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“Right now we are witnessing an unlawful war against Iran with war crimes openly confessed and carried out by this administration...Democracy has to include an informed public. Included in the debates and in the discussions, many voices have to be heard. We cannot afford this hollowing-out of democracy.”
 
Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, Executive Director of the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund and Steering Committee member of the Committee for the First Amendment, spoke about the threat to free speech and democracy posed by the proposed Paramount-Skydance acquisition of Warner Brothers Discovery, Inc at a spotlight convened by Senator @corybooker, alongside actor and producer @markruffalo, Senior Advisor for Democracy Defenders Action @katiephang, Writers Guild of America East (@wgaeast) Legal Director Michael Isaac, and Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker @davborenstein. 
 
You can find a link to the full spotlight hearing in our bio.

“You can have a hundred channels and thousands of programs, but when they are under singular control, the content — what we hear in America — will be cabined. What is expressed and what we hear becomes increasingly rigidly canned into homogeneous product. The richness of the human experience, of brilliant creative minds, of differing points of view, of dissent, of challenge to the status quo, becomes silenced. We will increasingly be fed a diet of narrowly approved thoughts, and censorship will be rampant.”
 
Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, Executive Director of the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund and Steering Committee member of the Committee for the First Amendment, spoke about the threat to free speech and democracy posed by the proposed Paramount-Skydance acquisition of Warner Brothers Discovery, Inc at a spotlight convened by @senbooker alongside actor and producer @markruffalo, Senior Advisor for Democracy Defenders Action @katiephang, Writers Guild of America East (@wgaeast) Legal Director Michael Isaac, and Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker @davborenstein. 
 
You can find a link to the full spotlight hearing in our bio.

“If we’re not informed, we can’t organize and we can’t fight.”
 
Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, Executive Director of the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund and Steering Committee member of the Committee for the First Amendment, spoke about the threat to free speech and democracy posed by the proposed Paramount-Skydance acquisition of Warner Brothers Discovery, Inc at a spotlight convened by Senator @corybooker, alongside actor and producer @markruffalo, Senior Advisor for Democracy Defenders Action @katiephang, Writers Guild of America East (@wgaeast) Legal Director Michael Isaac, and Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker @davborenstein.

Find a link to the full spotlight hearing in our bio.

“When you have a government interfering and using private entities as a proxy force for government suppression of speech, you have a First Amendment problem.”
 
“You can drop the mic.” 
 
Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, Executive Director of the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund and Steering Committee member of the Committee for the First Amendment (@1acommittee), spoke about the threat to free speech and democracy posed by the proposed Paramount-Skydance acquisition of Warner Brothers Discovery, Inc at a spotlight convened by Senator @corybooker, alongside actor and producer @markruffalo, Senior Advisor for Democracy Defenders Action @katiephang, Writers Guild of America East (@wgaeast) Legal Director Michael Isaac, and Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker @davborenstein.

You can find a link to the full spotlight hearing in our bio.

Watch today at 3pm ET: Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, Executive Director of the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund and Steering Committee member of the Committee for the First Amendment (@1acommittee), will speak about the threat to free speech and democracy posed by the proposed Paramount–Warner Bros. Discovery merger at a spotlight hearing convened by Senator Cory Booker (@senbooker), ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on Competition Policy, Antitrust, and Consumer Rights. 
 
Find the link to the livestream in our bio.

Trump’s statement that “a whole civilization will die tonight never to be brought back again” is a call for genocide against 93 million people in Iran, an overt violation of international and federal law, and every moral code known to humanity. 

All those who effectuate these war crimes and atrocities are war criminals themselves under the laws enshrined after Nuremberg. Members of the armed services swear an oath to the Constitution, not to a king, and anyone who is asked to participate in the execution of war crimes has a moral and legal obligation to refuse. 

Trump does not speak with the consent of the people of the U.S. We have the First Amendment right to oppose this criminally insane threat. 

Join a protest near you. Go to @answercoalition or @50501movement for more info.

Trump’s statement that “a whole civilization will die tonight never to be brought back again” is a call for genocide against 93 million people in Iran, an overt violation of international and federal law, and every moral code known to humanity. 

All those who effectuate these war crimes and atrocities are war criminals themselves under the laws enshrined after Nuremberg. Members of the armed services swear an oath to the Constitution, not to a king, and anyone who is asked to participate in the execution of war crimes has a moral and legal obligation to refuse. 

Trump does not speak with the consent of the people of the U.S. We have the First Amendment right to oppose this criminally insane threat. 

Join a protest near you. Go to @answercoalition or @50501movement for more info.

We were proud to support the Committee for the First Amendment (@1acommittee) rally in DC on Friday, an event hosted by Jane Fonda and featuring Joan Baez that challenged “censorship, political intimidation, and a growing effort to reshape American history and cultural life through fear and attacks on our First Amendment.”

Watch the full Artists United For Our Freedom event at the link in the @1acommittee bio!

We were proud to support the Committee for the First Amendment (@1acommittee) rally in DC on Friday, an event hosted by Jane Fonda and featuring Joan Baez that challenged “censorship, political intimidation, and a growing effort to reshape American history and cultural life through fear and attacks on our First Amendment.”

Watch the full Artists United For Our Freedom event at the link in the @1acommittee bio!

Partnership for Civil Justice Fund Executive Director Mara Verheyden-Hilliard tells Wisconsin public radio that the plan to have a foreign corporation fund policing of protests at Line 5 “incentivizes repression against people exercising their First Amendment rights,” posing a direct threat to constitutional rights and due process.
 
“These types of deals can violate the due process clause and thus be unconstitutional because they create a distortion of public policing and an improper incentivization that also works to suppress dissent,” Verheyden-Hilliard said.
 
Read the article in our bio.

Partnership for Civil Justice Fund Executive Director Mara Verheyden-Hilliard tells Wisconsin public radio that the plan to have a foreign corporation fund policing of protests at Line 5 “incentivizes repression against people exercising their First Amendment rights,” posing a direct threat to constitutional rights and due process.
 
“These types of deals can violate the due process clause and thus be unconstitutional because they create a distortion of public policing and an improper incentivization that also works to suppress dissent,” Verheyden-Hilliard said.
 
Read the article in our bio.

Partnership for Civil Justice Fund Executive Director Mara Verheyden-Hilliard tells Wisconsin public radio that the plan to have a foreign corporation fund policing of protests at Line 5 “incentivizes repression against people exercising their First Amendment rights,” posing a direct threat to constitutional rights and due process.
 
“These types of deals can violate the due process clause and thus be unconstitutional because they create a distortion of public policing and an improper incentivization that also works to suppress dissent,” Verheyden-Hilliard said.
 
Read the article in our bio.

📣 Tell the DOJ to withdraw a dangerous new proposal that seeks to shield federal prosecutors from accountability. 
 
Trump’s Justice Department (DOJ) has proposed a new rule that would subvert state ethics investigations into misconduct by its lawyers. The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers warns this would weaken one of the only independent checks on prosecutorial abuse. 
 
This is a brazen attempt to evade oversight and immunize DOJ lawyers from the consequences of making false or misleading representations to a court or other misconduct. People are in court challenging unconstitutional government conduct and facing repression for exercising their First Amendment rights. Trump and Bondi must not be allowed to greenlight and protect their lawyers’ misconduct by subverting independent ethics investigations and accountability. 
 
📢 TAKE ACTION NOW: Submit a public comment demanding DOJ withdraw this rule. 
 
🗓 Deadline: April 6 
 
🔗 (also in bio) https://www.regulations.gov/commenton/DOJ-OAG-2026-0001-0001 
 
#TakeAction #CivilRights #Accountability #DOJ #FirstAmendment #ProtestRights #Justice

📢Major First Amendment Victory!

All charges have been dismissed against our client, US Army veteran Jay Carey, who the Trump Administration vindictively prosecuted in federal court for burning a flag in Lafayette Park in August in protest of the President’s Executive Order targeting flag-burning.
 
The DOJ’s dismissal means the charges can never be refiled. 
 
Earlier this year, the federal court ruled Mr. Carey could proceed with a vindictive prosecution defense, allowing inquiry into whether the government targeted him because of his protected speech. The government moved to dismiss the case just before it was required to respond to our demands for information about its decision to prosecute. 
 
See quotes from defendant Jay Carey, co-counsel and PCJF Executive Director Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, and co-counsel and Marine Veteran Nick Place above.  
 
To read NYT and other coverage of the case, see links in bio!

#FirstAmendment #FreeSpeech #CivilRights #ProtestRights

📢Major First Amendment Victory!

All charges have been dismissed against our client, US Army veteran Jay Carey, who the Trump Administration vindictively prosecuted in federal court for burning a flag in Lafayette Park in August in protest of the President’s Executive Order targeting flag-burning.
 
The DOJ’s dismissal means the charges can never be refiled. 
 
Earlier this year, the federal court ruled Mr. Carey could proceed with a vindictive prosecution defense, allowing inquiry into whether the government targeted him because of his protected speech. The government moved to dismiss the case just before it was required to respond to our demands for information about its decision to prosecute. 
 
See quotes from defendant Jay Carey, co-counsel and PCJF Executive Director Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, and co-counsel and Marine Veteran Nick Place above.  
 
To read NYT and other coverage of the case, see links in bio!

#FirstAmendment #FreeSpeech #CivilRights #ProtestRights

📢Major First Amendment Victory!

All charges have been dismissed against our client, US Army veteran Jay Carey, who the Trump Administration vindictively prosecuted in federal court for burning a flag in Lafayette Park in August in protest of the President’s Executive Order targeting flag-burning.
 
The DOJ’s dismissal means the charges can never be refiled. 
 
Earlier this year, the federal court ruled Mr. Carey could proceed with a vindictive prosecution defense, allowing inquiry into whether the government targeted him because of his protected speech. The government moved to dismiss the case just before it was required to respond to our demands for information about its decision to prosecute. 
 
See quotes from defendant Jay Carey, co-counsel and PCJF Executive Director Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, and co-counsel and Marine Veteran Nick Place above.  
 
To read NYT and other coverage of the case, see links in bio!

#FirstAmendment #FreeSpeech #CivilRights #ProtestRights

📢Major First Amendment Victory!

All charges have been dismissed against our client, US Army veteran Jay Carey, who the Trump Administration vindictively prosecuted in federal court for burning a flag in Lafayette Park in August in protest of the President’s Executive Order targeting flag-burning.
 
The DOJ’s dismissal means the charges can never be refiled. 
 
Earlier this year, the federal court ruled Mr. Carey could proceed with a vindictive prosecution defense, allowing inquiry into whether the government targeted him because of his protected speech. The government moved to dismiss the case just before it was required to respond to our demands for information about its decision to prosecute. 
 
See quotes from defendant Jay Carey, co-counsel and PCJF Executive Director Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, and co-counsel and Marine Veteran Nick Place above.  
 
To read NYT and other coverage of the case, see links in bio!

#FirstAmendment #FreeSpeech #CivilRights #ProtestRights

📢Major First Amendment Victory!

All charges have been dismissed against our client, US Army veteran Jay Carey, who the Trump Administration vindictively prosecuted in federal court for burning a flag in Lafayette Park in August in protest of the President’s Executive Order targeting flag-burning.
 
The DOJ’s dismissal means the charges can never be refiled. 
 
Earlier this year, the federal court ruled Mr. Carey could proceed with a vindictive prosecution defense, allowing inquiry into whether the government targeted him because of his protected speech. The government moved to dismiss the case just before it was required to respond to our demands for information about its decision to prosecute. 
 
See quotes from defendant Jay Carey, co-counsel and PCJF Executive Director Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, and co-counsel and Marine Veteran Nick Place above.  
 
To read NYT and other coverage of the case, see links in bio!

#FirstAmendment #FreeSpeech #CivilRights #ProtestRights

📢Major First Amendment Victory!

All charges have been dismissed against our client, US Army veteran Jay Carey, who the Trump Administration vindictively prosecuted in federal court for burning a flag in Lafayette Park in August in protest of the President’s Executive Order targeting flag-burning.
 
The DOJ’s dismissal means the charges can never be refiled. 
 
Earlier this year, the federal court ruled Mr. Carey could proceed with a vindictive prosecution defense, allowing inquiry into whether the government targeted him because of his protected speech. The government moved to dismiss the case just before it was required to respond to our demands for information about its decision to prosecute. 
 
See quotes from defendant Jay Carey, co-counsel and PCJF Executive Director Mara Verheyden-Hilliard, and co-counsel and Marine Veteran Nick Place above.  
 
To read NYT and other coverage of the case, see links in bio!

#FirstAmendment #FreeSpeech #CivilRights #ProtestRights

Next Saturday March 21st from 3 to 5pm At Oakland Main Library
Join the Bay Area Demo Legal Support Collaborative & the Prairieland Defense committee for a discussion on the recent federal verdict from Texas and its implications for anti-ICE organizing nationwide. The discussion will be accompanied by insights shared by local organizers with Adopt-A-Corner and court watch movements and report backs from mutual aid work in Minneapolis.

RSVP for a virtual link(case sensitive):
acab.link/s/SESSION_2

Next Saturday March 21st from 3 to 5pm At Oakland Main Library
Join the Bay Area Demo Legal Support Collaborative & the Prairieland Defense committee for a discussion on the recent federal verdict from Texas and its implications for anti-ICE organizing nationwide. The discussion will be accompanied by insights shared by local organizers with Adopt-A-Corner and court watch movements and report backs from mutual aid work in Minneapolis.

RSVP for a virtual link(case sensitive):
acab.link/s/SESSION_2