy territory. The cartel literally told me, ‘Never come back here again.'”
Howell, a former attorney for the Department of Homeland Security, acknowledged that the Oversight Project did not reach out to Zavala before publishing the X thread because “it was in the immediate public interest to know about the invasion in the United States.” He added, “Would the United States reach out to the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] to verify intelligence about them flooding fentanyl into this country? Of course not.”
Howell noted that the Heritage Foundation’s news outlet, The Daily Signal, sought comment from Zavala after the thread was published. The first story that The Daily Signal published about the thread, on April 15, does not mention seeking comment from Zavala; only the second story, on April 16, does. The second story says Zavala didn’t respond to The Daily Signal.
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Zavala said there are a number of clues that suggest the flyer was not written by her or anyone at RCM.
It contains errors, such as “Bienvedinos” instead of “Bienvenidos” (Welcome). Zavala is not a native Spanish-speaker, but she said she checks the grammar and spelling of what she writes in Spanish.
Whoever made the flyer relied heavily on RCM’s English-language website, which has dated posts that stop after 2021. Zavala said she has not had the time or resources to update it.
The flyer lists a defunct phone number that Zavala said she hasn’t used in years but is still listed on the website.
The first two sentences of the flyer appear to be an old description of the organization copied directly from the website and run through Google Translate into Spanish. It mentions that HIAS shares the office, an arrangement that ended in 2022, according to both groups.
The next two sentences, which remind readers to vote for Biden when they get to the U.S., are written in a different style and are riddled with more errors than the previous ones. That section translates “United States” as “estados unidos,” without the usual capitalization, while the previous section uses the abbreviation “los EE. UU.”
There are also inaccuracies in the X thread. The thread says the site where the video shows the flyers is a “Resource Center Matamoras (RCM) location.”
But RCM has not staffed the site for years, which was also confirmed to NPR by people from other local nongovernmental organizations who work with migrants. Glady Cañas of Ayudåndoles a Triunfar and Andrea Rudnik of Team Brownsville both told NPR that there is no longer a formal camp at that site.
NPR visited the site and saw an informal encampment with a small number of migrants staying there, but did not see any evidence of the flyers. Anyone can access the encampment, which is in a city park along the banks of the Rio Grande.
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“What Trump promised oil CEOs as he asked them to steer $1 billion to his campaign”
Washington Post. It’s rare to see candidates being this overt about what they’ll do if they get campaign contributions. Incidents like this should be part of the record justifying any future campaign finance regulation.
Trumpâs response stunned several of the executives in the room overlooking the ocean: You all are wealthy enough, he said, that you should raise $1 billion to return me to the White House. At the dinner, he vowed to immediately reverse dozens of President Bidenâs environmental rules and policies and stop new ones from being enacted, according to people with knowledge of the meeting, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a private conversation.
Giving $1 billion would be a âdeal,â Trump said, because of the taxation and regulation they would avoid thanks to him, according to the people. . . .
Trump vowed at the dinner to immediately end the Biden administrationâs freeze on permits for new liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports â a top priority for the executives, according to three people present. âYouâll get it on the first day,â Trump said, according to the recollection of an attendee. . . .
Trump told the executives that he would start auctioning off more leases for oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, a priority that several of the executives raised. He railed against wind power, as The Post previously reported. And he said he would reverse the restrictions on drilling in the Alaskan Arctic. . . .
At the dinner,Trump also promised that he would scrap Bidenâs âmandateâ on electric vehicles â mischaracterizing ambitious rules that the Environmental Protection Agency recently finalized, according to people who attended. . . .
Despite Trumpâs huge fundraising ask, oil donors and their allies have yet to donate hundreds of millions to his campaign. They havecontributed more than $6.4 million to Trumpâs joint fundraising committee in the first three months of this year, according to an analysis by the advocacy group Climate Power. Oil billionaire Harold Hamm and others are scheduling a fundraiser for Trump later this year, advisers said, where they expect large checks to flow to his bid to return to office.
âNew York early voting by mail law upheld by appellate courtâ
New Yorkersâ right to vote early by mail was upheld in a unanimous appellate court decision Thursday, further cementing the option of no-excuse absentee voting in the upcoming presidential election.
The ruling also serves as a blow to U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik and New York Republicans who brought the case against Gov. Kathy Hochul and the state Board of Elections. A state Supreme Court justice in Albany previously sided with the state in maintaining the law. . . .
Stefanik said she expects to have the case reviewed by the Court of Appeals.
âMiami commissioners not ready to accept new voting map in gerrymandering settlementâ
Miami commissioners are not yet ready to accept a new voting map as part of a settlement in a racial gerrymandering lawsuit, expressing concerns that the proposed map wouldnât guarantee diversity of elected officials, adding further delay to contentious legal battle.
In a 4-0 vote, the Miami City Commission on Thursday deferred a vote on the settlement to the May 23 meeting, with some members saying it was too important of a decision to make without the presence of Commissioner Damian Pardo, who is out of the country for a previously planned engagement. . . .
The new map had been agreed upon by both sides as part of a proposed settlement in a federal lawsuit against the city filed by voting rights activists represented by the American Civil Liberties Union. The settlement required City Commission approval.
Last month, U.S. District Judge K. Michael Moore ruled in the case that Miamiâs voting map was racially gerrymandered and ordered the city to toss it out. Before the ruling, commissioners had openly stated that the voting map was drawn to ensure the five-member commission comprised three Hispanic, one white and one Black commissioner to guarantee racial diversity of the boardâs membership â a policy that Moore said violated the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.
A Miami Herald analysis of the proposed new map showed it would lead to only minor changes to the racial makeup of the cityâs five voting districts, maintaining Hispanic supermajorities in Districts 1, 3 and 4, and a Black majority in District 5.