in the courts

A federal judge ruled a Brown County man and Chicago woman are likely to succeed in their First Amendment lawsuit alleging the federal government pressured Apple and Facebook to remove platforms tracking U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity.

The lawsuit, filed in the Northern District of Illinois, alleges former Attorney General Pam Bondi and former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem censored platform creators by threatening Apple and Facebook to remove applications that document or “doxx” ICE operations.

“Those who drafted the first amendment believed that the nation’s security requires a free press and an informed people and that such security is endangered by governmental suppression of political speech,” US district court judge Paul Friedman wrote in his opinion. “That principle has preserved the nation’s security for almost 250 years. It must not be abandoned now.”

A coalition of 24 states, alongside a dozen cities and counties, has sued the Trump administration over its decision to revoke the bedrock scientific determination underpinning virtually all US climate regulations.

The US justice department has dropped legal proceedings against four law firms that stood up to retaliatory executive actions by Donald Trump for representing clients or causes the president did not like.