There are lots of good reasons to call for the impeachment or ouster or RFK Jr. He’s flatly unqualified for the role. He’s introducing all kinds of health risks for diseases we shouldn’t even have to worry about any longer because he’s an anti-vaxxer con-artist. He’s so bad at his job that high level administrators at DHS and its child agencies are leaving in droves, sometimes after only being on the job for weeks at a time. These are all great, righteous reasons to state publicly that RFK Jr. must go.
Please welcome Mike Pence to the team, I guess. His organization also recently stated publicly that RFK Jr. should be exited from his cabinet position. That it took a failure to review an abortion pill to get him there and not all of that other shit I mentioned is disappointing, though not in any way surprising.
In a statement posted on the social platform X, Pence’s nonprofit, Advancing American Freedom, said, “HHS Secretary RFK Jr. continues to refuse to review the dangerous chemical abortion pill, mifepristone. Despite the calls of state attorneys general across the country and pro-life promises made to Congress, RFK Jr. has followed in the footsteps of the Obama and Biden administrations by stonewalling pro-life efforts at HHS.”
“RFK Jr. must go,” the group added.
Folks, I’m in no way qualified to talk at any length about mifepristone and how safe or not it is. I can tell you that the current FDA website says that it is when properly used, as does the Johns Hopkins website. Basically every medical organization that has anything to do with obstetrics and gynecology has said that the drug is very safe (and you would think they would know). The American Medical Association has pointed out that reducing access to mifepristone would lead to real harm for patients. Basically, almost every credible expert on this topic appears to agree.
I can also tell you the listing of side effects on the Mayo Clinic’s site is long. So, is a review of the drug warranted? I’m going to rest comfortably on the idea that I am in no way qualified to say one way or the other.
Like me, Mike Pence is also not a medical professional. Unlike me, Mike Pence has been remarkably silent about RFK Jr. as he’s taken a flamethrower to HHS, to federal vaccine guidance, and has overseen the worst measles outbreak in America in over three decades. Apparently failing to review an FDA approved drug with a decades-long track record of safety is just a bridge too far.
No more aborted babies, all of you! If they aren’t brought to term, how are they supposed to get measles and Hep B?
New documents and court records obtained by EFF show that Texas deputies queried Flock Safety’s surveillance data in an abortion investigation, contradicting the narrative promoted by the company and the Johnson County Sheriff that she was “being searched for as a missing person,” and that “it was about her safety.”
The new information shows that deputies had initiated a “death investigation” of a “non-viable fetus,” logged evidence of a woman’s self-managed abortion, and consulted prosecutors about possibly charging her.
Johnson County Sheriff Adam King repeatedly denied the automated license plate reader (ALPR) search was related to enforcing Texas’s abortion ban, and Flock Safety called media accounts “false,” “misleading” and “clickbait.” However, according to a sworn affidavit by the lead detective, the case was in fact a death investigation in response to a report of an abortion, and deputies collected documentation of the abortion from the “reporting person,” her alleged romantic partner. The death investigation remained open for weeks, with detectives interviewing the woman and reviewing her text messages about the abortion.
The documents show that the Johnson County District Attorney’s Office informed deputies that “the State could not statutorily charge [her] for taking the pill to cause the abortion or miscarriage of the non-viable fetus.”
An excerpt from the JCSO detective’s sworn affidavit.
The records include previously unreported details about the case that shocked public officials and reproductive justice advocates across the country when it was first reported by 404 Media in May. The case serves as a clear warning sign that when data from ALPRs is shared across state lines, it can put people at risk, including abortion seekers. And, in this case, the use may have run afoul of laws in Washington and Illinois.
A False Narrative Emerges
Last May, 404 Media obtained data revealing the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office conducted a nationwide search of more than 83,000 Flock ALPR cameras, giving the reason in the search log: “had an abortion, search for female.” Both the Sheriff’s Office and Flock Safety have attempted to downplay the search as akin to a search for a missing person, claiming deputies were only looking for the woman to “check on her welfare” and that officers found a large amount of blood at the scene – a claim now contradicted by the responding investigator’s affidavit. Flock Safety went so far as to assert that journalists and advocates covering the story intentionally misrepresented the facts, describing it as “misreporting” and “clickbait-driven.”
As Flock wrote of EFF’s previous commentary on this case (bold in original statement):
Earlier this month, there was purposefully misleading reporting that a Texas police officer with the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office used LPR “to target people seeking reproductive healthcare.” This organization is actively perpetuating narratives that have been proven false, even after the record has been corrected.
According to the Sheriff in Johnson County himself, this claim is unequivocally false.
… No charges were ever filed against the woman and she was never under criminal investigation by Johnson County. She was being searched for as a missing person, not as a suspect of a crime.
That sheriff has since been arrested and indicted on felony counts in an unrelated sexual harassment and whistleblower retaliation case. He has also been charged with aggravated perjury for allegedly lying to a grand jury. EFF filed public records requests with Johnson County to obtain a more definitive account of events.
The newly released incident report and affidavit unequivocally describe the case as a “death investigation” of a “non-viable fetus.” These documents also undermine the claim that the ALPR search was in response to a medical emergency, since, in fact, the abortion had occurred more than two weeks before deputies were called to investigate.
In recent years, anti-abortion advocates and prosecutors have increasingly attempted to use “fetal homicide” and “wrongful death” statutes – originally intended to protect pregnant people from violence – to criminalize abortion and pregnancy loss. These laws, which exist in dozens of states, establish legal personhood of fetuses and can be weaponized against people who end their own pregnancies or experience a miscarriage.
In fact, a new report from Pregnancy Justice found that in just the first two years since the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs, prosecutors initiated at least 412 cases charging pregnant people with crimes related to pregnancy, pregnancy loss, or birth–most under child neglect, endangerment, or abuse laws that were never intended to target pregnant people. Nine cases included allegations around individuals’ abortions, such as possession of abortion medication or attempts to obtain an abortion–instances just like this one. The report also highlights how, in many instances, prosecutors use tangentially related criminal charges to punish people for abortion, even when abortion itself is not illegal.
By framing their investigation of a self-administered abortion as a “death investigation” of a “non-viable fetus,” Texas law enforcement was signaling their intent to treat the woman’s self-managed abortion as a potential homicide, even though Texas law does not allow criminal charges to be brought against an individual for self-managing their own abortion.
The Investigator’s Sworn Account
Over two days in April, the woman went through the process of taking medication to induce an abortion. Two weeks later, her partner–who would later be charged with domestic violence against her–reported her to the sheriff’s office.
The documents confirm that the woman was not present at the home when the deputies “responded to the death (Non-viable fetus).” As part of the investigation, officers collected evidence that the man had assembled of the self-managed abortion, including photographs, the FedEx envelope the medication arrived in, and the instructions for self-administering the medication.
Another Johnson County official ran two searches through the ALPR database with the note “had an abortion, search for female,” according to Flock Safety search logs obtained by EFF. The first search, which has not been previously reported, probed 1,295 Flock Safety networks–composed of 17,684 different cameras–going back one week. The second search, which was originally exposed by 404 Media, was expanded to a full month of data across 6,809 networks, including 83,345 cameras. Both searches listed the same case number that appears on the death investigation/incident report obtained by EFF.
After collecting the evidence from the woman’s partner, the investigators say they consulted the district attorney’s office, only to be told they could not press charges against the woman.
An excerpt from the JCSO detective’s sworn affidavit.
Nevertheless, when the subject showed up at the Sheriff’s office a week later, officers were under the impression that she came to “to tell her side of the story about the non-viable fetus.” They interviewed her, inspected text messages about the abortion on her phone, and watched her write a timeline of events.
Only after all that did they learn that she actually wanted to report a violent assault by her partner–the same individual who had called the police to report her abortion. She alleged that less than an hour after the abortion, he choked her, put a gun to her head, and made her beg for her life. The man was ultimately charged in connection with the assault, and the case is ongoing.
This documented account runs completely counter to what law enforcement and Flock have said publicly about the case.
Johnson County Sheriff Adam King told 404 media: “Her family was worried that she was going to bleed to death, and we were trying to find her to get her to a hospital.” He later told the Dallas Morning News: “We were just trying to check on her welfare and get her to the doctor if needed, or to the hospital.”
The account by the detective on the scene makes no mention of concerned family members or a medical investigator. To the contrary, the affidavit says that they questioned the man as to why he “waited so long to report the incident,” and he responded that he needed to “process the event and call his family attorney.” The ALPR search was recorded 2.5 hours after the initial call came in, as documented in the investigation report.
The Desk Sergeant’s Report—One Month Later
EFF obtained a separate “case supplemental report” written by the sergeant who says he ran the May 9 ALPR searches.
The sergeant was not present at the scene, and his account was written belatedly on June 5, almost a month after the incident and nearly a week after 404 Media had already published the sheriff’s alternative account of the Flock Safety search, kicking off a national controversy. The sheriff’s office provided this sergeant’s report to Dallas Morning News.
In the report, the sergeant claims that the officers on the ground asked him to start “looking up” the woman due to there being “a large amount of blood” found at the residence—an unsubstantiated claim that is in conflict with the lead investigator’s affidavit. The sergeant repeatedly expresses that the situation was “not making sense.” He claims he was worried that the partner had hurt the woman and her children, so “to check their welfare,” he used TransUnion’s TLO commercial investigative database system to look up her address. Once he identified her vehicle, he ran the plate through the Flock database, returning hits in Dallas.
Two abortion-related searches in the JCSO’s Flock Safety ALPR audit log
The sergeant’s report, filed after the case attracted media attention, notably omits any mention of the abortion at the center of the investigation, although it does note that the caller claimed to have found a fetus. The report does not explain, or even address, why the sergeant used the phrase “had an abortion, search for female” as the official reason for the ALPR searches in the audit log.
It’s also unclear why the sergeant submitted the supplemental report at all, weeks after the incident. By that time, the lead investigator had already filed a sworn affidavit that contradicted the sergeant’s account. For example, the investigator, who was on the scene, does not describe finding any blood or taking blood samples into evidence, only photographs of what the partner believed to be the fetus.
One area where they concur: both reports are clearly marked as a “death investigation.”
Correcting the Record
Since 404 Media first reported on this case, King has perpetuated the false narrative, telling reporters that the woman was never under investigation, that officers had not considered charges against her, and that “it was all about her safety.”
But here are the facts:
The reports that have been released so far describe this as a death investigation.
The lead detective described himself as “working a death investigation… of a non-viable fetus” at the time he interviewed the woman (a week after the ALPR searches).
The detective wrote that they consulted the district attorney’s office about whether they could charge her for “taking the pill to cause the abortion or miscarriage of the non-viable fetus.” They were told they could not.
Investigators collected a lot of data, including photos and documentation of the abortion, and ran her through multiple databases. They even reviewed her text messages about the abortion.
The death investigation was open for more than a month.
The death investigation was only marked closed in mid-June, weeks after 404 Media’s article and a mere days before the Dallas Morning News published its report, in which the sheriff inaccurately claimed the woman “was not under investigation at any point.”
Flock has promoted this unsupported narrative on its blog and in multimediaappearances. We did not reach out to Flock for comment on this article, as their communications director previously told us the company will not answer our inquiries until we “correct the record and admit to your audience that you purposefully spread misinformation which you know to be untrue” about this case.
Consider the record corrected: It turns out the truth is even more damning than initially reported.
The Aftermath
In the aftermath of the original reporting, government officials began to take action. The networks searched by Johnson County included cameras in Illinois and Washington state, both states where abortion access is protected by law. Since then:
The Illinois Secretary of State has announced his intent to “crack down on unlawful use of license plate reader data,” and urged the state’s Attorney General to investigate the matter.
In California, which also has prohibitions on sharing ALPR out of state and for abortion-ban enforcement, the legislature cited the case in support of pending legislation to restrict ALPR use.
Ranking Members of the House Oversight Committee and one of its subcommittees launched a formal investigation into Flock’s role in “enabling invasive surveillance practices that threaten the privacy, safety, and civil liberties of women, immigrants, and other vulnerable Americans.”
Senator Ron Wyden secured a commitment from Flock to protect Oregonians’ data from out-of-state immigration and abortion-related queries.
In response to mounting pressure, Flock announced a series of new features supposedly designed to prevent future abuses. These include blocking “impermissible” searches, requiring that all searches include a “reason,” and implementing AI-driven audit alerts to flag suspicious activity. But as we’ve detailed elsewhere, these measures are cosmetic at best—easily circumvented by officers using vague search terms or reusing legitimate case numbers. The fundamental architecture that enabled the abuse remains unchanged.
Meanwhile, as the news continued to harm the company’s sales, Flock CEO Garrett Langley embarked on a press tour to smear reporters and others who had raised alarms about the usage. In an interview with Forbes, he even doubled down and extolled the use of the ALPR in this case.
So when I look at this, I go “this is everything’s working as it should be.” A family was concerned for a family member. They used Flock to help find her, when she could have been unwell. She was physically okay, which is great. But due to the political climate, this was really good clickbait.
Nothing about this is working as it should, but it is working as Flock designed.
The Danger of Unchecked Surveillance
This case reveals the fundamental danger of allowing companies like Flock Safety to build massive, interconnected surveillance networks that can be searched across state lines with minimal oversight. When a single search query can access more than 83,000 cameras spanning almost the entire country, the potential for abuse is staggering, particularly when weaponized against people seeking reproductive healthcare.
The searches in this case may have violated laws in states like Washington and Illinois, where restrictions exist specifically to prevent this kind of surveillance overreach. But those protections mean nothing when a Texas deputy can access cameras in those states with a few keystrokes, without external review that the search is legal and legitimate under local law. In this case, external agencies should have seen the word “abortion” and questioned the search, but the next time an officer is investigating such a case, they may use a more vague or misleading term to justify the search. In fact, it’s possible it has already happened.
ALPRs were marketed to the public as tools to find stolen cars and locate missing persons. Instead, they’ve become a dragnet that allows law enforcement to track anyone, anywhere, for any reason—including investigating people’s healthcare decisions. This case makes clear that neither the companies profiting from this technology nor the agencies deploying it can be trusted to tell the full story about how it’s being used.
States must ban law enforcement from using ALPRs to investigate healthcare decisions and prohibit sharing data across state lines. Local governments may try remedies like reducing data retention period to minutes instead of weeks or months—but, really, ending their ALPR programs altogether is the strongest way to protect their most vulnerable constituents. Without these safeguards, every license plate scan becomes a potential weapon against a person seeking healthcare.
Here’s yet another worrying development in the world of privately-owned security cameras. Flock Safety has made aggressive in-roads in both the private and public sector, something aided greatly by the company’s ability to blend the two.
Much like Ring before it, Flock is pitching cheap cameras with local law enforcement buy-in, nudging residents towards leaving their cameras (some of which have license plate reader capabilities) open so law enforcement can search their plate captures without a warrant. Law enforcement agencies are also buying their own cameras to ensure people can’t travel very far without leaving at least a temporary record of their travels the government can access pretty much at will.
And this is how that meshing of public-private is playing out in real life. As Joseph Cox and Jason Koebler report for 404 Media, at least one law enforcement officer has used this meshed network of Flock ALPR cameras to help locate a woman who recently had an abortion.
On May 9, an officer from the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office in Texas searched Flock cameras and gave the reason as “had an abortion, search for female,” according to the multiple sets of data. Whenever officers search Flock cameras they are required to provide a reason for doing so, but generally do not require a warrant or any sort of court order. Flock cameras continually scan the plates, color, and model of any vehicle driving by, building a detailed database of vehicles and by extension peoples’ movements.
Cops are able to search cameras acquired in their own district, those in their state, or those in a nationwide network of Flock cameras. That single search for the woman spread across 6,809 different Flock networks, with a total of 83,345 cameras, according to the data. The officer looked for hits over a month long period, it shows.
Some of these cameras were likely owned and operated by private purchasers. But even with those excluded, it’s still a massive data set the government can access without having to offer up much in the way of justification. The justification here (one that was reflected in access audits from Flock systems located as far away as Washington state) seems especially ominous and especially flimsy: “had an abortion, search for female.”
The Johnson County Sheriff’s Office claims this search was performed to help, not harm.
Sheriff Adam King of the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office told 404 Media in a phone call that the woman self-administered the abortion “and her family was worried that she was going to bleed to death, and we were trying to find her to get her to a hospital.”
“We weren’t trying to block her from leaving the state or whatever to get an abortion,” he said. “It was about her safety.”
Even if that’s completely true, it’s not that comforting to know Texas law enforcement officers can perform the same searches for the purpose of prosecuting people who have sought abortions in nearby states where this is still legal. The justifications offered during the acquisition process always stresses the equipment will be used to deal with the most violent crimes. While utilizing the tech to search for a missing person is something most people would find acceptable, its proximity to the state’s recent abortion ban definitely isn’t an encouraging sign.
If these tools can be used this way, you can guarantee they will be used this way. Once one law enforcement agency gets the ball rolling on abortion arrests and weathers the press storm that it will provoke, the rest will follow suit, especially in areas populated by prosecutors with anti-abortion beliefs. Companies like Flock will just make everything easier for people looking to punish women for daring to explore their options and retain what’s left of their bodily autonomy.
The Trump administration is methodically implementing every element of Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 censorship playbook, and Democratic leadership’s response is… to help them? Earlier today, Chuck Schumer and Richard Blumenthal joined MAGA Republicans to reintroduce the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) — a bill that Heritage itself has proudly proclaimed as central to its strategy of censoring progressive content around LGBTQ issues and abortion. The new bill appears to be effectively identical to last year’s version.
It raises a huge question of… what the fuck are they thinking?
The press release touts its “bipartisan” nature, with Democratic Senators Chuck Schumer and Richard Blumenthal sponsoring the bill, alongside Marsha Blackburn and John Thune.
Last year, when Heritage Foundation declared itsdesire to use KOSA to censor LGBTQ content and announced it would leverage the bill to remove pro-abortion content if Trump won, perhaps some could dismiss it as empty rhetoric. But now? The Trump administration is systematically implementing every element of Heritage’s Project 2025 censorship playbook. There’s no more room for wishful thinking about how KOSA might be used.
And yet, Democrats seem to act as if none of that is happening, and we can just assume good faith in how KOSA will be implemented and enforced by an FTC that has loudly proclaimed its willingness to conduct partisan, culture war witch hunts on behalf of Project 2025’s goals.
Yes, we expect Richard Blumenthal to reflexively support any anti-internet bill. But Chuck Schumer? After everything we’ve seen, how can Democratic leadership still pretend there’s any good faith here? Trump is already using every available tool to wage his censorial culture wars. Heritage has explicitly laid out how they’ll use KOSA to silence progressive voices. What possible justification could there be for Democrats to hand them an even more powerful weapon?
Even some Republicans recognize the danger here. Senator Rand Paul has consistently maintained that censoring the internet won’t help children. And last year, House GOP members actually stopped the bill after realizing it was a censorship tool that could be used against their own speech. But now that Trump has won (and the GOP acts as though there will never be another free election), that objection may evaporate.
The bill’s lead sponsor, Marsha Blackburn, was already openly stating last year that her support for KOSA was about using it to censor LGBTQ content. That was before Trump’s victory made Heritage’s censorship plans a reality.
So here we are: Heritage Foundation explicitly laid out their plans to weaponize KOSA against progressive speech. Marsha Blackburn openly admitted it’s about censoring LGBTQ content. The Trump administration is systematically implementing every element of Project 2025’s censorship agenda. And the FTC stands ready to enforce it all.
Yet Democratic leadership isn’t just standing idle — they’re actively helping to build the machinery of censorship that will be used against their own constituents. Either Schumer and Blumenthal are catastrophically naive, or they’ve simply decided that appearing “bipartisan” matters more than protecting vulnerable communities from state-sponsored censorship.
The real question isn’t what they’re thinking. It’s whether they’re thinking at all.
Once again, the Texas legislature is coming after the most common method of safe and effective abortion today—medication abortion.
Senate Bill (S.B.) 2880* seeks to prevent the sale and distribution of abortion pills—but it doesn’t stop there. By restricting access to certain information online, the bill tries to keep people from learning about abortion drugs, or even knowing that they exist.
If passed, S.B. 2880 would make it illegal to “provide information” on how to obtain an abortion-inducing drug. If you exchange e-mails or have an online chat about seeking an abortion, you could violate the bill. If you create a website that shares information about legal abortion services in other states, you could violate the bill. Even your social media posts could put you at risk.
On top of going after online speakers who create and post content themselves, the bill also targets social media platforms, websites, email services, messaging apps, and any other “interactive computer service” simply for hosting or making that content available.
In other words, Texas legislators not only want to make sure no one can start a discussion on these topics, they also want to make sure no one can find one. The goal is to wipe this information from the internet altogether. That creates glaring free-speech issues with this bill and, if passed, the consequences would be dire.
The bill is carefully designed to scare people into silence.
First, S.B. 2880 empowers average citizens to sue anyone that violates the law. An “interactive computer service” can also be sued if it “allows residents of [Texas] to access information or material that aids, abets, assists or facilitates efforts to obtain elective abortions or abortion-inducing drugs.”
So, similar to Texas Senate Bill 8, the bill encourages anyone to file lawsuits against those who merely speak about or provide access to certain information. This is intended to, and will, chill free speech. The looming threat of litigation can be used to silence those who seek to give women truthful information about their reproductive options—potentially putting their health or lives in danger.
Second, S.B. 2880 encourages online intermediaries to take down abortion-related content. For example, if sued under the law, a defendant platform can escape liability by showing that, once discovered, they promptly “block[ed] access to any information . . . that assists or facilitates efforts to obtain elective abortions or abortion-inducing drugs.”
The bill also grants them “absolute and nonwaivable immunity” against claims arising from takedowns, denials of service, or any other “action taken to restrict access to or availability of [this] information.” In other words, if someone sues a social media platform or internet service provider for censorship, they are well-shielded from facing consequences. This further tips the scales in favor of blocking more websites, posts, and users.
In three different provisions of the 43-page bill, the drafters go out of their way to assure us that S.B. 2880 should not be construed to prohibit speech or conduct that’s protected by the First Amendment. But simply stating that the law does not restrict free speech does not make it so. The obvious goal of this bill is to restrict access to information about abortion medications online. It’s hard to imagine what claims could be brought under such a bill that don’t implicate our free speech rights.
The bill’s imposition of civil and criminal liability also conflicts with a federal law that protects online intermediaries’ ability to host user-generated speech, 47 U.S.C. § 230 (“Section 230”), including speech about abortion medication. Although the bill explicitly states that it does not conflict with Section 230, that assurance remains meaningful only so long as Section 230’s protections remain robust. But Congress is currently considering revisions—or even a full repeal of Section 230. Any weakening of Section 230 will create more space for those empowered by this bill to use the courts to pressure intermediaries/platforms to remove information about abortion medication.
Whenever the government tries to restrict our ability to access information, our First Amendment rights are threatened. This is exactly what Texas lawmakers are trying to do with S.B. 2880. Anyone who cares about free speech—regardless of how they feel about reproductive care—should urge lawmakers to oppose this bill and others like it.
*H.B. 5510 is the identical House version of S.B. 2880.
Many people don’t think of reproductive health and reproductive rights as tech issues, but they very much are — moreso than ever in a post-Dobbs America. The internet is vital to communication and spreading information around reproductive health care, while abortion drugs are changing the very nature of what reproductive rights protect. This week we’re joined by Elisa Wells and Amy Merrill, two of the cofounders of Plan C, a nonprofit that aims to make abortion pills available by mail across the US, for a discussion about looking at reproductive health through the lens of disruptive technology.
There’s a coup underway in the federal government. Across the rest of the nation, people seeking to endear themselves with President Trump or his supporters are doing the same sort of thing at the state level. Refusing to even acknowledge long-standing rights or court precedent, legislators are becoming the Project 2025 they want to see in the world, knowing full well every failed attempt just makes the next attempt a little bit easier.
Oklahoma lawmakers already have problems staying within the constitutional confines when writing laws. They’ve also shown they’re willing to silence dissent in ways that clearly conflict with, if nothing else, the gentlemen’s agreement generated by years of accepted government norms.
Now that legislators are seeking to dump Bibles and Ten Commandment printouts into public schools, one particular Oklahoma lawmaker (previously called out for his porn ban attempt early last year) is seeking to implement Project 2025 essentials at the state level.
Oklahoma state senator Dusty Deevers has introduced a slate of bills that would impose his “moral sanity” on the state’s residents, whether they want it or not.
It starts with this statement, which strongly suggests Deevers just really wants to run an op-ed service that is backed by the force of law.
Together, these bills set a course for pushing back against the moral decay foisted upon Oklahoma by the far-left’s march through our institutions to destroy the moral foundations upon which the United States and Christian Civilization had long rested.
Yeah, about “those bills.” It starts stupid, goes evil, goes even stupider, and then settles into a groove that pairs evil with stupid in equal measures.
First, there’s the “Abolition of Abortion Act,” which would allow the state to criminalize the use of morning after pills and other such options, even if they’re not provided by entities subject to Oklahoma State laws.
That leads directly to Dusty’s anti-porn efforts — efforts that claim they’re about preventing CSAM before moving on to make it clear anyone involved in the free exchange of ideas in this particular marketplace is just another criminal in need of jailing. It goes beyond targeting porn producers, performers, and porn sites. It also treats end users as criminals.
The bill also prohibits pornography in general, providing for criminal penalties of up to 10 years in prison for production, distribution, or possession. It also provides heightened 10-to-30-year criminal penalties for organized pornography trafficking.
What’s not explained is what “possession” means in this context. Is this dad’s box of Playboys that’s been stashed in the attic for years? Is it the cookies stored by porn sites visited by internet users? Is it any image or video stored locally on an Oklahoma resident’s computer? Who knows? Deevers doesn’t care, so long as he gets to prevent adults from accessing content created by other consenting adults.
There’s also a bill that would saddle performers and producers of drag acts if any child (not defined) is present in the audience. This is followed by the “Covenant Marriage Act” that would allow residents (presumably only the married males) to opt into a “covenant marriage” that would hamper attempts to dissolve this marriage other than for “abuse, adultery, or abandonment.” Those opting in would get a $2500 tax credit. Those who don’t just get to remain married, but without this additional credit. In Sen. Deevers’ own words, people who chooses to “opt out of the no-fault divorce scheme” are more equal than others in the eyes of the state’s tax laws.
Somehow, that leads directly to another bill proposed by Senator Dusty Deevers, which makes everything but the $2500 kickback completely irrelevant.
This bill would end no-fault divorce in Oklahoma by removing “incompatibility” as a justification for divorce, leaving abandonment, gross neglect, extreme cruelty, habitual drunkenness, insanity for a period of five years, adultery, unknown pregnancy, and fraudulent contract as the available justifications.
No more “this just isn’t working” divorces. Instead, children will be forced to endure the legally mandated marriage of people who don’t like each other. Marriage contracts have always been somewhat legally-binding. This law takes this to a whole new level, turning people who reject this contract for reasons Deevers doesn’t agree with into scofflaws who perhaps may end up being criminally prosecuting for… um… offending Deevers’ very specific view on public morality.
“Marriage vows were binding until 50 years into the sexual revolution when the no-fault divorce scheme was first brought to America. The results for children and society as a whole could not be worse,” Deevers said. “A society that teaches and allows a marriage covenant to be less important and binding than a business contract will reap the fruit of social upheaval, unfettered dishonesty, crime, violence towards women, war on men, and expendability of children. To devalue marriage is to devalue the family is to undermine the foundation of a thriving society.“
Bro, marriages has been steadily devalued for years. You know who led the charge? Men like you who believe women are pretty much just chattel, if not two-legged cattle. Once women were given the opportunity to engage in no-fault divorces, a whole lot of assholes, sociopaths, and serial abusers found themselves getting their paychecks garnished. And I’m sure that’s why you’re suddenly so concerned. The type of people who would vote in a Dusty Deevers are the same sort of people who tend to come out on the losing end of divorce proceedings.
To his credit, Deevers has also introduced a bill that would provide money to people seeking to adopt. But that’s undercut by his next bill, which says tax credits will be given to parents of children… but only the sort of parents Deevers chooses to recognize under the law.
SB328 establishes a $500 tax credit per child for a mother and father filing jointly. The credit is escalated to $1,000 if the child was born after the marriage of the parents.
“Statistically, growing up in a two-parent household is strongly correlated with virtually every good thing in a child’s life, including educational achievement, emotional health, and staying out of jail,” Deevers said. “There is no greater factor in the well-being and future success of a child than whether they grew up in a two-parent household with their mother and father. It’s not even close. Accordingly, it would be irresponsible of us not to promote two-parent households.“
Yep, this is only for straight couples and the largest benefit goes to those who managed to hold off on having kids until after they were legally married. Same-sex couples need not apply. Unmarried couples can still get half of this credit, but aren’t going to get the whole amount unless they choose to get married before the birth of their next child. And that means the adoption credit offered by Deevers doesn’t actually mean all that much, because continued support for the adopted child pretty much rests on how cis the parents are and how long they’ve been married to each other.
In conclusion, Dusty Deevers is a terrible person who never should have been elevated to public office. But none of that seems to matter anymore. A bunch of Americans have decided it’s better to elect pieces of shit so long as they promise to hurt the people these voters hate the most. They’ll wear their own bruises as a matter of pride and pretend any collateral damage they and their rights suffer is solely attributable to liberals, the deep state, contrails, Antifa, wokeism, or whatever else takes the sting away from a reality that would normally be considered to be undeniable.
I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a government official go from sending a clearly censorial First Amendment-violating threat letter to quitting his job to telling a court, “I was pressured to do that and I resigned so that I wouldn’t do that again” so quickly.
Last week, we wrote about the fairly notable ruling in Florida, where federal judge Mark Walker included the classic line: “To keep it simple for the State of Florida: it’s the First Amendment, stupid.”
A group was purchasing airtime for TV commercials in support of a Florida ballot initiative that would protect women’s autonomy in dealing with issues related to pregnancy. Florida’s Department of Health sent a letter, signed by its General Counsel John Wilson, to the TV stations, claiming that airing the commercial could violate the state’s “sanitary nuisance” laws, normally used for getting property owners to clean up a leaking septic tank. At least one TV station then refused to air the ad in question in response to the letter.
The non-profit that bought the ad time sued, and the judge noted (quite easily) that this was about as obvious and blatant a violation of the First Amendment as anyone could remember.
We noted in our original article that Wilson (whose signature appeared on the letter) had already resigned a day after the letter was sent. He told the media that his “conscience” couldn’t allow him to stay.
Late last week, he went a step further and filed an affidavit with the court saying that Ron DeSantis’ office had drafted the letter and told him to send it, which he did. But he resigned when they asked him to follow through with more such letters and to retain lawyers to go after the TV stations who still ran the ad.
On October 3, 2024, in my official capacity as General Counsel, | sent the letters referenced in paragraph 4 of Plaintifl’s complaint.
I received drafts of the letters directly from Sam Elliot, Assistant General Counsel for theExecutive Office of the Governor, earlier that day.
I did not draft the letters or participate in any discussions about the letters prior to October 3, 2024.
Ryan Newman, General Counselfor the Executive Office of the Governor, and Jed Doty, Deputy General Counselfor the Executive Office of the Governor, directed me to send them under my nameand on the behalf of the Florida Department of Health.
On October 10, 2024,I resigned from my position as General Counsel in lieu of complying with directives from Newman and Doty to send out further correspondence to the media outlets, similar to the October 3, 2024 letters.
On October 10, 2024, prior to my resignation,I was directed by Mr. Newman to execute contracts for outside counsel to be retained by the Department to assist with enforcement proceedingspursuant to the October 3, 2024 letters.
This should be a huge fucking scandal. This is from the very same party that has falsely accused the Biden White House of “censorship” for simply sending reports of possible misinformation to social media companies and asking them if it violated their policies. This is from the very same party that passed laws to force social media companies to host speech, which they claimed was necessary to “support free speech.”
Yet, here they are issuing literally direct threats to TV stations, demanding they not air political ads from their political opponents. It’s one of the most blatant attacks on the First Amendment we’ve seen by government officials in some time. And it’s getting very little attention.
Anyway, kudos to Wilson for at least being willing to admit that this was bad and refusing to follow through on further actions here. It would have been nice if he’d never agreed to send the original letters at all.
Either way, with his affidavit, Floridians Protecting Freedom (the plaintiff in the case and the purchaser of the ads) has now dismissed its claims against Wilson directly. However, it will continue to move forward with the case against State Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo.
In light of the affidavit of former Florida Department of Health General Counsel John Wilson attached as Exhibit A to this notice, which explains the circumstances in which Mr. Wilson was directed to sign his name on the October 3 letter at issue in this case, Plaintiff has determined that it is unnecessary to pursue individual capacity claims against Defendant Wilson.
It’s not unheard of for us, or other publications, to paraphrase what a court ruling says at times. This time, however, the quote in the headline is actually 100% a direct quote from Judge Mark Walker, the Chief Judge of the Northern District of Florida federal court in a ruling against the state of Florida.
Here’s the full quote:
To keep it simple for the State of Florida: it’s the First Amendment, stupid.
The background here is pretty straightforward. This year, in Florida, there’s a ballot initiative in the state that would amend the state’s Constitution to say that no law can restrict abortion “before viability” or when a healthcare provider deems it necessary. The group backing the ballot, Floridians Protecting Freedom, created some 30-second commercials and bought some airtime on TV networks promoting the initiative.
Then, John Wilson, the general counsel of Florida’s Department of Health, sent a fucked up letter to the stations running the ads. The letter claimed that the ads violated the state’s “sanitary nuisance” laws, which normally are used to deal with things like overflowing septic tanks or improper garbage disposals.
Claiming that a political ad violates that law is so obviously thuggish, censorial bullshit that (1) the lawyer who sent it, John Wilson, then resigned and admitted that his conscience couldn’t let him continue in that job after sending such a threat letter and (2) FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel issued a reminder that broadcasters have a First Amendment right to air what they want, and “threats against broadcast stations for airing content that conflicts with the government’s views are dangerous and undermine the fundamental principle of free speech.”
Floridians Protecting Freedom went to court on Wednesday with a complaint calling out how egregious the threats are. The complaint asked for a declaratory judgment that the letters violate the First Amendment, and for an injunction against the government to stop such letters from being sent going forward.
Just one day later, the court did exactly that. Here’s the longer version of the quote above:
Plaintiff’s argument is correct. While Defendant Ladapo refuses to even agree with this simple fact, Plaintiff’s political advertisement is political speech—speech at the core of the First Amendment. And just this year, the United States Supreme Court reaffirmed the bedrock principle that the government cannot do indirectly what it cannot do directly by threatening third parties with legal sanctions to censor speech it disfavors. The government cannot excuse its indirect censorship of political speech simply by declaring the disfavored speech is “false.” “The very purpose of the First Amendment is to foreclose public authority from assuming a guardianship of the public mind through regulating the press, speech, and religion.” Thomas v. Collins, 323 U.S. 516, 545 (1945) (Jackson, J., concurring). “In this field every person must be his own watchman for truth, because the forefathers did not trust any government to separate the true from the false for us.” Id. To keep it simple for the State of Florida: it’s the First Amendment, stupid.
It then goes through a full explanation of just how stupid all this is. Florida’s argument is dismissed as “nonsense.”
At the hearing, Defendant led with the argument that laws of general applicability are immune from First Amendment challenge.Nonsense.The line of cases Defendant cites to support this dubious argument are readily distinguishable from this case. Defendant’s cases addressed a different issue—namely, whether enforcement of a law of general applicability against the press, which incidentally affects the press’s ability to gather and report the news, offends the First Amendment. See, e.g., Cohen v. Cowles Media Co., 501 U.S. 663, 669 (1991); Villieux v. Nat’l Broad. Co., 206 F.3d 92 (1st Cir. 2000); Food Lion v. Cap. Cities/ABC, 194 F.3d 505 (4th Cir. 1999). That is not this case. The issue here is whether the State can censor core political speech under the guise that the speech is false and implicates public health concerns. When state action “burdens a fundamental right such as the First Amendment, rational basis yields to more exacting review.” NAACP v. City of Philadelphia, 834 F.3d 435, 443 (3d Cir. 2016). With limited exceptions not applicable here,4 a government restriction on speech is subject to strict scrutiny if it is content based. Reed v. Town of Gilbert, 576 U.S. 155, 163 (2015).
Footnote 4 also does a good job explaining how there are limited exceptions to the First Amendment, but there’s no way that these ads fit into those categories:
A few “limited categories of speech are traditionally unprotected—obscenity, fighting words, incitement, and the like.” Honeyfund.com, Inc. v. Governor, 94 F.4th 1272, 1277 (11th Cir. 2024) (quoting Brown v. Ent. Merchs. Ass’n, 564 U.S. 786, 791 (2011)).“But what counts as unprotected speech starts and ends with tradition—‘new categories of unprotected speech may not be added to the list by a legislature that concludes certain speech is too harmful to be tolerated.’” Id. But Defendant has not demonstrated that the political speech at issue falls within any of these categories. It is not commercial speech subject to a more relaxed standard permitting some government regulation, nor is it obscene, nor is it inciting speech that will imminently lead to harm to the government or the commission of a crime.
Defendant argues this is dangerous and misleading speech that could cause pregnant women harm in Florida.But there is no “general exception to the First Amendment for false statements.”United States v. Alvarez, 567 U.S. 709, 718 (2012) (plurality opinion). Falsity alone does not bring speech outside the First Amendment absent some other traditionally recognized, legally cognizable harm. Id. at 718–722. That is because “it is perilous to permit the state to be the arbiter of truth.” Alvarez, 567 U.S. at 752 (Alito, J., dissenting).
Defendant seeks to fit a square peg into a round hole by suggesting that Plaintiff’s speech is unprotected because it poses an “imminent threat” to public health. But this argument fails too.Speech is unprotected as an “imminent threat” when it incites or produces imminent lawless action, or poses a clear and present danger by bringing about the “substantive evils” that the government has a right to prevent, like obstacles to military efforts, obscenity, acts of violence, and charges to overthrow the government. Brandenburg v. Ohio, 395 U.S. 444, 447 (1969); Near v. Minnesota ex rel. Olson, 283 U.S. 697, 716 (1931). But there is no suggestion that Plaintiff’s ad would bring about the “substantive evils” that the Supreme Court has recognized, nor is there any suggestion that Plaintiff’s ad would cause individuals to take any imminent lawless action.
The court then explains how this law doesn’t come even remotely close to passing the high bar for strict scrutiny. Again, some of the meatiest bits are in the footnotes. Florida tried to claim that the recently decided Vullo case (in which a unanimous Supreme Court rejected efforts by government officials to coerce third parties into punishing people for their speech) didn’t apply because the speech here wasn’t protected by the First Amendment. The court explains that this is not how this works:
When asked why this case was not governed by Vullo, Defendant’s response was that Vullo concerned the state exercising its regulatory authority “in an effort to stop the NRA from engaging in constitutionally protected speech.” But “the difference here,” he argued, is that “the specific words being expressed” in this case don’t fall “within the ambit of the First Amendment.” ECF No. 23 at 36–37. But that is beside the point. In Bantam Books, on which Vullo relied, the state threatened enforcement on the basis that the speech was allegedly obscene—which the Supreme Court acknowledged was “not within the area of constitutionally protected speech or press.” 372 U.S. at 59, 65. Here, as discussed above, Defendant has not even shown that the speech falls within one of the “traditionally unprotected” categories, let alone that such a distinction would remove this case from the ambit of Vullo and Bantam Books.
Furthermore, the court notes that these threats from the Florida government are unconstitutional under two separate analyses: for both being an unconstitutional coercion in an attempt to suppress speech and for viewpoint discrimination, both of which are forbidden under the First Amendment.
The judge points out that if this was allowed to stand, the state could just deem any speech it dislikes a “sanitary nuisance” and threaten criminal charges if it wasn’t removed:
It is no answer to suggest that the Department of Health is merely flexing its traditional police powers to protect health and safety by prosecuting “false advertising”—if the State can rebrand rank viewpoint discriminatory suppression of political speech as a “sanitary nuisance,” then any political viewpoint with which the State disagrees is fair game for censorship. Moreover, the record demonstrates that Defendant has ample, constitutional alternatives to mitigate any harm caused by an injunction in this case. The State of Florida has actively undertaken its own anti-Amendment 4 campaign to educate the public about its view of Florida’s abortion laws and to correct the record, as it sees fit, concerning pro-Amendment 4 speech. The State can continue to combat what it believes to be “false advertising” by meeting Plaintiff’s speech with its own
And thus, Florida is “enjoined from taking any further actions to coerce, threaten, or intimate repercussions directly or indirectly to television stations, broadcasters, or other parties for airing Plaintiff’s speech, or undertaking enforcement action against Plaintiff for running political advertisements….”
This is a good, strong outcome, but it remains absolutely ridiculous that this situation happened in the first place. Again, the idea that the modern GOP supports “free speech” is laughable given continued actions like this one.
The modern GOP needs to be reminded time and time again, “it’s the First Amendment, stupid,” but they have made it clear that they don’t care. They will continue to take every action they can to suppress views they dislike, because shutting up critics and “owning the libs” is way more important to them than actually upholding the Constitution.
Tennessee’s government cranks out a lot of stupid laws. It’s been doing it for years, but things have accelerated recently as the state’s legislators seek to curtail rights for, well, pretty much everyone but white men. It has enacted book bans, anti-trans laws, and the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision triggered its long-dormant anti-abortion law.
But it wasn’t enough to simply forbid women from getting abortions in the state. The government felt it must prevent residents from traveling to state where abortions are still legal to have the procedure performed. And that still wasn’t enough. The state also enacted an “abortion trafficking” law that forbade people from discussing out-of-state abortion options with minors. Fuck free speech, said the state. We simply can’t allow an unregulated marketplace of ideas, not when there are females to oppress.
Fortunately, that law is now dead, thanks to two tenacious plaintiffs (social services consultant Rachel Welty, state legislator Aftyn Behn) and their equally tenacious lawyer, Daniel Horwitz, who has done more than his fair share of dismantling unconstitutional rulings and laws. The federal court decision [PDF] opens up with an explanation of the “abortion trafficking” law, highlight exactly where the law goes wrong when it comes to regulating speech.
Recently, Tennessee enacted a so-called “abortion trafficking” law (“Chapter 1032”) that purports to forbid certain actions taken in connection with access to an abortion by an unemancipated minor—including, specifically, “recruit[ing]” such a minor “for the purpose of . . . procuring” an abortion. Tenn. Code Ann. § 39-15-220(a). If Tennessee had chosen to limit that prohibition to abortions performed illegally in Tennessee, then that enactment would likely have been within the tradition of prohibitions on speech facilitating unlawful acts. The Tennessee General Assembly, however, chose to take the extraordinary step of attempting to outlaw any “recruit[ment] . . . [of] a pregnant unemancipated minor within this state for the purpose of . . . [p]rocuring an act that would constitute a criminal abortion [in Tennessee] for the pregnant unemancipated minor, regardless of where the abortion is to be procured.” Tenn. Code Ann. § 39-15-220(a)(1) (emphasis added). Tennessee, in other words, has chosen to outlaw certain communications made in the furtherance of abortions that are, in fact, entirely legal.
That’s a big problem. It’s big enough the legislators pushing the bill must have been aware of it. Almost certainly they were. The court says this is an extremely easy call for it to make. The next paragraph opens up very bluntly.
It cannot do so.
Here’s why:
Tennesseans are Americans, and, as Americans, every state in the nation is presumptively open to them. It is, therefore, a basic constitutional fact—which Tennessee has no choice but to accept—that, as long as there are states in which abortion is permissible, then abortion will be potentially available to Tennesseans. Because obtaining an abortion out of state is a lawful option, moreover, Tennessee cannot make it a crime to communicate freely about that option.
This isn’t the legislative equivalent of rocket science. But the legislators chose to ignore these obvious facts because they thought they might get away with it, at least for a little while. And a little oppression is better than no oppression.
Intolerance and hate make people stupid. This stupidity is most notable when it involves people with enough power to make their stupidity plainly apparent.
No one associated with Chapter 1032 seems to have a particularly clear picture of what the provision is supposed to prohibit—not the prosecutors who will be called on to enforce it; not the state attorneys called on to defend the statute in court; and, it seems, not even the individuals who drafted the provision itself, who appear to have simply pulled the recruitment-focused language from other, preexisting statutes in which that language makes more sense. Whatever it means to “recruit” a person to receive a lawful abortion, however, such recruitment would inherently involve First Amendment-protected speech, meaning that the recruitment provision is subject to the ordinary restrictions that the First Amendment imposes.
And so it goes for several more pages. The law is simply indefensible. It cannot possibly be constitutional, no matter how much time and other people’s money the state is willing to throw away trying to defend it. However, they couldn’t be bothered to personally confront the potential outcomes of this abhorrent law. Almost all of the government’s defense was done via filings and court appearances by the state’s lawyers. Even when given a chance to avoid the lawsuit by simply stating in writing the law would not be enforced in the manner the plaintiffs sued over, they refused to respond.
Of course, the DAGs could simply explain that they are not, in fact, planning to enforce Chapter 1032 in the manner that Welty and Behn fear. That brings the court to the fourth Frisch factor—a refusal to disavow enforcement—which, in this instance, strongly supports a finding of standing. The defendants have had an unusual number of opportunities to explain how they will or will not enforce the statute. Welty sent them letters, and she gave them plenty of time to respond—so much time that it ultimately interfered with her ability to obtain a temporary restraining order. Nevertheless, the defendants completely ignored her. The defendants could have explained that refusal at the court’s hearing, but not one defendant even attended, let alone testified. At the hearing, the court made very clear that its consideration of the case would benefit from some shred of evidence regarding the defendants’ intentions—even simply signed declarations confirming that the lawyers representing them are accurately representing the defendants’ understanding of the statute. Still, however, they provided nothing.
That’s pretty ugly. That’s an extremely shitty blend of arrogance and cowardice. The government officials don’t like being challenged and appear to believe responding directly to the court and/or the plaintiffs is beneath them. Their refusal to make personal appearances also strongly suggests they’re not willing to be directly confronted by the likely victims of their unconstitutional law.
This inaction doesn’t help the state. It only makes it easier for the court to find in favor of the plaintiffs and issue an injunction.
The court finds that Welty and Behn are entitled to, and will receive, an injunction against all enforcement of the recruitment provision by the defendants against any party. The court does not reach that conclusion simply because this is an overbreadth challenge, but because such relief is necessary to prevent Welty’s and Behn’s own irreparable injuries. This is a case about the free flow of information, and it would be naive to think that the plaintiffs’ injuries can be addressed simply by preventing the application of the recruitment provision to them and them alone, while leaving their messages to die on the vine because no one else can pass them along.
The closing paragraphs forcefully drive the point home:
The freedom of speech guaranteed by the First Amendment is not simply a special protection that the Constitution grants to a few, high-profile speakers so that those speakers can hear themselves talk; it is a protection available to everyone, for the interconnected benefit of everyone, because messages do not gain their fullest power by being uttered, but by being spread.
Welty and Behn do not just have a right to speak their message; they have a right to live in a state where that message can be repeated by all who find it valuable to all who wish to hear it. Otherwise, there would be no actual freedom of speech—just freedom of a few speakers to address a silenced populace.
The law is blocked, but it’s as good as dead. Most likely, the state will appeal this decision. But this ain’t the Fifth Circuit so it’s unlikely to fall into the lap of a judge who thinks the First Amendment only applies to speech they agree with. The other option the state has to do the fastest, cheapest thing: strike the law from the books. But legislators who like wielding power more than they like respecting rights never take the easy way out. They just delay the inevitable since it costs them nothing to do so.
