DOJ takes on major legal fights over gun rights, AI copyright and election crimes - 13wham.com

DOJ takes on major legal fights over gun rights, AI copyright and election crimes

The Justice Department is wading into three major legal fights involving constitutional rights, artificial intelligence and elections, with cases that could have implications for gun owners, technology companies, publishers and election administration across the country.

Speaking with The National News Desk, former federal prosecutor and former acting ICE Director Jonathan Fahey weighed in on the cases, including a new federal lawsuit challenging San Jose, California's nearly $1,600 concealed-carry application fee.

The Justice Department sued the city and its police department Sept. 16, arguing the fee places an unconstitutional financial barrier between residents and their Second Amendment rights.

San Jose increased the application fee to $1,591 in June, according to the federal complaint. DOJ says it is the highest such fee in the country and significantly exceeds fees charged in other major cities.

The lawsuit argues governments can recover reasonable administrative costs associated with processing concealed-carry applications but cannot impose what the Supreme Court has described as "exorbitant fees" that effectively prevent ordinary citizens from exercising the right to carry a firearm.

Fahey said that distinction will be central to the case.

"That's a critical question here," Fahey said. "The argument DOJ is making is this effectively prohibits a large section of the population from being able to exercise their Second Amendment rights."

DOJ's complaint also challenges delays in San Jose's permitting process, arguing applicants have sometimes waited months for decisions.

Fahey said a prolonged delay could raise a similar constitutional question if qualified applicants are prevented from exercising their rights while waiting for the government to process their applications.

"There's also an issue where the state is delaying processing these, which is delaying people having the opportunity to exercise their rights," Fahey said.

The Supreme Court's 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen recognized a constitutional right for ordinary, law-abiding citizens to carry handguns publicly for self-defense while also noting that states may maintain objective licensing requirements. The court cautioned, however, that excessively long wait times or exorbitant fees could be unconstitutional.

Fahey argued San Jose's fee goes well beyond an ordinary administrative charge.

"This fee is so high," Fahey said. "Even the Supreme Court says a fee might be appropriate," but he argued an amount approaching $1,600 is "more than excessive" compared with typical processing costs.

The city will have an opportunity to defend its permitting system in federal court, and the filing represents allegations by the Justice Department rather than a final judicial determination that San Jose's fee is unconstitutional.

The Justice Department is also stepping into one of the most consequential copyright battles of the artificial intelligence era.

The New York Times sued OpenAI and Microsoft in 2023, alleging the companies improperly used millions of copyrighted articles to train artificial intelligence models without authorization or compensation.

OpenAI and Microsoft dispute the allegations and argue that training AI models on copyrighted material can qualify as "fair use" because the models transform the material rather than simply reproduce it.

Earlier this month, the Justice Department filed a statement of interest supporting significant portions of that argument, telling a federal judge that AI training on copyrighted works can be highly transformative and that maintaining American leadership in artificial intelligence is an important national interest.

Fahey said the government's position favors technological development while raising a fundamental question about where copyright protections should apply.

"The DOJ definitely took the sort of position of the open market, ingenuity-favored view, the AI-favored view," Fahey said.

The legal question is more complicated than whether copyrighted material was used at all.

Fair use allows copyrighted works to be used without permission in certain circumstances. Courts consider several factors, including the purpose and character of the use, the nature of the copyrighted work, how much was used and whether the new use harms the market for the original.

Fahey said AI companies argue their models are learning patterns from vast amounts of information rather than simply copying articles and selling them again.

"They're simply not just basically copying it and reselling it, which would certainly be a violation of the law," Fahey said. "They're using this information from The New York Times and other sources to train AI to recognize patterns and things of that nature."

The Times argues the situation is different because OpenAI and Microsoft built commercial products using its journalism without permission and can produce outputs that compete with publishers for readers and revenue.

The newspaper has also pointed to newly unsealed documents that it says demonstrate employees inside the companies were concerned about the potential economic harm AI products could cause publishers. OpenAI and Microsoft continue to argue that their training practices are protected by fair use.

"The New York Times, they're going to argue, 'Well, you're making money off of our material, so therefore you should have to pay us,'" Fahey said.

No court has yet issued a final ruling resolving the central fair-use dispute in the Times case.

"It'll be very interesting to see how the courts view this because this is something they've really never seen before, at least in this type of context," Fahey said.

The third major Justice Department initiative involves elections.

DOJ announced Friday that 16 people have been charged in cases involving alleged illegal voting, illegal voter registration and related offenses across several states.

The cases include allegations that noncitizens voted in federal elections, falsely claimed U.S. citizenship to register or vote, and committed related crimes including naturalization and passport fraud. All of the defendants are presumed innocent unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

One of the defendants, Venezuelan national and DACA recipient Analiea Milliscent Eccles, is accused of voting nine times between 2008 and 2024. She faces charges of voting as a noncitizen in a federal election and falsely claiming U.S. citizenship to vote. Those allegations have not yet been proven in court.

Other cases announced by DOJ involve defendants in Texas, Georgia, Massachusetts, Wisconsin, New Jersey and Michigan.

Fahey said the number and geographic reach of the cases caught his attention.

"It stands out that there are far more of these cases than sort of the public has been aware of," Fahey said.

He argued the prosecutions raise questions about safeguards intended to prevent ineligible people from registering and voting.

However, the newly announced cases do not by themselves establish how common noncitizen voting is nationwide or demonstrate that such voting has affected the outcome of an election.

Federal law prohibits noncitizens from voting in elections for federal office, and states have their own eligibility and registration procedures. The specific circumstances described by DOJ vary considerably among the 16 defendants, with some accused of voting and others facing allegations involving registration, naturalization or related offenses.

Fahey predicted the Justice Department could bring additional cases as investigations continue.

"My guess is we're going to see far more of these cases," he said.

That is Fahey's prediction rather than an established finding about the prevalence of illegal voting.

DOJ has announced multiple election-related prosecutions this month. On Sept. 14, the department announced six cases in California, Kansas and Louisiana involving allegations ranging from illegal voting to fraudulent voter registration and identity fraud. Earlier in the month, five defendants were charged in cases in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Wisconsin.

The Justice Department has stressed that criminal complaints and indictments contain allegations and that defendants remain presumed innocent unless convicted.

Together, the three legal battles place DOJ at the center of very different questions about how existing law applies to rapidly changing or contested areas.

In California, a federal court will consider when a government fee for exercising a constitutional right becomes excessive.

In New York, a landmark copyright case could help determine whether training artificial intelligence on copyrighted material without permission qualifies as fair use.

And across several states, federal prosecutors are pursuing individual cases alleging illegal voting and registration offenses while broader debates continue over election safeguards and the prevalence of such crimes.

For Fahey, each case involves a different area of law, but all three ultimately ask courts and prosecutors to define where legal boundaries should be drawn as technology, government policy and enforcement practices evolve.