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 [...]

How to get judges, lawyers and Sharon Stone to follow open-court rules?

BY PETER SCHEER—With one unforgettable gesture–the uncrossing and crossing of her legs—actress Sharon Stone famously demonstrated that, physically speaking, she has nothing to hide. Her legal affairs, however, are another matter. Despite court rules mandating openness in judicial proceedings, Stone was recently allowed to file a suit in Los Angeles Superior Court under conditions of [...]

Information wants to be free, but the creators of information need to eat. Whether to charge for journalism online is fundamentally a question about legal rights.

By Peter Scheer A debate rages in what remains of the newspaper industry over the question of whether papers should charge for their content online or, as most papers now do, give it away for free in hopes of reaping faster overall revenue growth through internet advertising. As more and more publications contemplate their own [...]

Newspaper finance crisis: Nonprofit model no panacea but may be part of the answer

By Donal Brown Like the economy generally, the newspaper industry’s financial crisis deepens daily with reports of bankruptcies, layoffs and closings. The prospect that this downward spiral could leave the country, or large parts of it, without a vigorous press to uncover news of vital interest has fueled interest in alternative business models–notably including the [...]

To take the sleaze out of judicial elections, ethics rules should bar lawyers who contribute money to judges from practicing before those judges

By Peter Scheer In America, a judge ordinarily may not take a “gift” of money from a person or company appearing before him in a legal case. Such a brazen assault on judicial independence is plainly unethical and potentially criminal. Suppose, however, we alter the facts slightly so that the money is offered as a [...]

Prop 8 Supreme Court hearing is best evidence yet for allowing cameras into the courtroom

By Peter Scheer The California Supreme Court’s hearing yesterday in the Prop 8 case–broadcast live over the internet via streaming video–erased any doubt about the wisdom of allowing cameras into the nation’s courts. Let’s hope US Supreme Court Justices David Souter, Stephen Breyer, Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas were watching the oral arguments [...]

Nonprofits to downsizing law firms: Loan us your laid off junior lawyers; we'll return them when the economy recovers

By Peter Scheer A mind is a terrible thing to waste. So is a highly skilled and expensively trained junior lawyer at a large law firm. That is what law firms across the country must be thinking as they hand out pink slips to very talented, but now underutilized, young lawyers (aka “associates”): over 1,200 [...]

Proposition

Psst: Wanna buy Barack Obama’s email address? By Peter Scheer What would you pay to have President Obama’s new private (and secure) email address? Two weeks ago I wrote in this space about efforts by Barack Obama’s aides to get him to surrender his Blackberry, on which Obama had relied to escape the bubble that [...]

Obama's new openness policies are a big deal, and NOT just for journalists

By Tom Blanton NPR, All Things Considered—Wednesday, in his first set of presidential orders, President Obama instructed federal agencies to be more responsive to Freedom of Information requests. It’s part of his promise to increase transparency in government. Every military veteran, every senior citizen, every private business ought to be cheering the president on because [...]

Commentary

AG Jerry Brown’s decision to oppose Prop 8 in the Supreme Court will, ironically, only help the pro-Prop 8 forces By Peter Scheer The California Supreme Court, in one of its most important cases, is weighing a challenge to Prop 8, the constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. If the Court upholds Prop 8, one of [...]

Commentary

Obama should just say ‘No’ to aides who, worried about FOIA, say he must give up beloved Blackberry By Peter Scheer Barack Obama, so far as we know, has two addictions: cigarettes and his Blackberry cell phone. While his wife leans on him to give up the cigarettes, his staff aides have been insisting he [...]

Commentary

Prop 8’s victory, reinstating ban on same sex marriage, is big loss for California Supreme Court, but damage not irreparable By Peter Scheer Although its name did not even appear on the ballot, the California Supreme Court was perhaps the state’s biggest loser in Tuesday’s historic elections. The voters’ narrow approval of Proposition 8 effectively [...]

Commentary

Disclosure–or the lack of it–is a major cause of the current financial crisis By Peter Scheer Economists and historians will be debating for years the causes of the financial crisis that, like a global array of dominoes, now threatens to take down the “real” economies of countries big and small, both “developed” and “emerging,” in [...]

CFAC awards

CFAC announces awards to FOES and friends of free speech, open government. “Darkness Awards” zap Orange County judge, Capistrano school board, San Bernardino assessor The California First Amendment Coalition has named the 2008 recipients of its “Darkness Award,” given in recognition of conduct that thwarts freedom of speech and the public’s right to know. The [...]

News

New state law adds protections for anonymous online speech California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed a bill that greatly strengthens the right to anonymous speech online. Assembly Bill 2433 raises procedural obstacles to out-of-state companies that subpoena California-based internet service providers for the IDs of anonymous posters. Unless there is a demonstrable basis for the [...]

Editorial

LA Times editorial backs CFAC suit against State Bar The LA Times, in its lead editorial in today’s newspaper, endorsed CFAC’s lawsuit (filed together with UCLA Professor Richard Sander) to force the California State Bar to make available records needed for Sander’s research on affirmative action in law schools. CFAC’s mission is to provide access–subject [...]

Response

Equal Justice Society Criticizes CFAC Suit against State Bar for records on affirmative action. Group Says Issue is Privacy, not Political Correctness. CFAC’s lawyer responds. CFAC’s executive director recently criticized the California State Bar for its refusal to cooperate with a UCLA professor who is seeking bar records for academic research on affirmative action in [...]

Commentary

Recent court decisions transform legal tools for protecting free speech into an instrument for the suppression of the public’s speech and access rights By James Chadwick Recent decisions by two California Courts of Appeal have turned California’s anti-SLAPP law into a legal Frankenstein’s monster. In doing so, they have turned a law designed to protect [...]

CFAC News

Using Trade Agreements As a Tool to Further Rights of Free Speech By Luke Eric Peterson Embassy: As the curtain fell on the Beijing Olympic Games, a U.S.-based coalition is striving to keep the spotlight squarely focused on China. The California First Amendment Coalition (CFAC) is urging the U.S. government to launch a formal complaint [...]

Commentary

CFAC files suit in affirmative action case to defend researcher’s academic freedom and oppose State Bar’s claim that it is above the law of access By Peter Scheer Richard Sander, a highly regarded UCLA law professor and statistician, is conducting research with important implications for higher education. To complete the research, which has been the [...]

CFAC News

CFAC, scholars sue CA State Bar for access to records on affirmative action A debate about the effects of affirmative action in higher education has moved from the classroom to the courtroom following the filing today of a lawsuit against the State Bar of California to force it to disclose years of statistical records on [...]

Commentary

Security plans for the Democratic convention in Denver must be changed to make room for dissent By Benjamin Grant Ladner The upcoming Democratic National Convention inspires optimism among many advocates for free-speech and open government; an Obama presidency, should it come to pass, is seen as a welcome opportunity to redraw the balance between government [...]

Press Release

Foreign media at Olympics urged to press home governments to demand China lift internet censorship (CFAC, 8/1/08) A free speech organization leading a legal challenge to China’s internet-censorship has called on news media covering the Olympics to demand that China tear down “The Great Firewall”–the elaborate system of filters blocking access to online content deemed [...]

CFAC News

Judge Kozinski, controversial conservative and free speech supporter, to speak at Oct. 18 Assembly Acclaimed–and controversial–jurist Alex Kozinski, Chief Judge of the US Court of Appeals (for the Ninth Circuit), will be the featured speaker at CFAC’s 2008 Free Speech and Open Government Assembly at UC Berkeley. He will speak on Saturday, Oct 18. Judge [...]

Self-evident truths

On Independence Day 2008, words to remember from Independence Day 1776: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted [...]

Commentary

Don’t pass new laws to try to curb the abuses of paparazzi. To force the paparazzi to clean up their act, turn the cameras on them. By Peter Scheer You know summer is here when hordes of paparazzi descend, locust-like, on southern California beaches, angering locals as they pursue money-shots of sun-tanning celebrities—while politicians, seeing [...]

Commentary

PLAYING HIDE AND SEEK WITH PUBLIC RECORDS By Karl Olson It’s not unusual for newspapers, or lawyers in Public Records Act or Freedom of Information Act cases, to accuse the government of trying to “hide” things. Now a San Bernardino County case has revealed what may be a criminal attempt at hiding public records, just [...]

California First Amendment Coalition to Tell Congressional Commission that China’s Internet Censorship Violates WTO Treaties

California First Amendment Coalition to Tell Congressional Commission that China’s Internet Censorship Violates WTO Treaties CFAC, June 16, 2008–The California First Amendment Coalition (CFAC) will testify before a Congressional commission this week concerning the Chinese government’s system of internet censorship, which CFAC is challenging as a violation of free trade treaties enforced by the World [...]

Commentary

Will All Judges Who Have Viewed Porn Please Stand Up? By Peter Scheer As the whole world now knows, federal appeals court judge Alex Kozinski has looked at pornography and has stored some pornographic files on a personal, nonpublic website. This revelation, and the invasion of privacy that it entails, are apparently justified by the [...]

Commentary

Firestorm started by Vietnamese newspaper shows both owners and demonstrators in need of free speech remedial training By Peter Scheer All newspapers from time to time should publish articles that give offense to a sizable segment of their readers. Such provocations–challenging readers to think differently about an issue–are part of the editorial independence that is [...]

Senator Lieberman calls for misguided internet censorship, but the marketplace of ideas demands that free speech flourish.

Senator Lieberman calls for misguided internet censorship, but the marketplace of ideas demands that free speech flourish. By Kelly Dunleavy On May 19th, Senator Joe Lieberman sent a letter to the CEO of Google, with copies to many major newspapers, demanding that Google remove videos that feature Islamic extremists, or are produced by terrorist organizations, [...]

Commentary

Vallejo’s bankruptcy highlights need for transparency in city-union contracts By Peter Scheer The city of Vallejo has taken the extraordinary step of filing for federal bankruptcy protection. While the financial distress of this San Francisco suburb (population 117,000) is especially acute, its fiscal problems are fundamentally the same as those facing many California cities and [...]

Make no mistake, China’s censorship of the internet is a crime against liberty on a mass scale. Still, American firms can’t just steer clear of the world’s biggest market. What to do?

Make no mistake, China’s censorship of the internet is a crime against liberty on a mass scale. Still, American firms can’t just steer clear of the world’s biggest market. What to do? By Peter Scheer A milestone of sorts was passed in the first quarter of this year when China blew past the United States [...]

Commentary

Locy and Risen cases renew debate over protecting journalists’ confidential sources By Peter Scheer Just when you thought it was safe again for journalists to promise anonymity to confidential sources, federal judicial power is being applied with renewed enthusiasm to force reporters to out their sources. A federal grand jury in Alexandria, VA has subpoenaed [...]

Commentary

Using free trade to force China to permit more free speech By Nick Rahaim With the Beijing Summer Olympics approaching, the world has turned its focus toward China. From alt/pop musician Bjork lending her support to the Free Tibet movement while recently performing in Shanghai, to Steven Spielberg stepping down as artistic adviser of the [...]

News

Lights back on at wikileaks Wikileaks.org, which had gone dark as a result of a court order, is now back online. Following a 3-hour hearing Friday in San Francisco, federal Judge Jeffrey White ruled in favor of the whistleblower website on jurisdictional and 1st Amendment grounds. The judge previously had issued an order locking the [...]

News

Public Citizen and CFAC seek to overturn court orders shuttering wikileaks.org San Francisco–Public Citizen and the California First Amendment Coalition, in pleadings filed in federal court today, seek to overturn injunctions that have shut down wikileaks.org, a whistleblower website CFAC and Public Citizen argue that the court did not have jurisdiction in the case, and [...]

« Previous Page — Next Page »