The Powerful anti-SOPA protests show why corporations, too, need First Amendment rights

BY PETER SCHEER—Some thoughts on the dramatic and remarkably effective demonstrations by Google, Wikipedia, et al. against federal anti-piracy legislation (the Stop Online Piracy Act, “SOPA,” and companion legislation in the Senate): Successful technology firms pride themselves on their capacity to disrupt the established order. The reference is usually to a technological advance that poses [...]

Out-sourcing the job of muzzling the media

BY EDWARD WASSERMAN–A comment posted to London’s Guardian newspaper said it best: “Censorship, like everything else in the West, has been privatized.”  The writer, somebody called “edensasp,” was referring to news that Wikileaks—the online whistleblower that has been embarrassing governments and corporations worldwide by disclosing their secrets–was suspending operations. Why? Had its leader, the mercurial [...]

Steve Jobs vs. The Beatles, and other thoughts on the passing of a superstar

BY PETER SCHEER–Steve Jobs died at age 56, a young man. But one of the things that stands out about him is the longevity of his superstardom. Jimmy Carter was president when Jobs first appeared on the scene as the bearded personification of high-tech cool. From the early Apple PCs to the launch of the [...]

Join us in urging the Governor to sign SB 914 to protect privacy and free speech rights

BY PETER SCHEER–Sitting on Governor Brown’s desk right now is SB 914, a First Amendment Coalition-sponsored bill that would restrict warrantless police searches of citizens’ cellphones. Won’t you please  join our Petition urging the Governor to sign this important safeguard of personal privacy and free speech rights. Why is SB 914 needed? Imagine you are [...]

BART feud shows that censorship is never local

BY NICOLE WONG—Here’s the thing about censorship: in this globally connected world, censorship is never local. So, whether you live in the SF Bay Area or not, whether you ride the BART rail system or not, the recent actions of local government officials affected us all. Last Thursday, during the evening rush hour commute, BART [...]

Google’s purchase of Motorola shows dangers of out-of-control patent litigation

BY PETER SCHEER—Google’s $12.5 billion purchase of Motorola is a sign of serious problems for the US economy. Motorola’s strategic appeal to Google is its portfolio of thousands of patents covering mobile phone technologies. But the acquisition of these patents creates no real value for Google. They are in the nature of a massive  premium [...]

US media shouldn’t rush to hang Murdoch’s News Corp for the sins of its London tabloids. Let’s wait to see the evidence.

BY PETER SCHEER—The economic forces that pummeled every American newspaper from the New York Times to the San Francisco Chronicle have barely disturbed Rupert Murdoch’s media properties. The Wall Street Journal, for one, has not only weathered the storm that decimated competitors’ newsrooms, but it has added editorial staff, news features and online resources. This [...]

First Amendment travesties far and near

BY PETER SCHEER—The Israeli Parliament on Monday passed legislation to bar public calls for a boycott against Israel or its West Bank settlements, according to the New York Times. The law’s supporters said it was necessary to push back against what they described as a strategy to delegitimize Israel in the eyes of the world. [...]

Will mainstream media match Wikileaks’ technology for receiving leaked documents anonymously and securely? Not likely.

BY PETER SCHEER—Ever since Wikileaks became a household word, traditional news media have had every reason to try to replicate its technology for receiving leaked documents, via the internet, on an anonymous and secure basis. Traditional media may be at war with Julian Assange and disagree fundamentally with his methods in vetting and disseminating classified [...]

Now Let Us Praise a Famous Man: Rich McKee, 1949-2011

Richard P. McKee, who died this week at age 62, was indefatigable in his advocacy of open government and participatory democracy in California. Co-founder of Calaware and a former Board member and Board President of this organization, Rich cast a big shadow in the world of people committed to shining light on government decision-making in [...]

Real agenda cloaked in government buzzwords and bafflegab

BY DICK ROGERS—When it came time last December to vote on a labor contract for hundreds of city workers, San Leandro leaders didn’t scurry into a back room to make the politically hot decision in secret. That’s the good news. The bad news is that San Leandro, like other local governments, obscured its intent and [...]

Keller v. Assange: Gray Lady gladly accepts secrets; scorns source

by Edward Wasserman| It’s the climax of the 1975 hit Three Days of the Condor. On a Manhattan sidewalk fugitive CIA analyst Robert Redford, having outgunned his assassins, confronts his double-dealing boss, who demands he join the sinister plot to control the world’s oil. No way, Redford says, he’s already blown the whistle. And the [...]

The U.S. is alone among western democracies in protecting “hate speech.” Chalk it up to a healthy fear of government censorship.

BY PETER SCHEER—An inebriated John Galliano, sitting in a Paris bar, unleashes an anti-semitic rant (“I love Hitler”) that is captured on a cellphone camera and posted on the internet. Within days the Dior designer is not only fired from his job, but is given a trial date to face criminal charges for his offensive [...]

The U.S. is alone among western democracies in protecting “hate speech.” Chalk it up to a healthy fear of government censorship.

BY PETER  SCHEER–An inebriated John Galliano, sitting in a Paris bar, unleashes an anti-semitic rant (“I love Hitler”) that is captured on a cellphone camera and posted on the internet. Within days the Dior designer is not only fired from his job, but is given a trial date to face criminal charges for his offensive [...]

UNPLUG WIKILEAKS? ENACT A FEDERAL SHIELD LAW INSTEAD

BY PETER SCHEER—-The Obama administration has made no secret of its desire to unplug wikileaks, the whistleblower website infamous for data dumps of classified records. Of the few options available to the government, the best is one that probably hasn’t been considered in this context: enacting a federal Shield Law. How would a Shield Law–a [...]

Does Wikileaks deserve Dan Ellsberg’s approval? The good Wikileaks, yes; the bad Wikileaks, no

BY PETER SCHEER—Although the anti-war movement of the 1960s has few heroes still standing,  Daniel Ellsberg, the former defense analyst who leaked a secret history of the Vietnam War that became known as the Pentagon Papers, is surely one. As such, Ellsberg’s full-throated support for  Wikileaks, delivered as it dumped on the internet nearly 400,000 [...]

A First Amendment kiss-off to Carson Mayor Jim Dear for his (mis)use of a “mute switch” at city council meetings

A big wet First Amendment kiss-off to Jim Dear, Mayor of Carson, CA (population 92,255). In his capacity as chair of City Council meetings in the LA suburb, the Mayor is armed with something that all public officials must covet: a mute switch.  Just a press of the switch, and Mayor Dear is able to [...]

First Amendment Kiss-Off: Judge Judith Bartnoff

A First Amendment Kiss-off to Judge Judith Bartnoff. The Washington, DC Superior Court judge must have missed school the day her law school class learned about the First Amendment. In a recent case involving a dispute between a law firm and its former client, the judge issued a TRO forbidding a legal newspaper, the National [...]

First Amendment Kiss-Off** to Craigslist

A First Amendment kiss-off**  to Craigslist, which is resisting the demands of seventeen state attorneys general (but not including California’s Jerry Brown) that it shut down the website’s “adult services” section because, claim the AGs, it continues to promote prostitution and child-trafficking despite the site owners’ introduction of vetting (by lawyers, no less!) of sexually-oriented [...]

A 1st Amendment Kiss** to the LA Times for coverage of LA schools that empowers parents to hold bureaucrats and politicians accountable

A big First Amendment Kiss** to the Los Angeles Times and reporters Jason Felch, Jason Song and Doug Smith for their recent stories about LA public schools. The Times applied statistical analysis to seven years of student test scores in order to measure teachers’ effectiveness in math and English instruction. Using an outside consultant to [...]

If hard-won court victory against Prop 8 is tossed out because of “standing” defect, you can thank Jerry Brown

BY PETER SCHEER—If I were Ted Olson, the former US solicitor general who is leading the legal battle against Prop 8, I would be unhappy with Jerry Brown right now. Olson’s hard-won victory before federal district court judge Vaughn Walker was meant to be the first stage of a legal strategy culminating in a US [...]

Wikileaks didn’t just happen. It exists because journalists have lost control over their information.

BY PETER SCHEER–The New York Times’ front-page stories on the war in Afghanistan–based on a massive leak of classified US military cables and other documents–are not likely to change the course of the war. But they represent a sea change in the way journalists report on national security. The records for the Times’ articles, which [...]

Taxpayers Going Postal Over Public Employee Pensions, Perks. Unions’ miscalculation: Opting for secrecy.

BY PETER SCHEER—For public employee unions–those representing police, firefighters, teachers, prison guards and agency workers of all kinds at the state and local level–these are the worst of times. Despite record high membership and dues, and years of unparalleled clout in state capitols, public sector unions find themselves on the defensive, desperately trying to hold [...]

Apple’s vetting of iPhone apps may be ham-handed, but it’s not illegal

BY PETER SCHEER—In the beginning there was the internet. It was raw, ungovernable and vast in its multiplicity of voices. Then came the Apple iPhone (and more recently, the iPad), offering a curated internet experience, using “apps” vetted by Apple for conformity to company standards for content and quality. Millions of Apple i-device users inhabit [...]

Digital strip-search: Case of lost iPhone prototype shows the danger of using search warrant to seize journalists’ information

BY PETER SCHEER—Search warrants have always been a blunt instrument for finding evidence of crime. Think of television cop shows from the 70s and 80s: A police search of an apartment for drugs was, de facto, a license to ransack all closets, cabinets and dressers. A warrant to seize a letter or other specific document [...]

Supreme Court’s much-maligned First Amendment decision will, in fact, expand freedom of speech. Prediction: The Citizens United holding dooms IRS curbs on political advocacy by “dot-org” news media and other nonprofits.

BY PETER SCHEER—Forty-six years ago, the Supreme Court announced its decision in New York Times v. Sullivan, rewriting centuries of “common law” on libel and defamation, in order to boost constitutional protection for criticism of government policies and government officials. One of the most important free speech decisions in Supreme Court history, New York Times [...]

If China unplugs Google, it will be the first time China’s people will know what they are not being allowed to see. This should give the censors pause.

BY PETER SCHEER–Google’s high-stakes confrontation with China’s government has entered a new, and uncertain, phase. Making good on its threat to cease censorship of search results on its China-based site, Google.cn, Google has begun redirecting users in China to its uncensored Chinese-language site based in Hong Kong, google.com.hk. China’s censors now face a difficult choice. [...]

Leading gubernatorial candidates Meg Whitman and Jerry Brown need to show voters, by their own actions, that they are committed to transparency in government. Promises won’t cut it.

BY PETER SCHEER—As California voters begin the process of selecting the next  Governor of the ungovernable Golden State, the leading candidates owe them a demonstration of their commitment to government transparency. All politicians are supportive of open-government “in principle;”  the question is whether they are committed in practice. The best test for that is a [...]

Reader-comments sections of news websites needn’t be cesspools. Editors should EDIT comments as they would letters-to-the-editor.

BY PETER SCHEER–Some people have no choice but to live in a cesspool. (Consider the young protagonist in Slumdog Millionaire, leaping into a pool of human waste in order to escape a locked latrine.) But news organizations are not among them. The cesspool that many newspapers occupy is the “Comments” sections of their websites. This [...]

Obama should back up Google with more than rhetoric: The US should challenge China’s “firewall” before the WTO.

PETER SCHEER—The US government is not powerless to influence China’s policies for censoring the internet. As Google has taken extraordinary steps–bordering on corporate civil disobedience–to challenge China’s stranglehold on the flow of information to and among its people, the Obama administration has acted as though its hands were tied. In fact, however, the administration does [...]

Are Myths Killing the Newspaper Business?

Are newspapers dead, dead, dead? If you can believe everything you read in them, apparently so. Hal Fuson, a veteran of 44-years in the news business, didn’t think those obituary writers had their stories straight. In fact, they were reporting myths about the dire state of the industry as though they were facts. When Fuson, [...]

Supreme Court order blocking online access to video of Prop 8 trial is a mistake the camera-phobic justices will regret

PETER SCHEER—It’s hard to imagine a video of lawyers debating points of constitutional law going viral on YouTube, but the audience for the Proposition 8 trial — a lawsuit seeking to overturn California’s voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage — is potentially vast. Unfortunately, that audience will have to wait. As the trial began, the U.S. [...]

More power to Google for its civil disobedience in China. Why does US-backed rival Baidu.com get a free ride?

BY PETER SCHEER—It’s not every day that a public corporation engages in what amounts to civil disobedience. But that, in effect, is what Google has done in halting censorship of search results on Google.cn–the Chinese language version of Google that is available inside China–in defiance of China’s laws. More power to Google. Its unilateral action, [...]

In Separate Moves, State and Federal Courts in California OK Policy Changes Allowing Greater Public Access

BY PETER SCHEER — The courts in California are often criticized for being out of step with the rest of the country. A willingness among judges to deviate from national orthodoxy is not necessarily a bad thing, however. Just this week the administrative arm of the California Supreme Court adopted a rule providing public access [...]

What kind of Governor would Jerry Brown be? Don’t try to check his gubernatorial record. It’s locked up until 2038.

BY PETER SCHEER—-Attorney General Jerry Brown has taken the first formal steps toward declaring himself a candidate for Governor of California. He is, or soon will be, the deja vu candidate in a race to become the deja vu governor. What kind of governor would Brown be? While the resumes of most candidates provide, at [...]

In taping a reporter, AG Brown’s spokesman showed bad judgment, but did he break the law?

BY PETER SCHEER — Attorney General Jerry Brown’s spokesman Scott Gerber was unceremoniously “disappeared” from Brown’s incipient gubernatorial campaign this week because of a lapse in judgment that, quite frankly, has been overblown. Gerber’s mistake: to surreptitiously record a  phone conversation with a reporter,  which was later discovered because Gerber, in a plea for changes [...]

With news jobs vanishing, why are journalism schools still enrolling students?

BY PETER SCHEER—As I read about the latest contractions in the newsroom of the New York Times (100 reporters and editors) and the San Francisco Chronicle (investigative reporting staff–gone), the question occurs: Why are universities across the country continuing to churn out journalism graduates? Do they know something that the rest of us don’t? Do [...]

Woodward’s “leaked” Aghanistan report was declassified. How could that happen without Obama’s OK?

BY PETER SCHEER—On Monday, Washington Post investigative reporter nonpareil Bob Woodward caused a tremor inside the Beltway with an exclusive account of  Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s 66-page report to President Barack Obama, warning that without the deployment of more US troops, the administration’s Afghanistan policy will fail. There has followed the usual Washington parlor game of [...]

NEW name, NEW website, Bigger role, Same mission

Welcome to our new website. In addition to a new home (and address) on the internet, we are also announcing our new name. Instead of “California First Amendment Coalition,” the name given this organization at its birth in 1988, we are now just “FIRST AMENDMENT COALITION.” We shrunk our name to confirm our expanding role [...]

Government officials use personal email and texting to avoid public access laws. Why not use technology to enhance accountability instead of to subvert it?

By PETER SCHEER—All public officials favor open government in principle. Who would dare say otherwise? In reality, however, they are in a perpetual search, guided by clever lawyers, for new ways to circumvent disclosure requirements–at best, because they view requests for records as a nuisance, and at worst, because they have something to hide (which [...]

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