First Amendment Rights

• Calls upon Congress and the Administration to take steps to ensure that the visa issuance process is more effective and efficient, particularly for those who seek to conduct scientific or scholarly research in the United States and supporting policies to enhance homeland and national security and efforts to establish new visa policies and procedures to bolster security. Presented by the Section of Science and Technology Law. Co-sponsored by the Section of Individual Rights and Responsibilities, the American Immigration Lawyers Association, the Section of Administrative Law and Regulatory Practice, Health Law Section, the Section of Labor and Employment Law, the Section of Intellectual Property, and the Young Lawyers Division.
  Approved as Revised February 2005

• Urges Congress to conduct regular and timely oversight of the government’s use of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (“FISA”) to ensure that FISA investigations do not violate the First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendments to the Constitution.
  Approved as Revised February 2003

• Opposes the use of government funding programs as a means of suppressing speech activities by the government grantees.
  Approved February 1993

• Supports, in principle, the enactment of the Religious Liberty Restoration Act of 1990, which requires federal and state governments to prove that any law interfering with the free exercise of religion must have a compelling state interest and be narrowly tailored.
  Approved February 1991

• Supports reauthorization of the National Endowment for the Arts with no restrictions on the content, subject matter, idea, or message of what the Endowment may fund. Jointly presented with the Association of the Bar of the City of New York.
  Approved August 1990

• Recommends that the United States law concerning visa denials should not prevent an alien from obtaining a visa solely on the basis of past or current political beliefs or political associations or on the basis of the expected content of the person’s statements. Jointly presented with the Standing Committee on Law and National Security.
  Approved as Amended February 1986

• Recommends certain policies concerning the importation of ideas and information be guided by the principle that there should be no prohibition on the import of information that is protected by the First Amendment with specified regulation.
  Approved as Amended February 1985

• Supports, as appropriate, objectives of a privacy protection policy relating to the acquisition, maintenance, use and disclosure of personal records.
  Approved as Amended August 1979

• Supports federal legislation designed to improve the procedures under the Freedom of Information Act for obtaining access to government information.
  Approved August 1974

• Opposes legislation designed to ensure that the constitutional oath of office required of federal employees be taken in good faith on the ground that such legislation violates the First and Fifth Amendments.
  Approved February 1974

For more information, please visit the First Amendment Rights Committee Homepage.