Gavin Newsom’s press office called the lawyers fighting this law Voldemort’s law firm.
That tells you everything you need to know about how seriously they are taking the lawsuit.
Nick Shirley is an independent journalist from Utah who films videos exposing welfare fraud in California. He goes to locations where he believes fraud is taking place, films what he sees, and publishes it. His work has been viewed millions of times and has documented real fraud in government programs.
California passed a law specifically designed to stop him.
Come to DeSkooled for the latest on Nick Shirley’s lawsuit and everything else the institutional establishment does not want you to know. This is your Learing Center discount, named after the Minnesota welfare fraud scheme where government money funded fake learning centers while the system looked the other way. 50% off through September 1st.
The Stop Nick Shirley Act, officially named Assembly Bill 1100 and signed by Newsom and Attorney General Rob Bonta, creates a new legal mechanism that allows anyone enrolled in certain government assistance programs to demand that journalists take down videos featuring them. If the journalist refuses, California can levy a $4,000 fine per violation.
Shirley described the practical effect on Fox News.
“If one of these people was enrolled in this new program and we go film a video where we think alleged fraud might be taking place, they gave us a written demand. We therefore cannot publish the video. If we do, we’ll then get a $4,000 fine.”
That is not a hypothetical. That is the law as written. A journalist who films what he believes to be fraud in a public location can be legally silenced if the subject of the video files a demand. The fine mechanism makes continued publication financially ruinous for an independent journalist operating without a corporate legal team backing him up.
Then the timeline of how the law came to exist makes it worse.
According to the lawsuit, Nick Shirley’s videos caught the attention of the attorney general’s office. Shortly afterward, Rob Bonta’s wife introduced a bill specifically targeting Shirley’s ability to operate. A journalist films government fraud. The government responds by passing a law named after the journalist to stop him from filming government fraud.
Newsom’s press office dismissed this as protecting immigrant service workers from doxing, threats, and harassment.
Nick Shirley films people collecting government benefits at public locations. He does not publish their home addresses. He does not call for anyone to be harmed. He films what he believes is fraud and publishes it.
The legal team fighting this called it existential for the First Amendment. They are right. If California can pass a law that allows subjects of journalism to demand takedowns and levy fines, the mechanism does not stop with Nick Shirley. Every journalist who films government programs, every independent content creator who documents waste and fraud, every citizen journalist operating without corporate protection faces the same threat.
The lawsuit is filed. The fight is heading toward the Supreme Court if necessary.
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