The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that an Oregon privacy law requiring consent of all parties to record conversations is constitutional, upholding a federal court's dismissal of conservative media outlet's claims the law tramples on the First Amendment rights of journalists and ordinary citizens. “Oregon has a significant government interest in ensuring that its residents know when their conversations are recorded, the statute is narrowly tailored to that interest, and the statute leaves open ample alternative channels of communication for Project Veritas to engage in investigative journalism and to communicate its message,” said Judge Morgan Christen for a the 10-2 majority, reports Courthouse News Service.
Project Veritas, a conservative media organization known for its undercover work, complained that the law, one of the nation's strictest privacy measures, stopped its reporters from being able to secretly record conversations and expose public corruption and other wrongdoing. The privacy law has exceptions that allow recording without consent, such as when a felony that endangers human life is being committed, or a recording of a conversation with an on-duty police officer. A three-judge panel struck down the recording ban in 2023, prompting a rehearing en banc. Project Veritas argued that the law needed to be consistent with modern technology and that a reporter recording a conversation was no different from a reporter taking physical notes on a notepad. Christen wrote that secretly recording someone presents different concerns from a third-party hearing a conversation and repeating it, as it can enable a party to disseminate a person’s comments in ways the speaker did not intend, violating what the U.S. Supreme Court calls the “principle of autonomy to control one’s own speech.” Two Donald Trump-appointed judges, Kenneth Lee and Daniel Collins, dissented, saying the Oregon law is overbroad and banned the taping of conversations where there was no reasonable expectation of privacy. Project Veritas said it intends to take the issue to the Supreme Court.