A study of leaks of classified information says that the friction caused by interests in keeping national security secrets and in the public’s right to know can be mitigated to some extent through improved understanding and management achieved partly through dialogue between the government and media.

WikiLeaks has changed the secrecy terrain, writes Steven Aftergood for Secrecy News, with the government’s increased focus on leaks and use of new surveillance tools. -db

From a commentary in Secrecy News, February 8, 2012, by Steven Aftergood.

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Pasadena encrypted their radio signal January 7, effectively denying the public and media access to police radio traffic. The Pasadena police department said the media could make public record requests for access to the traffic and insisted that the department took the step to encrypt to protect officers by closing criminals out of the system. -db

From the Pasadena Star-News, February 5, 2012, by Brian Charles.

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The U.S. Senate is considering a bi-partisan bill to allow the televising of Supreme Court sessions. C-SPAN and others are asking the Court for permission to televise five and a half hours of oral arguments on the federal health care law at the end of March. -db

From C-SPAN, February 9, 2012.

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As early as this fall, the U.S. government could have in place an interagency project using up-to-date technology to implement the Freedom of Information Act.

New technologies could increase proactive disclosure, speed responsiveness and cut backlogs. -db

From a commentary in OMB Watch, February 7, 2012.

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A federal district judge ruled that the government had to release a 500-page report about alleged prosecutorial misconduct in the case against the late Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska for failing to list improper gifts in Senate ethics forms.

Stevens was convicted of the charges and lost his seat in the senate, but the conviction was vacated when it was discovered that the prosecution withheld evidence from the defense. -db

From Politico, February 8, 2012, by Josh Gerstein.

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Shareholders of AT&T, Apple, Ford and Pepsi are among the shareholders demanding to know how much money the corporations are spending on super PACs and lobbying.

The demands are fueled in part by the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision Citizens United v. FEC that allowed unlimited and anonymous corporate spending. -db

From Politico, February 7, 2012, by David Saleh Rauf.

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The Children’s Law Center, which advocates for children in juvenile court, is suing in a state appeals court to overturn a Los Angeles judge’s decision to allow the media into juvenile hearings.

The center says the ruling wrongly puts the interests of the public and media above the interests of those suffering child abuse and neglect. -db

From the Los Angeles Times, February 7, 2012, by John Hoeffel.

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After the Los Angeles Times and others complained about the county supervisors’ closing the doors during a meeting with Governor Jerry Brown about shifting state prisoners to the county, the supervisors asked the legislature to carve out a narrow exception to the Brown Act, the state’s open meeting law.

The supervisors want the law amended to allow them to meet privately with the U.S. president or the governor on issues posing threats to public buildings or public services. -db

From the Los Angeles Times, February 7, 2012, by Ari Bloomekatz.

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The Georgia Supreme Court ruled that a law outlawing assisted suicide was an unconstitutional violation of free speech in that it made it a crime to promote assisted suicide. -db

From The New York Times, February 6, 2012, by Kim Severson.

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A California appeals court ruled that cities cannot withhold the name of a police officer involved in shootings unless they provide evidence of a specific threat against the officer.

The judge said it’s common practice to identify officers and there was a strong public interest in knowing who was involved in shootings. -db

From the San Francisco Chronicle, February 8, 2012, by John Wildermuth.

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After two years of deployment in Afghanistan, Lt. Col. Daniel L Davis concluded that the war was not going well and that the establishment was not telling the truth about the situation.

He filed two reports with the Defense Department’s inspector general summarizing his observations and briefed members of Congress and  a New York Times reporter. He did all this without the knowledge of his military superiors. -db

From The New York Times, February 5, 2012, by Scott Shane.

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Stances against campaign finance limits and the online piracy act are among Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s  views on First Amendment issues detailed in a roundup for the First Amendment Center. -db

From the First Amendment Center, February 1, 2012, by Josh Tatum with research by Courtney Holliday.

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Weave, a new open-source, web-based platform will allow journalists to see data visually in bringing stories to the public. Weave is not an app but provides software to “create infinitely interactive visualizations,” writes Andrew Phelps for the Nieman Journalism Lab. -db

From a commentary for the Nieman Journalism Lab, January 31, 2012, by Andrew Phelps.

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The Chicago Tribune pulled the  DonorsChoose cartoon in the Doonesbury strip on the grounds that the cartoon promoted cartoonist Garry Trudeau’s self-interest in making an appeal for a particular charity contrary to Tribune policy.

Trudeau disputed that the cartoon ws in his self interest since the appeal was for a charity that he was not connected with. -db

From a commentary in The Washington Post, February 6, 2012, by Michael Cavna.

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Finding no substantiation for charges that News Corp journalists hacked phones in the U.S., the FBI is now checking to see if they bribed foreign law enforcement officers in violation of the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

News Corp declined to comment on the investigation. -db

From Reuters, February 7, 2012, by Mark Hosenball and Georgina Prodhan with additional reporting by Kate Holton.

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A federal judge ruled against a Wisconsin middle school student who sued the Sauk Prairie School District on First Amendment grounds for banning the “I (Heart) Boobies” bracelet.

The judge said the district could ban vulgar or offensive speech under the U.S. Supreme Court’s Bethel v. Fraser precedent. -db

From the Student Press Law Center, February 7, 2012, by Brian Schraum.

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A former executive for General Electric in Iraq claims he was fired for warning about a possible violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act while the company was striving for a huge contract with the Iraqi government.

GE denies that the former employee was fired for his whistleblowing. -db

From the Courthouse News Service, February 7, 2012, by Cameron Langford.

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A number of free speech defenders have filed briefs to the U.S. Supreme Court contesting the constitutionality of the Stolen Valor Act.

The briefs were filed in support of a Pomona, California water district board member who lied about receiving the Medal of Honor and 25 years of service in the Marines. -db

From the Courthouse News Service, February 06, 2012, by Tim Hull.

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The State Attorney General narrowed the scope of the real estate negotiation exception to the Brown Act, the open meeting law. The interpretation places higher value on the public’s right to know over local government’s interest in protecting bargaining power in real estate negotiations. -db

From Best Best & Krieger Attorneys at Law, February 3, 2012.

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Debate over the use of iPads by city council members during meetings continues in Petaluma with no consensus as yet.

Some say that it is invaluable in allowing members to gain access to documents, research information and eliminate volumes of paper. Others say that the public may think that the iPads are being used to send and receive messages pertaining to city business in violation of the state’s open meeting law, the Brown Act. -db

From the Petaluma Patch, February 6, 2012, by Karina Ioffee.

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A federal judge ruled that the “Sister Wives family could proceed with their lawsuit challenging Utah’s anti-polygamy law.

Because Utah’s Attorney General said the family would be prosecuted under the state’s bigamy law, the judge said there was a “chilling effect” on the family’s First Amendment rights. -db

From The Hollywood Reporter, February 4, 2012, by Aaron Couch.

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A recent study concluded that use of social media by jurors is infrequent with the implication that the practice is not a growing problem, but Eric P. Robinson, writing for the Citizen Media Law Center, says that the study takes a far too optimistic stance on the issue.

Given the rampant use of the social media by the general public supplying the juror pools and the difficulty of detecting its use by jurors, Robinson argues that the study’s findings are dubious. -db

From a commentary for the Citizen Media Law Center, February 6, 2012 by Eric P. Robinson.

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A media access bill allowing journalists into California state prisons stands a chance to become law. Eight previous versions of the law were vetoed by three governors.

The bill would not only allow journalists to talk with inmates but also prohibit officials from punishing inmates for doing so. -db

From the Fog City Journal, February 4, 2012, by Rebecca Rosen Lum.

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A Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge torched Norman Chad, an ESPN poker commentator for tweeting during trial.

The judge said Chad made a mockery of the justice system when he tweeted, “I was selected for the jury. I asked the judge if we could go straight to jury deliberations but was denied, plus gagged and bounded.” -db

From the Los Angeles Times, February 1, 2012, storified by Kimi Yoshino.

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A progressive group is opposing Rep. Lamar Smith’s bill Protecting children from Internet Pornographers Act that would make Internet service providers to keep user information on file to help track pedophiles and child pornographers.

Demand Progress claims the bill attacks privacy and civil liberties. -db

From the National Journal, February 2,2012, by Josh Smith.

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Obsidian Finance Group who won a round in court against a blogger for defamation says the blogger does not deserve a new trial. A court awarded Obsidian$2.5 million in damages for one post.

The blogger is seeking to appeal the award with the Electric Frontier Foundation filing an amicus brief arguing the judgment was a threat to free speech. -db

From the Courthouse News Service, February 6, 2012, by Nick McCann.

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A federal judge gave the go-ahead to a lawsuit brought by three families claiming a school district violated the free speech rights of their children seeking to hand out candy cane pens stamped with religious messages. -db

From the Courthouse News Service, February 6, 2012, by Bonnie Barron.

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The presiding judge for the L.A. County Juvenile Court ordered the courts open to the media but not the public.

The court had previously barred the media and public from cases of child abuse, foster care and adoption. The parties involved in a case can still make a compelling case to close doors.

From The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, February 3, 2012, by Rachel Bunn.

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In a case pitting a forest products company against the California Department of Agriculture, the Sacramento Bee sought discovery material filed with the court.

A federal district judge ruled that once the materials became judicial records attached to a motion for summary judgment, the public and press should be granted access. -db

From The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, February 2, 2012, by Haley Behre.

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Secrecy surrounds many of the donations to political groups seeking to influence the presidential race prompting concerns that the public might not ever know the origins  of vast sums of money.

Donations from corporations and unions have ballooned since the Supreme Court’s United decision in 2010. -db

From The New York Times, February 2, 2012, by Nicholas Confessore and Michael Luo.

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Officials at a mortuary at Dover Air Force Base, the entry for U.S. war dead, punished four employees for voicing concerns about the  mishandling of service members’ remains.

The Office of Special Counsel investigated the incident and is giving the Air Force 30 days to punish officials for retaliating against the whistleblowers. -db

From The New York Times, February 1, 2012, by James Dao.

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After six current or former Food and Drug Administration employees complained that their e-mails were being monitored, Senator Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) ordered an investigation into the FDA’s monitoring program aimed at doctors and scientists alarmed that unsafe medical devices were approved.

Grassley said, “I write to express my concerns over your agency’s treatment of whistleblowers as a result of their disclosures to Congress, and specifically disclosures to my office. Whistleblowers . . . are often treated like skunks at a picnic.” -db

From The Washington Post, February 1, 2012, by Lisa Rein and Ellen Nakashima.

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Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy said that when civilians videotape officers at protests, that can be helpful particularly when the tapes show police politely warning protesters. Brutality suits against police do not succeed with that type of evidence at hand.

Illinois has a law on the books against recording conversations between police and civilians. -db

From the Chicago Sun-Times, January 30, 2012, by Abdon M. Pallasch and Adeshina Emmanuel.

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The American Civil Liberties Union is suing the Obama administration to force them to release records related to the deaths by drone attacks of three U.S. citizens in Yemen.

The administration cited national security in denying the request for the documents under the Freedom of Information Act, but the ACLU said the drone program should not be allowed to operate without transparency and accountability. -db

From The Washington Post, February 1, 2012, by Karen DeYoung.

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In a narrowly tailored decision, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the public, media and same-sex marriage proponents could not gain access to the videotapes of the trial over Proposition 8.

The court said that the trial judge had assured Prop 8 backers that the trial videotape would not be made public, and that pledge had to be respected to maintain the integrity of the justice system. -db

From the San Jose Mercury News, February 2, 2012, by Howard Mintz.

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With travel costs eating up the budgets of the big media companies, they will look to save money by ending man-to-man coverage of also rans including Newt Gingrich, predicts John Ellis of BuzzFeed.-db

From a commentary in BuzzFeed, January  31, 2012, by John Ellis.

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The Hanford City Council has so far not released an anonymous packet of documents to the public and may never. The documents make allegations against city leaders which the council discussed in closed meetings.

Jim Ewert, legal counsel for the California Newspaper Publisher Association, said the council may be on safe ground in denying public access to the documents but should consider if someone who intends to sue had supplied the documents. In that case disclosure is required under the state’s open meeting law, the Brown Act. -db

From the Hanford Sentinel, February 1, 2012, by Eiji Yamashita.

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Together with other free speech groups, the Student Press Law Center is opposing the removal of ethnic history books from the Tucson, Arizona schools. The school district banned the books under a state law that prohibits courses of study that are “designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group.”

“The Supreme Court has told us repeatedly, as recently as last term, that young people have a constitutional right to receive information that cannot lightly be overridden by the government,” said attorney Frank D. LoMonte, executive director of the Student Press Law Center. -db

From a press release from the Student Press Law Center, January 30, 2012.

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The Electronic Frontier Foundation is petitioning a federal judge to protect the anonymity of individuals involved in a copyright lawsuit over porn downloading.

An adult film company wants to determine the identities of 1495 Internet users. The judge ordered the individuals suing to protect their anonymity to reveal their identities before the suit could proceed. -db

From a commentary for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, January 30, 2012.

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The Reporters Committee  for Freedom of the Press did not like a federal appeals decision upholding a law restricting access to Virginia state records by non-residents. The court ruled that the restriction was not unconstitutional.

The Reporters Committee felt the court should have considered the effect of the restriction on smaller journalistic enterprises. -db

From a commentary by The Reporters Committee  for Freedom of the Press, February 1, 2012.

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