EU legal expert says online defamation enforceable worldwide

June 4, 2019

BRUSSELS (AP) — A top European Union legal adviser said Tuesday that social media networks like Facebook could be ordered to take down anywhere in the world any text, photo or other media ruled to be defamatory by a court.

The U.S. social network said the opinion risks letting countries undermine freedom of expression beyond their borders.

The case concerns a Facebook user who shared an online article on their personal page about Austrian Greens politician Eva Glawischnig-Piesczek.

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In his legal opinion , EU Court of Justice Advocate General Maciej Szpunar said companies like Facebook can be ordered by a court “to seek and identify” duplicate copies of information that a court has deemed illegal posted by any users of a platform.

Szpunar added that because European law on electronic commerce “does not regulate the territorial scope of an obligation to remove information disseminated via a social network platform,” platforms can be ordered to remove the information posted by users worldwide.

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Navy acknowledges request was made to hide USS John S. McCain during Trump visit

"A request was made to the U.S. Navy to minimize the visibility of USS John S. McCain" during President Donald Trump's recent state visit to Japan, the Navy said in a statement.

June 1, 2019, 6:22 AM EDT
By Max Burman and Courtney Kube
The U.S. Navy has acknowledged that a request was made to hide the USS John S. McCain during President Donald Trump's recent state visit to Japan.

"A request was made to the U.S. Navy to minimize the visibility of USS John S. McCain, however, all ships remained in their normal configuration during the President's visit," Rear Admiral Charlie Brown, chief of information, said in a statement to NBC News.

"There were also no intentional efforts to explicitly exclude Sailors assigned to USS John S. McCain," the statement said.

Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan said Friday he’d asked his chief of staff to “look into” the reported request from the White House to move the ship "out of sight" during Trump's visit.

“Our business is to run military operations and not become politicized,” Shanahan told reporters during a news conference in Singapore. “I would not have moved the ship," he added.

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Judges: Feds must act if asked to take a fresh look at pot

By LARRY NEUMEISTER
May 31, 2019

NEW YORK (AP) — A federal appeals court has ruled that the Drug Enforcement Administration must “act promptly” if formally asked to take another look at laws that consider marijuana as dangerous as heroin or LSD.

The ruling came Thursday in a 2-to-1 vote by judges from the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals who agreed that the plaintiffs in a lawsuit against the DEA and other parts of the federal government needed to ask the agency to change its designations for marijuana before bringing the issue to the courts.

The plaintiffs — which include the Cannabis Cultural Association and an Iraq war veteran who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder — now have an opening to persuade federal authorities to change how they classify marijuana. Many states have legalized recreational pot use, but marijuana is still illegal under federal law.

“It is possible that the current law, though rational once, is now heading towards irrationality; it may even conceivably be that it has gotten there already,” wrote Judge Guido Calabresi.

“A sensible response to our evolving understanding about the effects of marijuana might require creating new policies just as much as changing old ones,” Calabresi added in a majority opinion that included the conclusions of Judge Jed S. Rakoff, a district judge sitting on the Manhattan appeals court temporarily.

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Judge says Missouri clinic can keep providing abortions

By JIM SALTER and DAVID A. LIEB
May 31, 2019

ST. LOUIS (AP) — A judge issued an order Friday to keep Missouri’s only abortion clinic operating over the objections of state health officials, delivering abortion-rights advocates a courtroom victory after a string of setbacks in legislatures around the U.S.

St. Louis Circuit Judge Michael Stelzer said Planned Parenthood’s St. Louis clinic can continue providing abortions despite the Missouri health department’s refusal to renew its license over a variety of patient safety concerns. He said the temporary restraining order was necessary to “prevent irreparable injury” to Planned Parenthood.

With the abortion license set to expire at midnight Friday, Planned Parenthood pre-emptively sued this week and argued that the state was “weaponizing” the licensing process. Planned Parenthood said that absent court intervention, Missouri would become the first state without an abortion clinic since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized the procedure nationwide.

The clinic’s license will remain in effect until a ruling is issued on Planned Parenthood’s request for a permanent injunction, Stelzer’s ruling says. A hearing is set for Tuesday morning.

“Today is a victory for women across Missouri, but this fight is far from over,” Planned Parenthood Federation of America CEO Dr. Leana Wen said in a statement. “We have seen just how vulnerable access to abortion care is here — and in the rest of the country.”

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