Nora Benavidez

U.S. Coast Guard will no longer classify swastikas, nooses as hate symbols The military service, which falls under the Department of Homeland Security, has drafted a new policy that classifies such items “potentially divisive.”

The Coast Guard changed its policy on use of swastikas & nooses, lowering threshold of liability from these as symbols of "hate" to just being "harassment". The new policy removes "hate incident" altogether, a willingness to support Nazi & racist expression. www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...

It's only jawboning when Dems do it. (Or is it sedition when Dems do it?) I can't keep up.

The entire admin hides its horrors w/ new horrors. We forget yesterday's transgressions bc we're so horrified by today's. This is meant to distract, divide, neuter the public & independent institutions. It's no longer just a "free speech" or "democrat" issues. It's an all of us NOW issue.

Trump calls for hanging Democrats engaging in seditious behavior. This is the most egregious rhetoric of a sitting leader of any level of US govt. Trump's language distorts the term "sedition" (as he always distorts & lies). The news so shocking that only the next round of toxic news can eclipse it.

Media consolidation is a bellwether for winnowing narrative control in authoritarian conditions. This would be horrific:

"Quiet, Piggy" reactions from yours truly:

1. Soft misogyny in public is a tell for hard misogyny in private.

2. Not a single male reporter clapped back at Trump's "quiet piggy" comment.

3. I've seen no main page coverage from the biggest outlets. Absolutely part of the problem.

Proposed Nexstar-Tegna Merger Is Blatant Violation of the Law Prohibiting One Company from Controlling Too Much Local Airwaves The $6.2 billion deal also would violate the FCC’s few remaining local-ownership limits in nearly 30 markets. In some, it would leave Nexstar in control of three of the top-four-ranked stations.

If Nexstar buys Tegna, it would combine the largest TV-station conglomerate w/ the nation's 4th largest. Such a deal violates the FCC local ownership rules, not to mention media consolidation can be a sign of rising authoritarian control. @freepress.bsky.social www.freepress.net/news/propose...

The epigraph opening this order seems like a pretty powerful indictment of John Roberts today and a scathing statement about the Supreme Court's "roving stops" ruling that allowed discrimination based on appearance.

Eleventh Circuit throws out Trump's suit against CNN in a per curiam unpublished ruling. Meaning Trump's arguments were totally meritless, not even worthy of a published opinion. s3.documentcloud.org/documents/26...

The public perception of this case is that it’s about politics. To be sure, politics played a role in drawing the 2025 Map. But it was much more than just politics. Substantial evidence shows that Texas racially gerrymandered the 2025 Map. Here’s why. Earlier this year, President Trump began urging Texas to redraw its U.S. House map to create five additional Republican seats. Lawmakers reportedly met that request to redistrict on purely partisan grounds with apprehension. When the Governor announced his intent to call a special legislative session, he didn’t even place redistricting on the legislative agenda. But when the Trump Administration reframed its request as a demand to redistrict congressional seats based on their racial makeup, Texas lawmakers immediately jumped on board. On July 7, Harmeet Dhillon, the head of the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice (“DOJ”), sent a letter (“the DOJ Letter”) to the Governor and Attorney General of Texas making the legally incorrect assertion that four congressional districts in Texas were “unconstitutional” because they were “coalition districts”—majority-non-White districts in which no single racial group constituted a 50% majority. In the letter, DOJ threatened legal action if Texas didn’t immediately dismantle and redraw these districts—a threat based entirely on their racial makeup. Notably, the DOJ Letter targeted only majority-non-White districts. Any mention of majorityWhite Democrat districts—which DOJ presumably would have also targeted if its aims were partisan rather than racial—was conspicuously absent.

Here is the federal district court's 2–1 ruling, authored by a very conservative Trump appointee, striking down Texas' new Republican gerrymander on the grounds that it unlawfully discriminates against racial minorities. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

Proposed Nexstar-Tegna Merger Is Blatant Violation of the Law Prohibiting One Company from Controlling Too Much Local Airwaves The $6.2 billion deal also would violate the FCC’s few remaining local-ownership limits in nearly 30 markets. In some, it would leave Nexstar in control of three of the top-four-ranked stations.

If Nexstar buys Tegna, it would combine the largest TV-station conglomerate w/ the nation's 4th largest. Such a deal violates the FCC local ownership rules, not to mention media consolidation can be a sign of rising authoritarian control. @freepress.bsky.social www.freepress.net/news/propose...

Nora Benavidez - home Latina civil rights & free speech lawyer. Attorney using the law and First Amendment to protect democracy, innovation, equal rights.

I finally updated my website a bit. #AMA about my career here and I wanna know about you!! www.norabenavidez.com

Trump Administration Removes Report on Missing and Murdered Native Americans, Calling It DEI Content - Oklahoma Watch The Trump administration removed a congressionally mandated report on missing and murdered Native Americans from the DOJ website, citing compliance with an executive order against DEI. Senators who ch...

One of the worst actions by the administration that I've seen: oklahomawatch.org/2025/11/14/t...

BREAKING: In AAUP et al v. Trump (wall-to-wall union lawsuit challenging the administration’s unlawful use of TItle VI to reshape the University of California system), the faculty and staff of the UC system WON!!!

We were granted our preliminary injunction! @aaup.org

Power, data, and distrust: How racist texts and bomb threats targeted Georgia voters Researchers are concerned that Georgia's high-profile elections could make voters prime targets for digital misinformation and hate.

2026 elections are coming. Surveillance capitalism will leverage potent lies to manipulate us. Black, Brown, Native ppl will be targeted heavily. And the Trump admin is already seeding the next Big Lie. Thnx @idabwellssociety.bsky.social @cbsnews.com for this piece: www.cbsnews.com/atlanta/news...

Democracy is in retreat globally. In the United States, we often believe it can’t happen here — even while it’s happening here. I wrote this @freepress.bsky.social guide on the red flags of authoritarianism so we can spot and fight back. We have power. Let’s use it:

'AI President': Trump Deepfakes Glorify Himself, Trash Rivals In a parallel reality, Donald Trump reigns as king, fighter pilot, and Superman, and his political opponents are cast as criminals and laughingstocks -- an unprecedented weaponization of AI imagery by a sitting American president.

"Trump peddles disinfo on & offline to boost his own image, attack his adversaries & control public discourse. For someone like him, unregulated generative AI is the perfect tool to capture people's attention & distort reality." - Free Press' @attorneynora.bsky.social via
@afp.com

Republicans Reprise Unfounded Claims of Widespread Election Interference Prominent conservatives, including the president, sounded familiar alarms about voter suppression and other efforts to manipulate the vote on Election Day, without presenting evidence.

"It's worth noting that many on Twitter are trying to explain the rules to Musk, but that of course gets lost in the chaos." - Free Press' @attorneynora.bsky.social via NY Times

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/04/us/election-interference-claims-disinformation.html

YouTube video by Knight First Amendment Institute The Future of Press Freedom in an Era of Democratic Backsliding

⬇️ ICYMI: Watch yesterday's @knightcolumbia.org panel on #pressfreedom under Trump featuring @randersenjones.bsky.social, @attorneynora.bsky.social, @azmatzahra.bsky.social, @joelsimonsays.bsky.social, @sulliview.bsky.social, and @sonjawest.bsky.social at the link.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNpK...

'AI President': Trump Deepfakes Glorify Himself, Trash Rivals In a parallel reality, Donald Trump reigns as king, fighter pilot, and Superman, and his political opponents are cast as criminals and laughingstocks -- an unprecedented weaponization of AI imagery by...

"Trump peddles disinfo on & offline to boost his own image, attack his adversaries & control public discourse. For someone like him, unregulated generative AI is the perfect tool to capture people's attention & distort reality." Thnx @anujchopra.bsky.social @afp.com www.barrons.com/news/ai-pres...

Looking forward to this today. Join us!

Every way we can. Leverage our dollars and time and influence to move people. To stay engaged. To practice solidarity with more vulnerable groups. To donate and protest and vote and run for office. Money should have no place like it does in determining politics. Systemic rejection.

People don’t seem to like billionaires controlling their lives and democracy. Good. We have to sustain collective and coordinated resistance to the authoritarian-billionaire doom loop.

Zohran won!!!

Republicans Reprise Unfounded Claims of Widespread Election Interference

Trump's Big Lie infected the entire right flank, MAGA, Musk, platforms. Today's election saw leaders & platform execs coming out again -- 5 years on -- to repeat unfounded lies about election fraud. Thnx @stevenleemyers.bsky.social @nytimes.com for ft yours truly: www.nytimes.com/2025/11/04/u...

📍TOMORROW: A panel of legal experts and journalists discuss how to protect #pressfreedom and support journalists under Trump. Feat. @randersenjones.bsky.social, @attorneynora.bsky.social, @azmatzahra.bsky.social, @joelsimonsays.bsky.social, @sulliview.bsky.social, and @sonjawest.bsky.social. RSVP.

I’m gonna be working all of 2026 on getting anti surveillance and pro digital civil rights bills introduced in states across the country. If you wanna learn more, sign up for alerts with www.freepress.net.

Can we get a damn data privacy/digital civil rights bill passed? Congress has held over 50 hearings about big tech, social media harms, data extraction, surveillance, and NO bills have passed.

Can we get a damn data privacy/digital civil rights bill passed? Congress has held over 50 hearings about big tech, social media harms, data extraction, surveillance, and NO bills have passed.

I have been charged in a federal indictment sought by the Department of Justice.

This political prosecution is an attack on all of our First Amendment rights. I’m not backing down, and we’re going to win.