Read twice and referred to the Committee on Judiciary.
Congressional Research Service
Official summary
Version 00 · Introduced in Senate · Oct 9, 1998
First Amendment Freedoms Act of 1998 - Amends the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act to revise the definition of "racketeering activity" to cover any act constituting a conspiracy, an endeavor, or the commission of (currently, any act or threat involving) murder, kidnapping, extortion, and other specified crimes. Specifies that conduct alleged to be a violation of prohibitions against interference with commerce by threats or violence, interstate and foreign travel or transportation in aid of racketeering enterprises, laundering of monetary instruments, or engaging in monetary transactions in property derived from specified unlawful activity shall not be construed to be racketeering activity to the extent that the conduct includes conduct alleged to be extortion, unless such conduct includes the trespatory taking by any person of the property of another. (Sec. 3) Amends: (1) rule 9 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) to require that, in any civil action or proceeding involving conduct that includes the protected exercise of freedom of religion, speech, press, peaceable assembly, or petition of government for redress of grievance (protected rights), any averment of unprotected conduct of a natural person, its proximate consequences, any association of a natural person with another, any unlawful objective of the association, state of mind with regard to such an unlawful objective, and the evidence on which the averment of state of mind is based shall be stated, to the maximum extent practicable, with particularity in the complaint; (2) FRCP 26 to bar discovery that unduly interferes with protected rights; and (3) rule 403 of the Federal Rules of Evidence to bar the admission of evidence that would unduly interfere with or unduly put in issue protected rights. Amends the Federal judicial code to grant courts of appeals jurisdiction of appeals from interlocutory orders of the district courts of the United States granting or enforcing discovery or admitting evidence that is claimed to unduly interfere with or unduly put in issue protected rights. (Sec. 4) Amends the judicial code to set forth liability limitations with respect to first amendment demonstrations and related litigation.
No related bills are listed in this snapshot. This does not establish whether the proposal has appeared in earlier Congresses.
Source last updated: Aug 10, 2026. Consult Congress.gov for the current record.
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