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As a legal organization that has fought in court to defend the rights of technology users for almost 35 years, including numerous legal challenges to federal government overreach, Electronic Frontier Foundation unequivocally supports Perkins Coie’s challenge to the Trump administration’s shocking, vindictive, and unconstitutional Executive Order. In punishing the law firm for its zealous advocacy on behalf of its clients, the order offends the First Amendment, the rule of law, and the legal profession broadly in numerous ways. We commend Perkins Coie (and its legal representatives) for fighting back.

Lawsuits against the federal government are a vital component of the system of checks and balances that undergirds American democracy. They reflect a confidence in both the judiciary to decide such matters fairly and justly, and the executive to abide by the court’s determination. They are a backstop against autocracy and a sustaining feature of American jurisprudence since Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137 (1803).

The Executive Order, if enforced, would upend that system and set an appalling precedent: Law firms that represent clients adverse to a given administration can and will be punished for doing their jobs.

This is a fundamental abuse of executive power.

The constitutional problems are legion, but here are a few:

The First Amendment bars the government from “distorting the legal system by altering the traditional role of attorneys” by controlling what legal arguments lawyers can make. See Legal Services Corp. v. Velasquez, 531 U.S. 533, 544 (2001). “An informed independent judiciary presumes an informed, independent bar.” Id. at 545.
The Executive Order is also unconstitutional retaliation for Perkins Coie’s engaging in constitutionally protected speech during the course of representing its clients. See Nieves v. Bartlett, 587 U.S. 391, 398 (2019).
And the Executive Order functions as an illegal loyalty oath for the entire legal profession, conditioning access to federal courthouses or client relationships with government contractors on fealty to the executive branch, including forswearing protected speech in opposition to it. That condition is blatantly unlawful: The government cannot require that those it works with or hires embrace certain political beliefs or promise that they have “not engaged, or will not engage, in protected speech activities such as … criticizing institutions of government.” See Cole v. Richardson, 405 U.S. 676, 680 (1972).

Civil liberties advocates such as EFF rely on the rule of law and access to the courts to vindicate their clients’, and the public’s, fundamental rights. From this vantage point, we can see that this Executive Order is nothing less than an attack on the foundational principles of American democracy.

The Executive Order must be swiftly nullified by the court and uniformly vilified by the entire legal profession.

Click here for the number to listen in on a hearing on a temporary restraining order, scheduled for 2pmET/11amPT Wednesday, March 12.

David Greene

【支部リポート】福岡　障害ある人にも映画を　「みらいシネマ福岡」設立＝白垣詔男

日本ジャーナリストクラブ（JCJ）

1 month 3 weeks ago

　２０２１年度にＪＣＪ賞を受賞した、植村隆さんの裁判を中心に描いた映画「標的」の監督・製作を務めた福岡支部会員・西嶋真司さんが、昨年末、「すべての人生に映画の感動を」と銘打って特定非営利活動法人「みらいシネマ福岡」を設立した。　同法人の創立趣意書には「私たちが暮らす社会には様々な人々がいます。この社会は多数を占める健常者に都合のいいように造られてきました。視覚障がい者や聴覚障がい者にとって、映画館で映画の感動に接する機会は決して多くありません。…（この団体は）音声ガイドや字幕..

ＪＣＪ

Anchorage Police Department: AI-Generated Police Reports Don’t Save Time

EFF update

1 month 3 weeks ago

The Anchorage Police Department (APD) has concluded its three-month trial of Axon’s Draft One, an AI system that uses audio from body-worn cameras to write narrative police reports for officers—and has decided not to retain the technology. Axon touts this technology as “force multiplying,” claiming it cuts in half the amount of time officers usually spend writing reports—but APD disagrees.

The APD deputy chief told Alaska Public Media, “We were hoping that it would be providing significant time savings for our officers, but we did not find that to be the case.” The deputy chief flagged that the time it took officers to review reports cut into the time savings from generating the report. The software translates the audio into narrative, and officers are expected to read through the report carefully to edit it, add details, and verify it for authenticity. Moreover, because the technology relies on audio from body-worn cameras, it often misses visual components of the story that the officer then has to add themselves. “So if they saw something but didn’t say it, of course, the body cam isn’t going to know that,” the deputy chief continued.

The Anchorage Police Department is not alone in claiming that Draft One is not a time saving device for officers. A new study into police using AI to write police reports, which specifically tested Axon’s Draft One, found that AI-assisted report-writing offered no real time-savings advantage.

This news comes on the heels of policymakers and prosecutors casting doubt on the utility or accuracy of AI-created police reports. In Utah, a pending state bill seeks to make it mandatory for departments to disclose when reports have been written by AI. In King County, Washington, the Prosecuting Attorney’s Office has directed officers not to use any AI tools to write narrative reports.

In an era where companies that sell technology to police departments profit handsomely and have marketing teams to match, it can seem like there is an endless stream of press releases and local news stories about police acquiring some new and supposedly revolutionary piece of tech. But what we don’t usually get to see is how many times departments decide that technology is costly, flawed, or lacks utility. As the future of AI-generated police reports rightly remains hotly contested, it’s important to pierce the veil of corporate propaganda and see when and if police departments actually find these costly bits of tech useless or impractical.

Matthew Guariglia