Oregon state legislation that forbids taping was invalidated by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

The lawsuit was brought forward in Portland, Oregon by James O’Keefe and Project Veritas in the year 2020.

In the case of Project Veritas v. Schmidt, the group claimed it had the legal authority to do undercover reporting and capture footage of citizens without their permission.

James O’Keefe bragged regarding his victory: “WON in Ninth Circuit – Federal Appeals Court STRIKES DOWN Oregon Criminal Recording Law.”

Read his very lengthy post to Twitter below.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals declared in its decision that the aforementioned legislation “abuses the 1st Amendment’s freedom of speech,” making it “INVALID ON ITS FACE.”

The regulation in question made it illegal for someone to make a sound file, except for when they “specifically informed” the people around them that they were doing so.

However, the statute contained special government approvals that only applied to law enforcement and did not apply to any additional government employees, according to O’Keefe.

That just leaves authorities controlling the news-gathering process, choosing which news is most accessible and distorting reporting.

Whatever reservations Oregon may have about poor reporting or “fake news,” the Ninth Circuit previously stated the solution to incorrect speech is genuine speech, not the restriction of speech.

The opinion was written by Circuit Judge Sandra S. Ikuta. According to Ikuta, Oregon fails to protect an important stake in safeguarding people’s dialog confidentiality from another individual’s protected expression.

This applies in areas accessible to the public, regardless of whether that protected speech consisted of generating audio or visual recordings of other persons.

Many people on Twitter have expressed their concern over this ruling with regard to children and women being recorded; however, the majority have come out in support of O’Keefe.