You no longer need consent to speak your mind within eight feet of someone in Sandy Springs, Ga., where the local council repealed one of three controversial new free speech ordinances that were mostly written by the Anti-Defamation League.

In April, the Atlanta suburb in northern Fulton County passed three new ordinances expanding the definition of disorderly conduct, which critics immediately flagged as unconstitutional restrictions on First Amendment rights. One of the ordinances, which was rescinded on Tuesday, criminalized handing someone a leaflet, displaying a sign, or engaging in oral protest within eight feet of someone without their consent.

The other ordinances, which remain in effect, make it illegal to obstruct an entrance or exit of a public facility or private property and to conduct door-to-door soliciting and canvassing between the hours of 9 p.m. and 7 a.m. – blocking the local Sandy Springs Crier newspaper from delivering papers on its early morning route. A similar law was ruled unconstitutional for violating the First Amendment in the 1999 Statesboro Publishing Co. v. City of Sylvania case by the Supreme Court of Georgia.

The Anti-Defamation League — an organization founded to combat anti-Jewish bias and bigotry that has been criticized for falsely conflating criticisms of Israel and support of Palestine with antisemitism — drafted the model legislation used to shape the ordinances, and in some instances the word-for-word language approved by the city council in Sandy Springs.

“The ADL decided to craft these model ordinances to help maintain public safety,” Sandy Springs Communications and Public Relations Director Carter Long wrote in an email to The Intercept. “After the proposed model ordinances were researched and prepared by the ADL, they were delivered to the City. From there, they were taken to City Council work sessions to discuss, and ultimately to a City Council meeting to adopt.”

Initial versions of the ordinances were introduced to council members as early as November 2023, the month after Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel. They didn’t reappear on the council’s agenda until Jan. 7, 2025, when the bill was presented by Sandy Springs Chief of Police Kenneth DeSimone and City Attorney Dan Lee. DeSimone did not initially acknowledge ADL’s involvement in modeling the proposed legislation, saying it was a collaboration between himself and the city attorney. On April 1, Lee described the legislation as “content-neutral,” saying it “applies to everyone.”

During a work session, two council members compared DeSimone’s proposed legislation and the ADL’s model legislation. Council member Andy Bauman read a section from ADL’s model legislation that defined disorderly conduct as when a person “knowingly approaches another person within eight feet of such person, unless such other person consents, for the purpose of passing a leaflet or handbill to, displaying a sign to, or engaging in oral protest, education, counseling, or harassment with such other person in the public way within a radius of 50 feet.”

The only difference between ADL’s model legislation and Sandy Spring’s ordinance was........

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