Tag: first amendment news

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The Intercept Files Suit Seeking Access to Government Surveillance Records

The Cornell First Amendment Clinic filed a public records suit yesterday with co-counsel Ben Rundall on behalf of news outlet The Intercept seeking access to government surveillance records that the public has the right to know about. The Intercept is suing Arizona’s attorney general and the Transaction Record Analysis Center (TRAC), a nonprofit the AG’s Office established in 2014, for access to records regarding a database housing millions of wire transfers sent between Mexico and U.S. border states. As Shawn Musgrave reports in a story about the suit linked below, Immigration and Customs Enforcement is a top user of TRAC’s data and also serves as a data pipeline, via subpoenas that have alarmed civil liberties watchdogs.

Thanks to our co-counsel at Zwillinger Wulkan, alumna Yifei Yang, students Zachary Jacobson, Danielle Mimeles, and Alexander Venditti and extern Nyssa Kruse for their work on the suit. Read more about the suit in The Intercept here.

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Feature Case on Homepage Local Journalism Project News

Clinic Publishes Op-Ed on Judicial Transparency

Clinic Director Mark Jackson and Local Journalism Project Managing Attorney Heather Murray recently published an Op-Ed in the Albany Times Union to amplify the efforts of journalist Janon Fisher to shed light on the judicial appointment process in NYC. While the trial court in the Clinic’s public records suit ruled that candidate applications for appointed judgeships must be released to the public with minimal redactions to shield private information, an appellate court late last year made it harder to hold power to account by overturning the lower court. Mr. Fisher has sought leave to appeal to the New York Court of Appeals with the Clinic’s assistance. The Court takes up only a small percentage of the requests to hear cases like ours, but we’re hopeful that ours will be one of them.

Thanks to the fantastic Clinic team that has contributed to work on this case thus far starting way back in 2021, including Ava Lubell, Christina Neitzey, Connor Flannery (who argued before both the trial court and the Appellate Division), Nyssa Kruse, Svetlana (Aika) Riguera, and Sun Shen.

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Feature Case on Homepage Local Journalism Project News

Clinic Alum Argues to Unseal Settlement Records in Pennsylvania Wrongful Death Suit

Cornell First Amendment Clinic alum Connor Flannery ’23 argued in the Court of Common Pleas, Dauphin County, on February 26, 2023, seeking access to sealed settlement agreements on behalf of local journalism client The Patriot News/PennLive. The Clinic’s client seeks access to the settlement agreements in a wrongful death suit to shed further light on an issue of great public concern involving a young mother killed by an oncoming train as she was exiting a boat ramp in Halifax, Pennsylvania. Also pictured are Mr. Flannery’s supervising attorneys Heather Murray, Managing Attorney of the Cornell Local Journalism Project, Paula Knudsen Burke, Local Legal Initiative Attorney for the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, and Diane Siegel Danoff, a partner at Dechert LLP.

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Fall 2023 First Amendment Clinic Bootcamp

What a great start-of-the-semester Bootcamp on Saturday, August 19, 2023, for our incoming students in the Cornell Law School First Amendment Clinic!

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Our students were treated to talks by the likes of Anne Galloway, Tim Cornell, Clinic Local Journalism Project Managing Attorney Heather Murray and recent alumnus Andrew Gelfand on the state of local news and their joint litigation work for pioneering non-profit news site VTDigger; returning Clinic students Patrick George, Cameron Misner, and Dominic Muscarella discussing with moderator, Clinic Fellow Christina Neitzey, how to excel in the Clinic environment; the incomparable Robbie Kaplan of Kaplan Hecker & Fink speaking to our students from the frontlines of the First Amendment; Professor Michael Dorf and Clinic Associate Director/Associate Clinical Professor Gautam Hans discussing the implications of the Supreme Court ruling in 303 Creative, and Co-chair of Greenberg Traurig’s National Media and Entertainment Litigation Group Michael Grygiel on the litigation twists and turns leading to very recent Federal Court decision dismissing the Nicholas Sandmann libel suit against Gannett and several other media organizations.

We are so grateful to all our clients, co-counsels, friends, Clinic alumni and returning students for taking the time and helping to make the day such a smashing success!

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