Schedule

• Thursday October 17

  Riverside Church, South Hall

  490 Riverside Dr, New York, NY 10027

  6:00PM – 8:00PM ET

  Photography Exhibition and Reception

  “Infrastructures of Control” 

  Photographers

  • Dugan Meyer, University of Arizona
  • Colter Thomas, Harvard University

  

  April Renae

• Friday October 18

  Riverside Church, South Hall and Online

  490 Riverside Dr, New York, NY 10027

  9:15AM – 9:30AM ET

  Welcome

  • Jameel Jaffer, Knight First Amendment Institute

  9:30AM – 10:45AM ET

  Panel 1: The First Amendment Rights of Noncitizens

  The questions of whether and how the Constitution should be understood to protect the expressive and associational rights of noncitizens inside the United States are bound up with questions about sovereignty, collective self-determination, and the purpose of the First Amendment.  What First Amendment rights should noncitizens be understood to have, and what rights do they actually enjoy? What legal frameworks do we need to ensure that the expressive and associational rights of noncitizens in the United States are respected?

  Panelists

  • Ahilan Arulanantham, UCLA School of Law
  • Alina Das, NYU School of Law
    • Presenting paper: Protecting the First Amendment Rights of Noncitizens
  • Cristian Farias, Inquest
  • Genevieve Lakier, University of Chicago Law School

  Moderator

  • Elora Mukherjee, Columbia Law School

  View Paper abstracts

  Protecting the First Amendment Rights of Noncitizens

  Alina Das

  This paper explores the doctrinal and structural challenges to protecting the First Amendment rights of immigrants. It reviews government efforts to punish U.S.-based immigrant rights’ activists for engaging in First Amendment-protected activities and discusses the range of judicial responses to these efforts. Building on previous examinations of federal immigration officials’ retaliation against activists under the Trump and Biden administrations, the paper develops a broader critique of the various legal and administrative barriers to protecting immigrants’ First Amendment rights.

   

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  10:45AM – 11:00AM ET

  Break

  11:00AM – 12:15PM ET

  Panel 2: Foreign Speech, National Security, and the First Amendment

  Governments including our own routinely limit the exchange of information across borders in the name of national security. When, if ever, should national security be viewed as a legitimate justification for restricting cross-border speech, and what legal frameworks do we need to limit the risk that national security is used as a pretext for restricting speech that is important to democracy? How are restrictions that are said to be necessary to protect national security shaping or distorting public discourse in the United States today?

  Panelists

  • Noah Chauvin, Widener Law Commonwealth
    
    • Presenting paper: Foreign Influence and First Amendment Values
  • Anna Diakun, Knight First Amendment Institute
  • Evelyn Douek, Stanford Law School 
    • Presenting paper: Material Support Laws’ Long Online Shadow

  Moderator

  • Ramya Krishnan, Knight First Amendment Institute

  View Paper abstracts

  Foreign Influence and the Immorality of Censorship

  Noah Chauvin

  This paper examines the relationship between the First Amendment and concerns of foreign influence in American politics. Concerns around foreign nations’ efforts to influence domestic elections have long been used by governments to justify domestic surveillance and censorship. Critics of these practices, however, have largely focused on the efficacy of foreign interference.  This paper argues that we must instead focus on the moral values the First Amendment protects—namely, the right of the people to agency and self-determination. Failing to account for these values makes it more likely that courts and the public will tolerate efforts to restrict speech in the name of national security.

  Material Support Laws’ Long Online Shadow

  Evelyn Douek

  This paper considers the contemporary implications of Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project—a 2010 Supreme Court decision which upheld a law that criminalized the provision of expert advice to designated foreign terrorist organizations. Holder delineated two constitutionally distinct spheres of discourse: foreign and domestic. But in the digital age, this distinction is even harder to maintain than it was before. Holder, and the dubious distinction it relies on, casts a long shadow over online speech and domestic political debate, by shaping how platforms moderate "foreign" content. This discussion is particularly relevant today, as illustrated by the tensions around online content from and about Palestine amidst Israel’s war in Gaza.

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  12:15PM – 1:00PM ET

  Lunch Break

  Lunch will be provided.

  1:00PM – 1:30PM ET

  Keynote Address

  • Katherine Maher, NPR

  1:30PM – 2:45PM ET

  Panel 3: Surveillance At and Across Borders

  It’s well understood that surveillance can operate as “soft censorship,” deterring individuals from engaging in expressive and associational activities that are nominally protected by law. In recent years, powerful new surveillance technology has enabled both government and private actors to monitor, intimidate, and persecute journalists, human rights advocates, political dissidents, and ordinary citizens. What constraints do we need to impose on government and private surveillance, or on the sale and distribution of surveillance technology, in order to protect expressive and associational freedoms? How does First Amendment doctrine need to evolve to address the challenges presented by new forms of surveillance?

  Panelists

  • Ron Deibert, Citizen Lab 
    • Presenting paper: Silenced by Surveillance: The Impacts of Digital Transnational Repression on Journalists, Human Rights Defenders, and Dissidents (co-author: Siena Anstis)
  • Ashley Gorski, ACLU
  • Jaya Ramji-Nogales, Temple Law School 
    • Presenting paper: Surveilling Border Activists (co-author: Nicole Ramos, Al Otro Lado) 

  Moderator

  • Alex Abdo, Knight First Amendment Institute

  View Paper abstracts

  Silenced by Surveillance: The Impacts of Digital Transnational Repression on Journalists, Human Rights Defenders, and Dissidents

  Ron Deibert, Siena Anstis

  This paper examines the growing phenomenon of digital transnational repression, in which dissidents in exile or in the diaspora are targeted by their country of origin with online harassment, disinformation campaigns, or spyware. It discusses findings from interviews conducted with over 100 human rights defenders, journalists, and other members of civil society living in the diaspora or in exile who believe they were targeted by their country of origin, as well as how host states—such as the United States—have and should be responding to the practice of (digital) transnational repression.

  Surveilling Border Activists

  Jaya Ramji-Nogales, Nicole Ramos

  This paper catalogs the Trump administration’s targeting of activists, journalists, and lawyers working with migrants at the border and discusses the ongoing harassment faced by border activists under the Biden administration. The paper highlights the previously underexplored harms to noncitizens and assesses available legal strategies to challenge the surveillance of activists, lawyers, and journalists working with migrants at the southwestern border.

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  2:45PM – 3:00PM ET

  Break

  3:00PM – 4:15PM ET

  Panel 4: Protecting the Right to Receive Ideas From Abroad 

  Many contemporary political debates stem from the perception that speech from abroad—that is, “foreign speech—poses a danger to our democracy. This danger is used to justify government regulation and intervention that would be unconstitutional in most other contexts. Of course, some kinds of foreign speech—for example, unregulated political donations by residents of foreign countries, or disinformation campaigns directed by foreign powers—may well threaten the integrity of democratic processes and public discourse. Yet broadly characterizing foreign speech as a danger overlooks the ways in which such speech can serve First Amendment values, like fostering a marketplace of ideas, facilitating democratic self-government, and supporting individual autonomy. How should courts weigh these risks and benefits? What lessons can be drawn from historical and contemporary battles over Americans’ right to receive information and ideas from abroad?

  Panelists

  • Chinmayi Arun, Yale Law School 
    • Presenting paper: Accessing Ernie Bot’s Avatars
  • Sam Lebovic, George Mason University
    • Presenting paper: Do Americans Have a Right to Know About the World?
  • Nick Robinson, International Center for Not-for-Profit Law
  • Xiangnong (George) Wang, Knight First Amendment Institute
    
    • Presenting paper: Listeners’ Rights in the Time of Foreign Propaganda: The Story of Lamont v. Postmaster General 

  Moderator

  • Katy Glenn Bass, Knight First Amendment Institute

  View Paper abstracts

  Accessing Ernie Bot’s Avatars

  Chinmayi Arun

  This paper builds on Justice Brennan’s concurrence in Lamont v. Postmaster General to argue that the First Amendment protects listeners’ rights when the state restricts their access to foreign-owned digital platforms and AI models. Foreign speech and ideas have democratic and cultural value, and this paper outlines the pitfalls of restricting access to foreign platforms for national security purposes. Using First Amendment case law and theory, it offers a new framework for the right to receive information in an era of foreign-owned platforms, technology, and generative AI models.

  Do Americans Have a Right to Know About the World?

  Sam Lebovic

  This paper explores how U.S. citizens have sought to enforce their rights to receive and gather information from abroad in the face of repressive political climates. Through a legal history of a series of landmark First Amendment cases, it argues that the right to know—which would strengthen democracy, enhance the liberal international order, and foster a culture of accountability—should not be eclipsed by national security concerns and foreign policy programs aiming to control the information flow across the border.

  Listeners’ Rights in the Time of Foreign Propaganda: The Story of Lamont v. Postmaster General

  Xiangnong (George) Wang

  This paper focuses on the story of Lamont v. Postmaster General, the underappreciated case that established that the First Amendment protects the rights of listeners to receive information and ideas from abroad, even when that information is deemed dangerous by the government. Lamont has enduring significance in the digital age, especially as governments—including in the United States—increasingly seek to restrict their citizens’ access to foreign information and ideas, in the name of national security. By delving into the historical context surrounding Lamont, this paper re-examines the democratic principles that animate Lamont and explains why the decision remains so important today. 

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  4:15PM – 4:30PM ET

  Closing Remarks