Legal Info

Group Legal documents

Stealing from Journalists OK?

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Article in The Intercept by Noah Horowitz, 9/2/26

Headline:   “Trump Admin Tells Court: Let OpenAI Rip Off The Intercept’s Articles”

Subhead:  “Trump’s Justice Department filed a brief on behalf of OpenAI in a landmark copyright lawsuit by The Intercept and other media companies.”

“President Donald Trump’s Justice Department took the side of tech giant OpenAI in its court battle with The Intercept and other media companies over the company’s use of others’ creative work to train its artificial intelligence tools.

“In a federal court filing in New York, the Justice Department argued that the U.S. has a vested interest in OpenAI having access to a vast array of intellectual property. The Trump administration warned that restricting OpenAI’s access to the data could hamper scientific progress and harm the country’s dominance in the race for artificial intelligence. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://theintercept.com/2026/09/02/trump-openai-copyright-lawsuit-news-articles/

Media and Exploding Lawsuits

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Article in Axios by Sara Fisher and Kerry Flynn, 8/18/26

Headline:  “Trump’s media and defamation legal battles skyrocket”

Subhead:  “Media and defamation lawsuits involving Trump”

“. . .Trump’s efforts to target government-funded broadcasters and broadcasters regulated by the Federal Communications Commission have prompted many of those cases.”

“. . .According to Axios’ analysis, Trump, his businesses and his administration have been involved in 61 media and defamation lawsuits since 2015, including 16 in 2025 and nine so far in 2026.

Read the full article at:

https://www.axios.com/2026/08/18/trump-media-defamation-lawsuits

Battle for Free Press?

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Article in Status by Oliver Darcy, 8/18/26

Headline:  “Disney Goes To War”

Subhead:  “In an extraordinary lawsuit, the Josh D’Amaro-led company accused the federal government of serious First Amendment violations and warned that if it loses, “the press could in no way be described as free.”

“. . .It was evident to Disney executives all along that Carr’s probe into the company was about much more than its D.E.I. policies. A person familiar with the Josh D’Amaro-led company’s thinking told Status. . .

Read the full article at:

https://www.status.news/p/disney-abc-fcc-lawsuit-brendan-carr-stations

Trumps Dodge Subpoenas From Broadcaster

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Article in The New Republic by Hafiz Rashid, 8/17/26

Headline:  “Trump Kids Hide From Subpoenas as BBC Defamation Lawsuit Backfires”

Subhead: “President Trump is losing control over his own lawsuit against the BBC.”

“President Trump’s family members are dodging subpoenas in his defamation lawsuit against the BBC.

“The British network asked a U.S. federal judge for help in getting documents and testimony from Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump, and her husband Jared Kushner, the Associated Press reports, citing court documents. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://newrepublic.com/post/214418/trump-kids-hide-subpoenas-bbc-defamation-lawsuit-backfires

Post Sees Eyes on Things

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Article in Poynter by Angela Fu and Amaris Castillo

Headline:  “Opinion | A Washington Post investigation prompts changes at surveillance company Flock”

Subhead:  “The Post found dozens of cases of police misusing license plate readers. Flock is adding safeguards intended to prevent abuse.”

“Flock, the company that operates an extensive network of license plate readers, announced Thursday that it will implement new safety measures. . .”

“The Post noted that the announcement comes one week after the paper published an investigation finding dozens of examples of police officers using Flock’s cameras to stalk women without their knowledge or consent. In one case, a police chief searched his ex-girlfriend’s license plate more than 500 times and repeatedly sent her messages indicating he knew her location. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.poynter.org/commentary/2026/flock-security-camera-changes-washington-post/

Pay Money Get Info?

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Article in Al Jazeera by Staff and AP, 8/12/26

Headline:  “Media groups sue Trump over paid access to public social media posts”

Subhead:  “Lawsuit claims Trump profits unfairly by charging up to $100,000 monthly for exclusive access to presidential posts.”

“The publication The Intercept and the nonprofit Freedom of the Press Foundation have filed a federal lawsuit against United States President Donald Trump to block his social media service from selling advance access to his posts.

“Court filings on Wednesday argue that the subscription-based service would restrict access to matters of public interest. . .”

“Critics have pointed out that Trump uses his Truth Social account to announce policy changes that could have effects on the economy. Trump’s comments, for instance, about the US-Israel war on Iran have sent ripples through global oil markets.”

Read the full article at:

https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2026/8/12/media-groups-sue-trump-over-paid-access-to-public-social-media-posts

Kansas Newspaper Restitution

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Article and photo in AP by John Hanna, 8/12/26

Headline: “A Kansas town will pay $850K to end a reporter’s lawsuit over a 2023 raid on her paper’s offices”

“A small Kansas town has agreed to pay $850,000 to a former reporter at its weekly newspaper to end her federal lawsuit over a police raid of the paper’s offices in 2023 that ignited a national furor over press freedom.

“Now-retired Marion County Record reporter Phyllis Zorn said in her lawsuit that the raid violated press freedoms and protections from unreasonable law enforcement searches guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. She also said it almost immediately led to health problems, causing the return of potentially life-threatening seizures that had been controlled for years with medication. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://apnews.com/article/kansas-newspaper-raid-press-freedom-c94e93cb264256678194d891a36108c9

Judge Stops Media Supression

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Article in Free Press by Staff, 8/4/26

Headline:  “Civil-Liberties and Press-Freedom Groups Applaud First Circuit Ruling in Rodríguez-Cotto v. González-Colón, Affirming First Amendment Rights”

“On Tuesday, civil-liberties and press-freedom organizations praised the First Circuit’s ruling in Rodríguez-Cotto v. González-Colón. The First Circuit’s ruling upholds a district court’s permanent injunction, preventing use of a Puerto Rican law criminalizing information shared about states of emergency.

“Article 5.14(a) of Puerto Rico law, known as the ‘Fake News’ law, was enacted during the COVID-19 crisis and criminalized raising a ‘false alarm’ or spreading false information about public emergencies . . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.freepress.net/news/civil-liberties-and-press-freedom-groups-applaud-first-circuit-ruling-puerto-rico-law

WSJ Bawdiness Lawsuit?

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Article in The Guardian by Jeremy Barr, 8/5/26

Headline:   “Judge signals Trump’s defamation lawsuit against Wall Street Journal may be dismissed again”

Subhead:  “Obama-appointed judge seemed unmoved by Trump attorneys’ arguments in case also naming Murdoch”

“A federal judge in Florida seemed skeptical of arguments from Donald Trump’s legal team on Wednesday over whether the court should allow a $10bn defamation lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal to move forward.

“Trump sued the Journal and the News Corp founder Rupert Murdoch over a July 2025 article about a “bawdy” letter reportedly from Trump that was included in a 2003 birthday book for disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/aug/05/trump-defamation-lawsuit-murdoch-dismissal

Unhinged Journalist-Harassment?

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Article in Ars Technica by Jon Brodkin, 7/28/26

Headline:  “eBay pays $46M to journalists it targeted in bizarre harassment campaign”

Subhead:  “eBay sent bloody pig mask and other macabre deliveries to journalists’ home.”

“eBay and three former executives agreed to pay nearly $56 million in a settlement over a macabre campaign of cyberstalking and harassment that targeted two journalists in 2019.

“As we’ve previously written, the case involved deliveries of live cockroaches, a funeral wreath, a book about surviving the loss of a spouse, and a bloody pig mask to the home of a couple who run a news website. There were also harassing messages sent via email and Twitter, and an attempt to install a GPS tracking device on the victims’ car. Criminal charges resulted in guilty pleas and prison terms for former eBay employees. . .”

Read the full article at:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/07/ebay-former-execs-pay-56m-to-settle-bloody-pig-mask-harassment-case/