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The justices are expected to rule quickly in the case.

Published

1 year ago

January 10, 2025

The justices are expected to rule quickly in the case.

When the Supreme Court hears arguments on Friday over whether protecting national security requires TikTok to be sold or closed, the justices will be working in the shadow of three First Amendment precedents, all influenced by the climate of their times and by how much the justices trusted the government.

During the Cold War and in the Vietnam era, the court refused to credit the government’s assertions that national security required limiting what newspapers could publish and what Americans could read. More recently, though, the court deferred to Congress’s judgment that combating terrorism justified making some kinds of speech a crime.

The court will most likely act quickly, as TikTok faces a Jan. 19 deadline under a law enacted in April by bipartisan majorities. The law’s sponsors said the app’s parent company, ByteDance, is controlled by China and could use it to harvest Americans’ private data and to spread covert disinformation.

The court’s decision will determine the fate of a powerful and pervasive cultural phenomenon that uses a sophisticated algorithm to feed a personalized array of short videos to its 170 million users in the United States. For many of them, and particularly younger ones, TikTok has become a leading source of information and entertainment.

As in earlier cases pitting national security against free speech, the core question for the justices is whether the government’s judgments about the threat TikTok is said to pose are sufficient to overcome the nation’s commitment to free speech.

Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, told the justices that he “is second to none in his appreciation and protection of the First Amendment’s right to free speech.” But he urged them to uphold the law.

“The right to free speech enshrined in the First Amendment does not apply to a corporate agent of the Chinese Communist Party,” Mr. McConnell wrote.

Jameel Jaffer, the executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, said that stance reflected a fundamental misunderstanding.

“It is not the government’s role to tell us which ideas are worth listening to,” he said. “It’s not the government’s role to cleanse the marketplace of ideas or information that the government disagrees with.”

The Supreme Court’s last major decision in a clash between national security and free speech was in 2010, in Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project. It concerned a law that made it a crime to provide even benign assistance in the form of speech to groups said to engage in terrorism.

One plaintiff, for instance, said he wanted to help the Kurdistan Workers’ Party find peaceful ways to protect the rights of Kurds in Turkey and to bring their claims to the attention of international bodies.

When the case was argued, Elena Kagan, then the U.S. solicitor general, said courts should defer to the government’s assessments of national security threats.

“The ability of Congress and of the executive branch to regulate the relationships between Americans and foreign governments or foreign organizations has long been acknowledged by this court,” she said. (She joined the court six months later.)

The court ruled for the government by a 6-to-3 vote, accepting its expertise even after ruling that the law was subject to strict scrutiny, the most demanding form of judicial review.

“The government, when seeking to prevent imminent harms in the context of international affairs and national security, is not required to conclusively link all the pieces in the puzzle before we grant weight to its empirical conclusions,” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote for the majority.

Elena Kagan was the U.S. solicitor general the last time a major decision in a clash between national security and free speech came up in a Supreme Court case, in 2010.Credit…Luke Sharrett/The New York Times

In its Supreme Court briefs defending the law banning TikTok, the Biden administration repeatedly cited the 2010 decision.

“Congress and the executive branch determined that ByteDance’s ownership and control of TikTok pose an unacceptable threat to national security because that relationship could permit a foreign adversary government to collect intelligence on and manipulate the content received by TikTok’s American users,” Elizabeth B. Prelogar, the U.S. solicitor general, wrote, “even if those harms had not yet materialized.”

Many federal laws, she added, limit foreign ownership of companies in sensitive fields, including broadcasting, banking, nuclear facilities, undersea cables, air carriers, dams and reservoirs.

While the court led by Chief Justice Roberts was willing to defer to the government, earlier courts were more skeptical. In 1965, during the Cold War, the court struck down a law requiring people who wanted to receive foreign mail that the government said was “communist political propaganda” to say so in writing.

That decision, Lamont v. Postmaster General, had several distinctive features. It was unanimous. It was the first time the court had ever held a federal law unconstitutional under the First Amendment’s free expression clauses.

It was the first Supreme Court opinion to feature the phrase “the marketplace of ideas.” And it was the first Supreme Court decision to recognize a constitutional right to receive information.

That last idea figures in the TikTok case. “When controversies have arisen,” a brief for users of the app said, “the court has protected Americans’ right to hear foreign-influenced ideas, allowing Congress at most to require labeling of the ideas’ origin.”

Indeed, a supporting brief from the Knight First Amendment Institute said, the law banning TikTok is far more aggressive than the one limiting access to communist propaganda. “While the law in Lamont burdened Americans’ access to specific speech from abroad,” the brief said, “the act prohibits it entirely.”

Zephyr Teachout, a law professor at Fordham, said that was the wrong analysis. “Imposing foreign ownership restrictions on communications platforms is several steps removed from free speech concerns,” she wrote in a brief supporting the government, “because the regulations are wholly concerned with the firms’ ownership, not the firms’ conduct, technology or content.”

Six years after the case on mailed propaganda, the Supreme Court again rejected the invocation of national security to justify limiting speech, ruling that the Nixon administration could not stop The New York Times and The Washington Post from publishing the Pentagon Papers, a secret history of the Vietnam War. The court did so in the face of government warnings that publishing would imperil intelligence agents and peace talks.

“The word ‘security’ is a broad, vague generality whose contours should not be invoked to abrogate the fundamental law embodied in the First Amendment,” Justice Hugo Black wrote in a concurring opinion.

The American Civil Liberties Union told the justices that the law banning TikTok “is even more sweeping” than the prior restraint sought by the government in the Pentagon Papers case.

“The government has not merely forbidden particular communications or speakers on TikTok based on their content; it has banned an entire platform,” the brief said. “It is as though, in Pentagon Papers, the lower court had shut down The New York Times entirely.”

Mr. Jaffer of the Knight Institute said the key precedents point in differing directions.

“People say, well, the court routinely defers to the government in national security cases, and there is obviously some truth to that,” he said. “But in the sphere of First Amendment rights, the record is a lot more complicated.”

Related Topics:Donald J Featured Justice Department Supreme Court (US)TikTok (ByteDance)trump

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Business

California bill would make fossil fuel companies help pay for rising insurance costs

Published

1 hour ago

February 6, 2026

Press Room

California bill would make fossil fuel companies help pay for rising insurance costs

A bill that would make oil and gas companies pay for rising insurance costs due to climate-related disasters was introduced this week in the Legislature.

SB 982, the Affordable Insurance Recovery Act, would authorize California’s attorney general to file civil litigation against fossil fuel companies to recover losses from climate-induced disasters experienced by policyholders and the state’s insurer of last resort.

California home insurance premiums have been rising by double-digit rates following a series of devastating wildfires across the state over the last decade. The Jan. 7, 2025, Eaton and Palisades fires alone are expected to result in up to $45 billion in insured damages.

“With California’s paying such a massive cost for climate-related disasters, we have to ask who is not paying?” Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) said at a Thursday press conference held outside the state Capitol.

“We know who is — the survivors, taxpayers, policyholders, whose rates are going up throughout the state. But the answer in terms of who is not paying is fossil fuel corporations,” said Wiener, the bill’s lead author.

The recovered funds would compensate policyholders for rising premiums and other expenses, including the cost of fire-proofing their properties.

The California Fair Plan Assn. would be eligible for compensation, too. The insurer of last resort, operated and backed by the state’s licensed home insurers, has seen its rolls skyrocket as member insurers have dropped policyholders in wildfire-prone neighborhoods.

The plan expects to pay some $4 billion for claims stemming from the Jan. 7 wildfires and has had to assess member insurers $1 billion to meet its obligations.

About half of that is being paid through a surcharge on residential policyholders statewide. The plan also is seeking to raise rates 36%. A spokesperson for the plan declined to comment.

Sen. Ben Allen (D-Pacific Palisades), whose district includes the Palisades fire zone, is a co-author of the bill, which is supported by groups such as the Consumer Federation of California, California Environmental Voters and the Eaton Fire Survivors Network, a community group in Altadena.

Jim Stanley, a spokesperson for the Western States Petroleum Assn., an industry trade group, said the bill is bad public policy that would raise gas prices.

“This is a political stunt that will kill jobs and increase costs for consumers,” he said. “This bill would essentially make oil and gas companies financially liable for every natural disaster impacting California — creating a never-ending web of litigation and claims with no foundation in fact or science.”

This is not the first attempt in California to hold energy producers liable for the costs of natural disasters that environmentalists say are caused or worsened by climate change.

Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta sued Exxon Mobil, Shell, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and BP in 2023, accusing them of engaging in a “decades-long campaign of deception” about climate change that has forced the state to spend tens of billions of dollars to address environmental-related damages.

Two bills last year, known as the Polluters Pay Climate Superfund Act, would have required the largest oil and gas companies doing business in the state to pay into a Superfund to help the state adapt to climate change.

Similar legislation was passed in New York and Vermont but California’s bill, facing strong industry opposition, stalled in the Legislature.

California also is not alone in seeking to pass legislation that would hold fossil fuel companies responsible for higher insurance costs.

A bill being considered in New York would allow that state’s attorney general and property insurers to bring actions against parties responsible for climate-related disasters.

There is a similar bill under consideration in Hawaii, where the 2023 Maui wildfires caused an estimated $3 billion or more in losses.

Business

As post-production work moves out of California, workers push for a state incentive

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14 hours ago

February 5, 2026

Press Room

As post-production work moves out of California, workers push for a state incentive

As film and television post-production work has increasingly left California, workers are pushing for a new standalone tax credit focused on their industry.

That effort got a major boost Wednesday night when a representative for Assemblymember Nick Schultz (D-Burbank) said the lawmaker would take up the bill.

The news was greeted by cheers and applause from an assembled crowd of more than 100 people who attended a town hall meeting at Burbank’s Evergreen Studios.

“As big of a victory as this is, because it means we’re in the game, this is just the beginning,” Marielle Abaunza, president of the California Post Alliance trade group, a newly formed trade group representing post-production workers, said during the meeting.

The state’s post-production industry — which includes workers in fields like sound and picture editing, music, composition and visual effects — has been hit hard by the overall flight of film and TV work out of California and to other states and countries. Though post-production workers aren’t as visible, they play a crucial role in delivering a polished final product to TV, film and music audiences.

Last year, lawmakers boosted the annual amount allocated to the state’s film and TV tax credit program and expanded the criteria for eligible projects in an attempt to lure production back to California. So far, more than 100 film and TV projects have been awarded tax credits under the revamped program.

But post-production workers say the incentive program doesn’t do enough to retain jobs in California because it only covers their work if 75% of filming or overall budget is spent in the state. The new California Post Alliance is advocating for an incentive that would cover post-production jobs in-state, even if principal photography films elsewhere or the project did not otherwise qualify for the state’s production incentive.

Schultz said he is backing the proposed legislation because of the effect on workers in his district over the last decade.

“We are competing with other states and foreign countries for post production jobs, which is causing unprecedented threats to our workforce and to future generations of entertainment industry workers,” he said in a statement Thursday.

During the 1 1/2 hour meeting, industry speakers pointed to other states and countries, including many in Europe, with specific post-production incentives that have lured work away from the Golden State. By 2024, post-production employment in California dropped 11.2%, compared with 2010, according to a presentation from Tim Belcher, managing director at post-production company Light Iron.

“We’re all an integrated ecosystem, and losses in one affect losses in the other,” he said during the meeting. “And when post[-production] leaves California, we are all affected.”

Business

In Palisades visit, Trump officials vow to speed up permits for fire rebuilding

Published

1 day ago

February 5, 2026

Press Room

In Palisades visit, Trump officials vow to speed up permits for fire rebuilding

In a visit to Pacific Palisades on Wednesday, top White House officials vowed to take over and speed up building permitting, a core state and local function, for rebuilding after the Los Angeles wildfires.

Administrators for the Environmental Protection Agency, Lee Zeldin, and Small Business Administration, Kelly Loeffler, also held a discussion with Palisades fire victims and met with Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger in a closed-door meeting about how to hasten rebuilding and address issues such as insurance payouts and wildfire prevention.

“Our conversations with Mayor Bass and Supervisor Barger about accelerating the rebuilding process in Los Angeles were productive,” Zeldin said. “Administrator Loeffler and I, on behalf of President Trump, asked these local elected officials to join us in this urgent effort, and I am hopeful great progress will be made in the days and weeks ahead.”

The visit followed a Jan. 27 executive order signed by President Trump to allow victims of the Eaton and Palisades fires to go around “unnecessary, duplicative, or obstructive” state and local permitting processes.

Instead of going through building departments, such as the city of Los Angeles for the Palisades, or the county for Altadena, builders can instead “self-certify” that they have complied with state and local health and safety standards, if they are using federal emergency funds to rebuild, the order says.

The Small Business Administration has already launched a self-certification tool online, available to applicants who have been waiting more than 60 days for a building permit.

Loeffler said the “check and balance” will come from city and county inspections that must happen before a property is certified for occupancy.

Neither official could immediately recall another instance of the federal government preempting state and local permitting processes for disaster recovery, with Zeldin noting that “nothing like [these wildfires] has ever happened before.”

The visit underscored diverging narratives about the rebuilding process in L.A. While Trump described it as a “nightmare of delay, uncertainty, and bureaucratic malaise” in his executive order, state and local officials said construction is underway and permitting is not the issue.

“Both administrators were engaged — sharing the President’s concerns while also listening to what I am seeing on the ground in Altadena,” Barger said in a statement to The Times. “I emphasized that 53% of impacted residents have taken no action to rebuild, not because of permitting delays, but because they lack the capital to move forward — an issue exacerbated by delayed insurance payouts. Many families have not submitted plans or entered the County’s rebuilding pipeline and are now facing a serious financial crisis.”

She added that the county’s current timeline for completing permit reviews is 31 business days.

Bass, who is facing renewed scrutiny after an analysis of the Palisades fire was watered down, did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Wednesday’s meeting.

Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a post on X following the executive order, that hundreds of homes are under construction, and that permitting timelines are at least twice as fast as before the fires. He said the president continues to withhold a federal aid package that would help families rebuild.

“The Feds need to release funding, not take over local permit approval speed — the main obstacle is COMMUNITIES NOT HAVING THE MONEY TO REBUILD,” the governor said.

Last month, on the anniversary of the fires, a bipartisan delegation of California legislators also penned a letter to Trump calling for additional federal support.

A December analysis by The Times found that permitting has gained momentum after a slow start, with the pace slower than after some disasters in the state, and faster than others.

As of Wednesday, more than 3,170 rebuilding permits have been issued in the fire areas, according to city and county dashboards.

But Zeldin used the opportunity to take jabs at Newsom, describing his approach to federal funding requests as “flawed.”

“The whole ask has been completely stepped on by the governor’s effort to campaign for president — to try to lob 11 insults a day and somehow fit in an ask for tens of billions of dollars in the middle of it,” he said. “It’s just not a good strategy.”

He declined to say whether additional funding will come from Congress, or how much.

Some Palisades residents said they would welcome whatever support they can get. Among them was Abby Waldorf, whose parents both lost their homes in the Tahitian Terrace mobile home park during the Palisades fire.

Waldorf said mobile homes don’t qualify for many city and state recovery programs, such as mortgage relief and disaster recovery aid, so they are “most at risk of not coming back.”

“Our community is very supportive of anyone that will help us move back quickly,” she said, “and at this point we haven’t seen that happen at the city, county or state level yet, and so anyone who can come in and do the job is welcome.”