New England Muzzles – Media Nation

Muzzle follow-up: The SJC stops Quincy’s mayor from erecting two Catholic statues on public property

Quincy Mayor Thomas Koch. Photo via YouTube.

In May 2025, I gave a New England Muzzle Award to Thomas Koch, the mayor of Quincy, Massachusetts, for attempting to install two religious statues at the city’s new public safety facility. Now the state’s Supreme Judicial Court has unanimously upheld a preliminary injunction blocking the statues.

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The ACLU of Massachusetts, representing a number of local residents who sued the city, reports that the injunction will remain in effect while the case proceeds in Norfolk Superior Court. As the SJC said in its ruling, the injunction is appropriate because “the plaintiffs have demonstrated a
likelihood of success on the merits.” Jessie Rossman, legal director of the state ACLU, said in a statement:

Here in Massachusetts, our state constitution is clear: the government must remain neutral in matters of religion and must not elevate one faith above others. With today’s landmark ruling, the Supreme Judicial Court affirms those principles, which are the essential foundation of a pluralistic society where people of all faiths and no faith can flourish. As Quincy residents and taxpayers, our clients believe that installing these plainly religious statues would undermine those ideals. We are proud to represent these courageous plaintiffs, and we look forward to continuing to litigate the merits of this case in Superior Court.

As Rossman notes, the two 10-foot statues of St. Michael and St. Florian weren’t just religious icons, or even just Christian icons; they were specifically associated with the Catholic Church. Moreover, this isn’t some community group trying to put, say, a crèche on the town common during Christmas. It would have had the official imprimatur of the city.

Joining the state ACLU in representing the plaintiffs are Americans United for the Separation of Church and State and the Freedom From Religion Foundation.

Adam Gaffin has a detailed breakdown of the ruling at Universal Hub.

Peter Blandino, reporting for The Patriot Ledger, quotes Koch as saying:

Quincy’s firefighters and police put their lives on the line for this city every day, and these statues were chosen to honor their bravery, service, and sacrifice. This decision is disappointing, but it is preliminary, and we will continue to fight for the ability to commemorate our first responders as the law permits.

In other words, rather than bowing to the inevitable, Koch will continue to spend taxpayer funds on a pointless effort to knock down the First Amendment wall separating church and state.

Muzzle follow-up: Plymouth County sheriff ordered to turn over ICE detainee medical records

U.S. Reps. Ayanna Pressley, Stephen Lynch and James McGovern on a recent visit to the Plymouth County Detention Facility. “We came to Plymouth to conduct oversight of a major detention facility in our state, check on our constituents, and demand accountability of ICE,” Pressley wrote on Facebook.

A Massachusetts Superior Court judge has ordered Plymouth County Sheriff Joseph McDonald to turn over anonymized medical records regarding nearly 500 detainees he is holding on behalf of ICE. Judge James Budreau’s ruling, which he made in response to a lawsuit brought by the ACLU, was reported last week by Fred Thys of the Plymouth Independent. (Update: I’m told that Kevin G. Andrade of The New Bedford Light had it first.)

Last month I singled out McDonald for a New England Muzzle Award for claiming that his agency’s contract with ICE did not allow him to release medical records even with the names redacted, thus helping the rogue federal agency to cover up what was going on inside the county jail.

Budreau ruled that the ICE agreement did not preclude McDonald from having to comply with the state’s public records law. “The state maintains its right to reasonably police and ensure the health and safety of its population,” Budreau ruled. “And such a right is not usurped by the federal regulation at issue here.”

That’s hardly a theoretical concern. In a follow-up story, Tonia Alvarez of The Boston Globe (sub. req.) reported that “more than 50 people across the nation have died while in ICE custody,” citing Physicians for Human Rights.

McDonald, in an emailed statement to the Independent, said he would comply with the judge’s order.

To be fair to McDonald, Judge Budreau acknowledged earlier that the ACLU’s suit was not a slam-dunk, as it involved a clash between a state law and federal authority. Fortunately, Budreau recognized that the state has a right to know what’s going on behind the walls of its detention facilities.

A Muzzle Award to Plymouth County’s sheriff for keeping detainee health records secret on behalf of ICE

*Plymouth County Correctional Facility. Photo via the Plymouth County Sheriff’s Office.*

The Massachusetts public records law is already unacceptably weak. Now comes a new wrinkle: the Plymouth County Sheriff’s Office is refusing to release health-care records regarding the 507 detainees it is holding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), claiming that its agreement with the notoriously abusive federal agency prohibits the disclosure of such information.

Read about the 2026 New England Muzzle Awards, recognizing outrages against freedom of speech and expression from July 4, 2025, to July 4, 2026.

The ACLU of Massachusetts sued for the release of those records in February. On Tuesday, the issue came to a head, as the ACLU and the sheriff’s office squared off in Suffolk County Superior Court. Judge James Budreau has not yet issued a ruling, but we have: Sheriff Joseph McDonald is receiving a New England Muzzle Award for failing to comply with state law.

Granted, there are some nuances. The sheriff’s agreement with ICE includes language banning the public disclosure of information about any detainees. Here’s how Kevin G. Andrade, reporting for The New Bedford Light, summarized what’s at stake:

The sheriff’s denial relied on arguments about state privacy laws and questions around federal preemption of state law.

“We have, I think, a pretty interesting issue here,” said Judge James Boudreau [sic], who presided over the proceedings, at the hearing’s start. “The first question is whether or not the supremacy clause [of the U.S. Constitution] prohibits the production of the documents.”

Dan McFadden, managing attorney at the Massachusetts ACLU, argued that it does not.

“Plymouth has no authority to contract its way out of public records law,” McFadden told the judge in his arguments. “These are records we have good reason to believe they have because the contract with ICE says they produce them.”

As Boston Globe columnist Yvonne Abraham points out (sub. req.), “the ACLU specifically asked that all records be anonymized,” which you would think is sufficient for protecting the detainees’ privacy rights. One way of reading the ICE regulation in question, though, is that it doesn’t matter — McDonald can’t release the names “or other information relating to” detainees. Yet given the wave of terror ICE has unleashed under Donald Trump, McDonald should have assured the public by releasing records about the detainees’ well-being without identifying anyone by name.

Moreover, there are reasons to believe that all is not well in Plymouth. Abraham writes:

The Plymouth County jail might not be “Alligator Alcatraz,” but advocates have good reason to worry about detainees there. Advocates have decried McDonald’s failure to provide detainees with timely access to lawyers and interpreters. For several years, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey have been calling on ICE to improve conditions in Plymouth, citing a DHS investigation in 2022 that reported rotten food, limited access to clean water, and delays in medical attention. In interviews, detainees have described a lack of timely access to health care and medications. And it’s getting worse, said Leah Hastings, staff attorney at Prisoners’ Legal Services of Massachusetts.

The real failure by McDonald, a Republican, was to go into business with ICE in the first place; as it stands, he is the only sheriff in the state to hold detainees on behalf of ICE. In May, an investigation by The Washington Post revealed hellish conditions for ICE detainees across the country. The Post reported that on at least 780 occasions, staff members at ICE facilities “used physical force or chemical agents to control immigrant detainees during the first year of the Trump administration.”

As the Globe’s Abraham notes, McDonald has denied allegations of abuse at the jail he oversees, saying, “I am proud of the humane care and custody we provide in the Plymouth County Correctional Facility. We are … routinely audited by federal and state agencies, and routinely exceed all applicable standards.”

That may be true, but we shouldn’t have to take his word for it.

Correction: This post originally misspelled Judge Budreau’s name.

The 2026 New England Muzzle Awards: Spotlighting the enemies of free speech and expression

For First Amendment and civil liberties fans, it’s the most wonderful time of the year. It’s time for the New England Muzzle Awards, that Fourth of July tradition in which I highlight outrages against the First Amendment that took place in the six-state region during the previous 12 months.

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It’s something I started doing in 1998 for The Boston Phoenix and then later moved to GBH News after the Phoenix folded in 2013. (Here’s the complete archive.) After leaving GBH, I skipped 2023, but since then have been writing up individual Muzzles throughout the year rather than waiting for an annual roundup. So welcome to the 27th annual edition.

This year I thought I would try something different. Rather than simply listing the Muzzles I’ve awarded since July 2025 (although I’m still doing that), I asked Claude AI for some additional candidates. I did not ask Claude to write them for me, and I’m relying on citations from reliable news sources. I simply used Claude as a more sophisticated way of searching than what DuckDuckGo or Google offers these days. So I’ll start with a few that I’m presenting here for the first time.

Kudos, as always, to my friends Harvey Silverglate, who conceived of this annual feature all these years ago, and Peter Kadzis, who edited all 25 editions that appeared in the Phoenix and at GBH News. They were inspired by the Jefferson Muzzles, which no longer are awarded. Here in New England, though, their spirit lives on.

Continue reading “The 2026 New England Muzzle Awards: Spotlighting the enemies of free speech and expression”

A Muzzle to Ken Paxton for targeting a Mass. company in his Texas Senate campaign against James Talarico

*James Talarico speaks at a rally in Texas. Photo (cc) 2025 by H. Michael Karshis.*

If you lean left and have ever “liked” a liberal social media post, you and your email inbox are probably familiar — oh, so familiar — with ActBlue, a platform that serves as a fundraising platform for Democratic candidates. And it’s only worse if you’ve actually donated to a candidate — something I don’t do because I’m a journalist.

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But if you’ve wished that ActBlue would just go away, be careful. Ken Paxton, the floridly corrupt Republican Senate candidate from Texas, wants you to believe that he’s coming to your rescue. Acting in his capacity as his state’s attorney general, he sued ActBlue in December 2023. Now he’s trying to use that suit as a cudgel in his campaign to defeat his Democratic opponent, James Talarico. So far, that suit isn’t going anywhere.

Continue reading “A Muzzle to Ken Paxton for targeting a Mass. company in his Texas Senate campaign against James Talarico”

A Muzzle Award for a Rhode Island official who says arrest records aren’t public if there are no charges

Boston Globe reporter Amanda Milkovits, left, talks about her reporting with WPRI-TV (Channel 12) anchor Kayla Fish.

When police officers arrest someone and charge them with a crime, they are required to provide the public with information on that person’s name, address and the charges being brought. That’s a basic part of the public records law in Rhode Island and most other states.

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But the Rhode Island attorney general’s office has come up with a mind-boggling exception: if someone is arrested and not charged, then the police are under no obligation to make that information public. According to Boston Globe reporter Amanda Milkovits, that’s the alleged loophole being invoked (sub. req.) in the case of James Barsoum, who was arrested by Pawtucket police last September in Central Falls. As Milkovits writes:

Last fall, Pawtucket police officers went into a neighboring city without alerting the local police, tackled a resident in his home, seized his dog, booked the man, and put him in a jail cell. He was released hours later without being charged with a crime — and without an explanation.

The official who has come up with this novel interpretation of the public records law is Special Assistant Attorney General Patrick Reynolds, who explained that he was rejecting the Globe’s request for records related to Barsoum’s arrest because even though “there is a public interest in what transpired here, and that the mistaken arrest of a member of the public is highly concerning,” that is outweighed by “privacy interests” guaranteed by a law sealing records when a person has not been charged with a crime.

So come on down, Patrick Reynolds, and claim your New England Muzzle Award. It is well-deserved.

As for Barsoum’s “privacy interests,” keep in mind that he’s been interviewed (sub. req.) about his ordeal, allowed himself to be photographed (with his dog, by the way) and filed a complaint about his arrest. Keep in mind, too, that Central Falls police complied with the Globe’s public-records request, including providing bodycam video. It’s only the Pawtucket police who are holding back, and the AG’s office is letting them get away with it.

“Police in this state can break into your house, wrongfully arrest you, and never have to explain themselves to the communities they serve,” Justin Silverman, the executive director of the New England First Amendment Coalition, told the Globe. “Think about that: So long as charges aren’t brought, arrests can occur in secrecy and the police reports can be permanently sealed or destroyed. It’s a situation ripe for abuse.”

A Muzzle Award to the National Park Service for outrageous censorship at the Bunker Hill Monument

*Bunker Hill Monument. Photo by John S. Moulton, taken between 1860 and 1889, is part of the Boston Public Library Collection.*

You could call the Trump regime’s campaign against so-called woke ideology an ongoing effort to muzzle our nation’s history. From the start of his second term, the National Park Service has engaged in a rampage of censorship, targeting historical sites in Philadelphia, Georgia, New York and elsewhere.

Now Trump has come for Boston. On Wednesday, Jake Spring reported in The Washington Post that the park service “has ordered the removal of three quotes” at the Bunker Hill Monument. Thus has the National Park Service earned a New England Muzzle Award. Spring writes:

The site includes panels with quotes from historic figures or writings that reflect on the 200-year-old monument. A visitor at the site complained to park staff about a quote related to women’s suffrage as being “woke” feminist ideology, the people familiar said, and the visitor later sent an email complaint.

The Boston Globe’s Tonya Alanez and Chloe Pisani on Thursday added to (sub. req.) the Post’s reporting, writing that they had confirmed the story with U.S. Sen. Ed Markey’s office. The Globe reported that one of the three quotes to be removed was from an 1846 letter by G.B. Stebbins to The Liberator, William Lloyd Garrison’s anti-slavery newspaper:

As we drew near to Boston, there stood Bunker Monument, towering up towards the heavens, as if in silent, bitter mockery of the millions of slaves guarded by the professed lovers of Liberty, who reared its lofty column.

Another, addressed to “Our Irish Societies,” appeared in The Pilot, the newspaper of Boston’s Roman Catholic Archdiocese, in 1875:

Now that a public orator has declared that foreign-born men have no association with the men of the Revolution, it is our duty to show that in love of freedom and loyalty to the republic, the citizens of foreign birth take no second place.

The third quote that was removed was from a letter to the Globe written in 1971 by two members of Vietnam Veterans Against the War.

It seems significant that the three quotes pertain to the rights of Black people and immigrants as well as an antiwar message — all at odds with Trump’s racist, anti-immigrant, war-mongering administration.

The government’s officially sanctioned vandalism coincides with another act of vandalism at Boston’s Museum of African American History. Malcolm Gay reports (sub. req.) in the Globe that decorations to be used in Juneteenth celebrations had been set on fire.

Ironically, the investigation is being led by the Boston Police Department — and the National Park Service.

A Muzzle Award to Michelle Wu for declining a request to produce official text messages

*Boston Mayor Michelle Wu. Public domain photo taken in 2022 by Joshua Qualls.*

Are text messages to and from government officials public records? You might think it’s complicated. On the one hand, texts are in written form, like emails, and those are unquestionably a matter of public record. On the other hand, texts resemble conversations in that they tend to be informal, used to express fleeting thoughts.

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In fact, though, it’s not complicated. Text messages are public records, period. And so I’m handing out a New England Muzzle Award to Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, whose office claims it can’t comply with a request by The Boston Globe to produce text messages that she says she’s exchanged with developers. As the chief executive of the state’s largest city, Wu and her staff surely know better.

Continue reading “A Muzzle Award to Michelle Wu for declining a request to produce official text messages”

Gov. Healey wants to remove public access to vital records. So we’re giving her a Muzzle Award — her third.

*Gov. Maura Healey, left, with Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll. 2023 photo in the public domain.*

Six years ago, then-Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker, a moderate Republican, earned a New England Muzzle Award — then hosted by GBH News — for proposing a change in the public-records laws so that access to birth, death and marriage records would not be available to the public for many decades. The delay would have amounted to 90 years in the case of birth and marriage records and 50 years after a person’s death.

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Fortunately, the bill didn’t pass. But now Baker’s successor, Gov. Maura Healey, a liberal Democrat, is back with a similar bill. As The Boston Globe put it in an editorial (sub. req.) on Thursday:

In a state that already has a dreadful reputation for its lack of transparency and will probably face a ballot question over the exemptions from the state’s public records law accorded the governor’s office and the Legislature, this is simply the wrong law at the wrong time.

The Globe observes that Healey, in her announcement touting the legislation, emphasizes one of its few positive aspects — the end of references to “out of wedlock” on birth and marriage certificates. The rest of it, though, would deprive researchers of information they need to do their work in areas such as public health and genealogy. And she has stacked the deck in favor of passage by making it part of a budget bill that must be approved and for which debate is limited.

As I wrote in 2020, these records have been freely available to anyone who asks for them since the early Puritan era. Investigative reporter Jenifer McKim of GBH News said on Twitter at the time: “As MA governor [Baker] works to make birth, death records secret, thinking of the stories I’ve written and produced with the help of these key, currently public, documents, including suicides at colleges and universities.”

And in a 2020 interview with the Chelsea Record, Ryan Woods, executive vice president of the New England and Genealogical Society, said, “Unequivocally it was a surprise to us. There had not been any public discussion about this until it appeared in the budget.”

This is not Gov. Healey’s first time around with the Muzzle Awards. In 2015, when she was the state attorney general, I singled her out for defending a 1946 state law that criminalized political lies aimed at influencing an election, as if that were even theoretically possible.

In 2018, also a time when she was AG, she won another Muzzle, this one for upholding rulings that public information should, in some cases, remain private. Then-Globe reporter Todd Wallack, now with The Washington Post, documented a number of Healey’s attempts to suppress public records. His most startling finding: Healey’s office had upheld a ruling by the Worcester district attorney that records pertaining to the 1951 murder of a state trooper should not be made public. Healey’s decision reversed a ruling by Secretary of State Bill Galvin’s office and denied a friend of the murder victim the opportunity to follow up some leads on his own. The friend had since died.

Massachusetts has one of the worst reputations in the country with regard to public records. All too often, Maura Healey has been part of the problem rather than part of the solution.

A Muzzle to the town of Hanover, N.H., for refusing to release arrest records after a Dartmouth protest

Dartmouth College. 2007 public domain photo by Kane5187.

When the police arrest someone, the public has a right to know the reason. That’s why virtually every public-records law in the country requires that the police release basic information about those they’ve taken into custody, including name, address and the charges filed against them. And as long as there’s no danger of compromising an investigation, the police are required to release more detailed information as well.

But apparently that’s not how they conduct business in the town of Hanover, New Hampshire. Because when two student protesters at Dartmouth College were arrested in October 2023, the town refused to release the reports. The Valley News, the local newspaper serving that area, took the town to court. And when a state judge in August 2024 ordered the town to produce the records, local officials not only dragged their feet for a few more weeks but they also refused to pay The Valley News’ legal fees, which is required under state law.

Last week, the town lost that case as well. And thus we present town officials in Hanover with a New England Muzzle Award for gross interference with the public’s right to know. Here’s how the state Supreme Court put it in a 3-0 decision:

Having concluded that this lawsuit was necessary to enforce compliance with the Right-to-Know Law and that Hanover knew or should have known that its blanket denial violated that law, we necessarily conclude that Valley News is entitled to an award of reasonable attorney’s fees and costs under RSA 91-A:8, I. [That’s a reference to the state’s Right-to-Know Law.]

According to Claire Shanahan of The Valley News, those legal costs are in the process of being calculated.

After the records were released in September 2024, John Lippman of The Valley News reported that they revealed the two students were arrested “at the behest of college officials who wanted them cited for criminal trespass.” The students had set up a tent as part of pro-Palestinian protests aimed at pressuring Dartmouth to divest from investments “that are complicit in apartheid and its apparatuses.” Lippman wrote:

Although the demonstration was peaceful, Hanover police prepared for the students’ arrests as if they were undertaking a major police operation by dividing into double-officer teams called “arrest team 1” and “arrest team 2” which were staged behind Parkhurst Hall, out of sight of the protesters.

The students were charged with misdemeanor offenses. According to Alesandra Gonzales of The Dartmouth, the two students were found guilty and, in February 2025, were sentenced to 20 hours of community service each plus a $310 fine that could be satisfied through that service.

After last week’s state Supreme Court ruling on legal fees, Valley News publisher Rich Wallace hailed the decision as a blow for governmental transparency:

This ruling affirms a simple but essential principle: the public has a right to know, and that right must be defended. Awarding fees in this case recognizes that transparency should not come at a financial penalty to those willing to stand up for it. We pursued this not just for our newsroom, but for the community we serve — and today’s decision strengthens accountability for everyone.

Shanahan wrote that the town and the police department withheld records because of their “active criminal prosecution of the case” — an argument that clearly did not impress Judge Steven Houran, who ordered that the records be released, or the state Supreme Court.