Email from The Institute for Free Speech The Latest News from the Institute for Free Speech January 20, 2026 Click here to subscribe to the Daily Media Update. This is the Daily Media Update published by the Institute for Free Speech. For press inquiries, please contact [email protected]. New from the Institute for Free Speech Buckley v. Valeo: A Retrospective Series By David Keating .....Fifty years ago this month, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its landmark ruling in Buckley v. Valeo. Fortunately for the free speech clause of the First Amendment, the Court invalidated crucial parts of the extensive 1974 amendments to the 1971 Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA). To mark the January 30 anniversary of Buckley, the Institute for Free Speech and the Volokh Conspiracy today begin publishing a series of essays on the opinion, which will run through the anniversary date. We at the Institute recognize that this anniversary provides an opportunity to examine how Buckley safeguards the First Amendment rights that protect our ability to criticize, challenge, and ultimately improve our government. And the pre-Buckley world looked quite different. Before FECA, U.S. campaign finance was largely unregulated. The 1974 amendments imposed restrictions on contributions and expenditures. Buckley largely upheld contribution limits but ruled that spending limits were unconstitutional. Had the Court upheld the law in its entirety, Congress undoubtedly would have enacted even stricter laws to squelch critics. Numerous provisions of the pre-Buckley FECA posed a true threat to free speech, so it’s not an exaggeration to say the decision saved that fundamental right. Congress The Daily Signal: Judiciary Committee Debates Bill Against Lawsuit ‘Investors’ By George Caldwell .....The House Judiciary Committee is debating a bill that supporters say sheds light on dark money in the judicial system, but detractors say intimidates ordinary Americans who donate to nonprofits. The Litigation Transparency Act, introduced by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., will undergo markups this week. If the bill became law, parties in civil cases would have to be transparent about who stands to make money off of a lawsuit. More specifically, parties would have to disclose the names of those who could “receive any payment or thing of value,” depending on the case’s outcome, as well as provide the agreement that would guarantee this payment. Trump Administration The Free Press: Trump’s War on Liberal Nonprofits Collides with Reality By Gabe Kaminsky .....Meanwhile, the zeal to target liberals like Soros has alarmed a growing number of wealthy conservative donors, who believe investigations could spur Democratic officials in a future administration to attack Republicans. In recent private conversations with some of the donors, senior Trump administration officials who work on tax issues have said they understand those concerns and have tried to assure donors that any investigations would be legal and nonpartisan, according to people familiar with the talks. The officials have also conceded to the donors that such inquiries cannot originate in the White House and must be launched at the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) because of federal regulations, said the people familiar with the talks. “If you weaponize government to serve your own purpose, it’s going to come back to bite you in the butt,” David Williams, president of the Taxpayers Protection Alliance, a right-leaning nonprofit, told me this week. “That’s our concern.” Free Expression Washington Post: FBI executes search warrant at Washington Post reporter’s home By Perry Stein and Jeremy Roebuck .....The FBI executed a search warrant Wednesday morning at a Washington Post reporter’s home as part of an investigation into a government contractor accused of illegally retaining classified government materials. The reporter, Hannah Natanson, was at her home in Virginia at the time of the search. Federal agents searched her home and her devices, seizing her phone, two laptops and a Garmin watch. One of the laptops was her personal computer, the other a Post-issued laptop. The Post also received a subpoena Wednesday morning seeking information related to the same government contractor, according to a person familiar with the law enforcement action. The subpoena asked The Post to hand over any communications between the contractor and other employees. It is exceptionally rare for law enforcement officials to conduct searches at reporters’ homes. Federal regulations intended to protect a free press are designed to make it difficult to use aggressive law enforcement tactics against reporters to obtain the identities of their sources or information. Washington Post: ICE and activists clash over doxing and privacy, in court and streets By Joseph Menn .....As immigration agents and protesters clash in the streets, a parallel battle is unfolding over sensitive data used to identify and, as each side sees it, hold those on the other side to account. Government officers are using new technological tools featuring real-time location data and license-plate tracking to detain immigrants and investigate protesters. Activists, outmatched in force and spending, are using burner phones and donated dashboard cameras to counter those efforts, recording masked agents in action and compiling lists of names and badge numbers of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and other law enforcement personnel. In response, the government has charged activists under criminal statutes and tried to compel online platforms to reveal the identities of activists using their sites. Daily Caller: Gregg Jarrett Calls Don Lemon A ‘Dope’ Who Doesn’t Know Most Important Part About Right To Protest By Mariane Angela .....Fox News legal analyst Gregg Jarrett said Monday that former CNN host Don Lemon has no grasp of the most basic limits of the First Amendment. Lemon defended left wing activists who forced their way into an evangelical church service on Sunday after they accused the pastor of having ties to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Jarrett said on “The Bottom Line” that Lemon misunderstood the limits of the First Amendment, arguing that the right to protest does not permit activists to enter private property or disrupt church services, even if a journalist records the confrontation. “There’s Don Lemon, you know, recording it all happily, claiming everybody has a right to do this. No, they don’t. Lemon doesn’t seem to know that the right to protest does not extend to private property and certainly not to churches, which are protected spaces under law,” Jarrett said. Politico Magazine: They Wanted a University Without Cancel Culture. Then Dissenters Were Ousted. By Evan Mandery .....Over the past three months, I had more than 100 conversations with 25 current and former students, faculty and staffers at UATX. Each had their own perspective on the tumultuous events they shared with me, and some had personal grievances. But they were nearly unanimous in reporting that at its inception, UATX constituted a sincere effort to establish a transformative institution, uncompromisingly committed to the fundamental values of open inquiry and free expression. They were nearly unanimous, too, in lamenting that it had failed to achieve this lofty goal and instead become something more conventional — an institution dominated by politics and ideology that was in many ways the conservative mirror image of the liberal academy it deplored. Almost everyone attributed significant weight to President Donald Trump’s return to power in emboldening right-leaning hardliners to aggressively assert their vision and reduce UATX from something potentially profound to something decidedly mundane. Candidates and Campaigns New York Times: An A.I. Attack Ad Shows Texas Rivals Dancing the ‘Washington Waltz’ By Reid J. Epstein .....For as long as candidates have bought political advertising, there have been complaints about false or misleading ads designed to confuse or deceive voters. And that was before America’s politicians could make stuff up with artificial intelligence. In a sign of the A.I.-powered ads that are likely to swamp voters’ screens in this year’s midterm elections, Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general and a Republican Senate candidate in the state, released a video on Friday that showed two of his opponents dancing “the Senate swing” and “the Washington waltz.” Campaigns & Elections: WinRed Has a New Competitor. Not All Republicans Are Sold On It By Max Greenwood .....There’s a new player in the Republican donation processing space. But for now, at least, consultants are staying on the fence. The new platform, called PSQ Impact, launched last month as the first real competitor to GOP small-dollar fundraising clearinghouse WinRed, promising fundraisers lower processing fees and more transparency in how it handles contributions. The company also has some powerful backers within the MAGA movement. PSQ Impact is owned by MAGA-aligned online marketplace PublicSquare, which counts Donald Trump Jr. among its board members. The new fundraising platform is being helmed by Alex Bruesewitz, the former Trump campaign aide and conservative influencer. The States Washington Post: She made a Facebook comment about her mayor. Then the police arrived. By Praveena Somasundaram .....Raquel Pacheco began recording on her phone Monday as she opened her front door to the pair of police officers standing outside. They told her they had questions about a Facebook comment she had written. “Is that your account?” one officer asked. The other held out his phone, showing a message Pacheco had written days earlier about the mayor of Miami Beach, where she lives. Pacheco had left the comment about a post from Mayor Steven Meiner, in which he called his city a “safe haven for everyone.” Meiner, who is Jewish, contrasted Miami Beach with “places like New York City,” where he accused officials of discriminating against Jews and “promoting boycotts” of Jewish and Israeli-owned businesses. In a series of replies, Pacheco called him racist and criticized his actions toward a number of communities, including Palestinians and LGBTQ people. She said she felt his words of welcome were superficial. At her door, the officers told Pacheco they were looking for the commenter because that person’s words could “probably incite somebody to do something bad,” her video shows. Pacheco refused to answer their questions without an attorney present, and the officers left within minutes. People United for Privacy: Oklahoma Ethics Commission Withdraws Proposal That Would Have Forced Nonprofits to Expose Donors Like PACs .....Some of the most sweeping legal transformations hinge on nothing more than redefining a single term. A recent scare for donor privacy rights in Oklahoma shows the danger. Fortunately, quick action quelled the threat. Last month and again this week, we sounded the alarm about a proposal at the Oklahoma Ethics Commission (OEC), Amendatory Ethics Rule 2.79, that would have vastly expanded the definition of “political action committee” (PAC) in state law. Under the proposal, nonprofits that spend small amounts advocating for or against ballot measures, or on communications that reference candidates and elected officials in the months preceding an election, would be defined as PACs. As a PAC, they would be forced to file regular reports with the state and publicly expose the names, addresses, occupations, and employers of all donors over $50. Read an article you think we would be interested in? Send it to Tiffany Donnelly at [email protected]. For email filters, the subject of this email will always begin with "Institute for Free Speech Media Update." 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