Adam Steinbaugh (@adamsteinbaugh.bsky.social)

@adamsteinbaugh.bsky.social Oct 4, 2026, 8:24 PM

That’s the Notes app

@adamsteinbaugh.bsky.social Sep 24, 2026, 12:08 PM

Trump filed multiple actions to keep the case out of federal court, and there was a lot of litigation over which court should hear it.

@adamsteinbaugh.bsky.social Sep 24, 2026, 11:39 AM

The leader of the free world lost in two separate legal cases over his efforts to suppress "fake news." In the span of eight hours.

@adamsteinbaugh.bsky.social Sep 23, 2026, 9:42 PM

Real credit on this goes to @ctfitzpatrick.bsky.social and others on the team. They did the heavy lifting. I’m just a glorified cheerleader on this one.

@adamsteinbaugh.bsky.social Sep 23, 2026, 9:21 PM

"This case is different. This suit involves speech on a matter of public interest and concern, and allowing a legally faulty claim like this to proceed carries a cost ... because defending it can discourage others from reporting on and debating public affairs."

@adamsteinbaugh.bsky.social Sep 23, 2026, 9:20 PM

BREAKING: An Iowa state court dismisses President Donald Trump’s frivolous lawsuit against veteran pollster J. Ann Selzer (represented by @thefireorg.bsky.social) and the Des Moines Register newspaper, a victory for First Amendment rights.

Opinion here: www.fire.org/research-lea...

This case sets a President, a member of Congress, and a former state senator against a pollster and a newspaper, and it arises out of an election. A case of that kind invites the reader to look for a political result. The Court’s role is narrower. It is to sit as an impartial arbiter, to apply the law without passion or prejudice, and to rule without regard to the politics of the day. As such, the only question before the Court is whether the Petition states a claim the law recognizes. At its core, the Plaintiffs’ Petition seeks to stretch both Iowa statutory and common law beyond their current bounds, turning speech that enjoys the highest category of First Amendment protection into a liability. After considering the parties’ arguments, the Court must conclude that the protection is too great and the reach is too far. The case must therefore be dismissed.

@adamsteinbaugh.bsky.social Sep 21, 2026, 7:49 PM

Trump says he will appeal decision on his media ban. The court has not yet ruled—he just knows he is going to lose.

“Truth”: As expected, Fake News CNN,
Politico (Pay back the 8 Million Dollar contribution made by the U.S.
Government to keep them afloat!), and MSNOW (formerly known as MSDNC!), have brought suit to gain access to the White House, and your President, ME! They have drawn a great Judge, for them, a man who ruled in favor of Jim Acosta, who now seems to have disappeared from the Planet. The Judge's name is Tim Kelly, and he was, sadly, appointed by
"TRUMP." In other words, almost without question and, as usual, we'll go for appeal because Fake News people and publications that only write negatively, and who violate our National Security by writing false and defamatory stories with unknown

@adamsteinbaugh.bsky.social Sep 19, 2026, 10:17 PM

Redundant

@npr.org Sep 16, 2026, 3:29 AMReposted by @adamsteinbaugh.bsky.social

ICE agents turned up at David Streever's home over a harsh email he sent to an ICE official. Now a court order prevents the federal government from making additional threats against him. n.pr/4irNxUL

n.prJudge blocks DHS from acting against a man over a harsh email to an ICE officialICE agents turned up at David Streever's home over a harsh email he sent to an ICE official. Now a court order prevents the federal government from making additional threats against him.

@adamsteinbaugh.bsky.social Sep 16, 2026, 12:55 AM

BREAKING: Federal court stops ICE from enforcing a "WARNING NOTICE" it issued to a Rochester man over an email criticizing ICE's director: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

A First Amendment victory by @thefireorg.bsky.social

Applying this standard, Mr. Streever is likely to succeed in showing that Defendants engaged in coercion, rather than persuasion. OPR did not ask kindly if Mr. Streever would tone down his rhetoric. It dispatched two agents to his home for an unannounced visit where they delivered a “WARNING NOTICE.” Compl., Ex. 2 (emphasis in original). Although that notice “request[ed]” that Mr. Streever “discontinue” his political expression, it characterized that

political expression as potentially violating federal law which “could subject [him] to both federal and state prosecution.” Id. (emphasis in original). The notice practically shouts that Mr. Streever may be prosecuted if he continues to engage in his political speech. Even if Defendants’ benign explanation of the notice were plausible, Mr. Streever “reasonably understood [the notice] to convey a threat of adverse government action,” namely prosecution. Nat’l Rifle Ass’n, 602 U.S. at 191. And no one disputes that prosecution would constitute an adverse government action for First Amendment purposes. See City of Houston, Tex. v. Hill, 482 U.S. 451, 462–63 (1987) (“The freedom of individuals verbally to oppose or challenge police action without thereby risking arrest is one of the principal characteristics by which we distinguish a free nation from a police state.”); Backpage.com, LLC v. Dart, 807 F.3d 229, 235 (7th Cir. 2015) (holding that “threats of prosecution” from a sheriff constituted coercion under the First Amendment). Mr. Streever is therefore likely to succeed on the merits of his claim.

@adamsteinbaugh.bsky.social Sep 10, 2026, 4:56 PM

An Emergency old enough to vote, drink, and rent a car.

@sarahemclaugh.bsky.social Sep 10, 2026, 4:24 PMReposted by @adamsteinbaugh.bsky.social

"We’re here because we didn’t listen to the civil libertarians. It’s not too late to start." - @radleybalko.bsky.social

@adamsteinbaugh.bsky.social Sep 4, 2026, 10:14 PM

The power company abandoned its quest for a preliminary injunction — but is continuing its SLAPP lawsuit against newspapers and a FOIA requestor.

Its CEO says that its SLAPP lawsuit is the “right thing” to do. www.entergy.com/blog/message...

You may also be wondering why we sought legal action to keep this information out of public view – because it is confidential customer information that was inadvertently shared outside of our control. If a news outlet was trying to publish your confidential data, just as was done here, we’d take action to safeguard your information. We take the protection of your information seriously not just because we are bound by state law to do so, but because it’s the right thing to do.

@adamsteinbaugh.bsky.social Sep 2, 2026, 1:21 PM

If the government publicly releases information -- even if it's really sensitive and shared by mistake -- courts cannot order the genie back into the bottle.

See, for example, Florida Star v. BJF, where police accidentally revealed the name of a rape victim. www.fire.org/supreme-cour...

A second consideration undergirding the Daily Mail principle is the fact that punishing the press for its dissemination of information which is already publicly available is relatively unlikely to advance the interests in the service of which the State seeks to act. It is not, of course, always the case that information lawfully acquired by the press is known, or accessible, to others. But where the government has made certain information publicly available, it is highly anomalous to sanction persons other than the source of its release. We noted this anomaly in Cox Broadcasting: "By placing the information in the public domain on official court records, the State must be presumed to have concluded that the public interest was thereby being served." 420 U. S., at 495. The Daily Mail formulation reflects the fact that it is a limited set of cases indeed where, despite the accessibility of the public to certain information, a meaningful public interest is served by restricting its further release by other entities, like the press. As Daily Mail observed in its summary of Oklahoma Publishing, "once the truthful information was `publicly revealed' or `in the public domain' the court could not constitutionally restrain its dissemination." 443 U. S., at 103.

First is the manner in which appellant obtained the identifying information in question. As we have noted, where the government itself provides information to the media, it is most appropriate to assume that the government had, but failed to utilize, far more limited means of guarding against dissemination than the extreme step of punishing truthful speech. That assumption is richly borne out in this case. B. J. F.'s identity would never have come to light were it not for the erroneous, if inadvertent, inclusion by the Department of her full name in an incident report made available in a pressroom open to the public. Florida's policy against disclosure of rape victims' identities, reflected in § 794.03, was undercut by the Department's failure to abide by this policy. Where, as here, the government has failed to police itself in disseminating information, it is clear under Cox Broadcasting, Oklahoma Publishing, and Landmark Communications that the imposition of damages against the press for its subsequent publication can hardly be said to be a narrowly tailored means of safeguarding anonymity. See supra, at 534-535. Once the government has placed such information in the public domain, "reliance must rest upon the judgment of those who decide what to publish or broadcast," Cox Broadcasting, 420 U. S., at 496, and hopes for restitution must rest upon the willingness of the government to compensate victims for their loss of privacy and to protect them from the other consequences of its mishandling of the information which these victims provided in confidence.

@adamsteinbaugh.bsky.social Sep 2, 2026, 1:18 PM

Entergy is asking for is a prior restraint. That's the "most serious and the least tolerable infringement on First Amendment rights." fire.org/supreme-cour...

Even Walter Sobchak knows that.

Screenshot of the Big Lebowski's Walter Sobchak telling a waitress that the "Supreme Court has roundly rejected prior restraint." He's not *wrong*...

@adamsteinbaugh.bsky.social Sep 2, 2026, 1:15 PM

Here's the story Entergy wants pulled down. www.arkansasonline.com/news/2026/au...

Just in case, here's a backup: perma.cc/D4L2-XXW3

@adamsteinbaugh.bsky.social Sep 2, 2026, 1:13 PM

Appalling: Energy company drags a mother into federal court, trying to stop her from sharing FOIA'd records -- records the state *gave her* -- about an Arkansas data center. And it wants the court to censor newspaper coverage.

She left the courtroom "weeping loudly." arktimes.com/arkansas-blo...

Sasser’s piece revealed that despite claims made during Entergy’s and Google’s fervid PR campaign, Google will not be picking up the total cost for a new solar array being built to feed its new data center’s enormous electricity appetite. Google will pay for only a third of the new solar plant. The mistakenly shared documents also revealed that the West Memphis data center will eventually slurp up the entirety of the electricity produced by the solar array.

Sasser’s story sent Entergy into a panic that trade secrets contained in the mistakenly shared documents might slice mightily into their profits and inhibit future development potential. Entergy attorneys and officials showed up to the courthouse Tuesday with aims to lock down the documents in question to prevent any more of the information from making its way into the public eye.

Kivell, visibly scared and overwhelmed by the legal drama she seemed to have stumbled into, arrived to the 4 p.m. hearing in her work scrubs after making arrangements to have her husband pick up their 2-year-old daughter from daycare. Kivell did not have legal representation present at the hearing.

The nearly 4-hour-long evening hearing in Rudofsky’s court included public arguments by both Marts and John Adams, an attorney representing the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. The closed-door portion of the hearing included testimony from Kivell, and perhaps others. Kivell was weeping loudly when she left the hearing briefly, and at one point fell to the ground in the hallway on her way out of the court house. She returned shortly thereafter, still weeping.

@adamsteinbaugh.bsky.social Aug 29, 2026, 12:56 AM

Solid victory for @ctfitzpatrick.bsky.social and @thefireorg.bsky.social here.

@adamsteinbaugh.bsky.social Aug 29, 2026, 12:44 AM

This is an important, targeted strike at the authority the federal government is using to harass non-citizens for speech. Solid First Amendment victory.

@ctfitzpatrick.bsky.social Aug 29, 2026, 12:36 AMReposted by @adamsteinbaugh.bsky.social

VICTORY! Tonight, a federal court ruled in favor of a @thefireorg.bsky.social lawsuit and held the statutes the Trump administration is using for speech-based deportations violate the First Amendment