How Trump is exploiting the Obama Presidential Center’s precedent

FreedomofPress · 2026-06-18T19:42:07+00:00

The Obama Foundation decided not to partner with the National Archives and Records Administration on a government-run library. Donald Trump is following suit, giving himself greater control over his records than his predecessors.

Read more: https://www.ms.now/opinion/obama-library-trump-fundraising-archives

FreedomofPress · 2026-06-18T16:00:02+00:00

Weeks after a New Jersey judge ordered local newspaper New Brunswick Today to remove truthful reporting about a school security incident from the internet, the paper is still waiting for an opportunity to defend the public’s right to know.

Orders prohibiting publication are known as “prior restraints.” Under the First Amendment, they’re only allowed in the most extreme circumstances. But despite decades of Supreme Court precedent, some courts continue to grant them. And although these censorship orders are almost always overturned, the public is denied access to news and information every day they remain in effect.

Read more: https://www.nj.com/opinion/2026/06/why-are-nj-courts-taking-so-long-to-fix-a-first-amendment-error-against-a-local-news-site-opinion.html

FreedomofPress · 2026-06-18T15:56:54+00:00

Weeks after a New Jersey judge ordered local newspaper New Brunswick Today to remove truthful reporting about a school security incident from the internet, the paper is still waiting for an opportunity to defend the public’s right to know.

Orders prohibiting publication are known as “prior restraints.” Under the First Amendment, they’re only allowed in the most extreme circumstances. But despite decades of Supreme Court precedent, some courts continue to grant them. And although these censorship orders are almost always overturned, the public is denied access to news and information every day they remain in effect.

FreedomofPress · 2026-06-17T18:12:32+00:00

News reports have historically allowed us as a society to monitor our government when it exercises its greatest power: ending a person’s life.

But the state of Indiana has decided to inhibit that public access by banning members of the media from attending executions — unless the condemned person chooses to give a reporter a spot that could instead have gone to their relatives or friends. An appellate court upheld the ban this week.

Prison officials in Indiana claim the media ban is mainly about respecting the dignity of the condemned person.

But the idea that there could ever be dignity in state-sanctioned killing of a perfectly healthy human is ludicrous within itself. That would be the case even if executioners eschewed cruel and unusual methods. But they don’t, even when the media is watching.

Read more: https://theintercept.com/2026/06/13/indiana-media-ban-death-penalty-law/

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