The Supreme Court has decided against hearing an investigative journalism organization’s First Amendment-based challenge to a decades-old Oregon law prohibiting most secret recordings of oral conversations.
Undercover journalism group Project Veritas had argued that the state’s conversational privacy statute violated the First Amendment. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled 9–2 in January that the law did not violate the group’s free speech rights.
The Supreme Court dismissed the petition in Project Veritas v. Vasquez without comment in an unsigned order on Oct. 6. No justices dissented.
The respondents were sued in their official capacities. One is Nathan Vasquez, district attorney for Multnomah County, Oregon; the other is Dan Rayfield, attorney general of Oregon.
In its April 7 petition, Project Veritas described Oregon’s audio recording law as “a national outlier” because it requires that “anyone in almost any conversation [be informed] that their words are being recorded.”
This requirement “severely hampers modern investigative journalism” and undermines the First Amendment “by effectively prohibiting the use of today’s most powerful reporting tools—discreet audio recordings,” the petition states.
Project Veritas argued in its lawsuit that the privacy law infringed on its right to free speech and made it difficult for its reporters to record the protests in Portland, Oregon, that erupted in the wake of the May 2020 death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody.
A federal district court in Oregon found that there was no First Amendment violation and granted the state’s motion to dismiss.
Next, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit held that the law was a content-based unconstitutional restriction of speech. After that, an 11-judge Ninth Circuit panel reversed the ruling, upholding the law, according to the petition.
“This case presents a critical opportunity for this Court to clarify First Amendment doctrine, ensuring it aligns with the realities of modern journalism and the use of technology for effective speech and accountability,” Project Veritas attorneys argued in the petition.
In a June 23 brief, Oregon Solicitor General Benjamin Gutman urged the Supreme Court to not hear the case.
The state law protects the freedom to choose whether to speak publicly by requiring that notice be given to all participants before most face-to-face conversations may be recorded. The brief states that the legal requirement lets speakers decide if they wish to address an audience beyond those within earshot.
“A person who is willing to speak in one context—an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, a confessional booth, a hushed conversation with a close friend on a park bench—does not necessarily want the statement preserved in perpetuity so that it can be shared with others,” the brief reads.
The Ninth Circuit’s decision is not in conflict with any decisions by the Supreme Court or any other appeals courts, according to the brief.
A representative of the Oregon attorney general’s office lauded the Supreme Court’s decision to deny the petition.
The ruling reaffirms “a simple but important principle—that Oregonians have a right to know when they’re being recorded and to choose how and when their words are shared,” Jenny Hansson, the office’s communications director, told The Epoch Times.
“[The state law] strikes a balance between transparency and privacy, recognizing that consent and context matter. Whether it’s a private support group, a conversation with a friend, or a difficult moment shared in confidence, people deserve the dignity of deciding whether those words live beyond the moment.”
Project Veritas’s attorney, Benjamin Barr of Barr and Klein in Chicago, did not respond to a request for comment.
Katabella Roberts contributed to this report.
This article by Matthew Vadum appeared Oct. 12, 2025, in The Epoch Times.