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.

Full story

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.

Full story

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.

Full story

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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The First Amendment Coalition and a Sacramento community group have filed suit against the Sacramento City Council for access to Council emails and other records concerning a  controversial redistricting plan for Council districts that was adopted last summer.

The suit, filed Friday by FAC and Eye on Sacramento, a local nonprofit, grows out of the Council’s refusal to disclose certain records requested by the organizations under the California Public Records Act. The withheld records include emails between Council members leading up to a contentious City Council meeting at which redistricting plans proposed by a citizens’ advisory committee–created by the Council–were rejected in favor of a voting map drawn up by members of the Council.

The plan adopted has been criticized for protecting the reelection prospects of incumbent Council members and for deviating significantly from the one-person, one-vote formula required under the federal Constitution. An editorial in the Sacramento Bee slammed the Council’s plan, and the secrecy surrounding  it,  “as a pathetically obvious political power play that looms as another black eye for this council.”

In withholding the records, the Council has claimed that they are subject to the “deliberative process privilege,” an exemption read into the Public Records Act in a 30-year-old state Supreme Court decision relating to records of the Governor. FAC believes, and will argue in this suit, that a privilege for government officials’ deliberations doesn’t apply to deliberative bodies–particularly deliberative bodies, like the Sacramento Council, that are also subject to California’s open-meeting law.

“City Councils, which are required by law to do all their decision-making in public meetings, can’t claim a secrecy ‘privilege’ for the same deliberations,” said Peter Scheer, FAC’s executive director. “In this case, the withheld emails may even show that Council members violated the Brown Act by discussing their districting map outside of a public meeting,” Scheer added.

FAC and Eye on Sacramento are represented in the case by Karl Olson, a partner at San Francisco law firm Ram, Olson, Cereghino & Kopczynski LLP .

Here’s a copy of the FAC lawsuit.

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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The First Amendment Coalition has filed an amicus brief in a US Supreme Court case, United States v. Alvarez,  that will test the limits of free speech protection for false speech.  FAC’s brief was written by lawyers Gary Bostwick, Jean-Paul Jassy and Kevin Vick of  LA law firm Bostwick & Jassy, LLP.

The Alvarez case concerns a local politician in Southern California who was prosecuted under an obscure federal law, the Stolen Valor Act, which makes it a crime to falsely claim to have been awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. Alvarez’s conviction was overturned by the Ninth Circuit federal court of appeals on First Amendment grounds.

The Supreme Court’s prior decisions in the areas of libel and elsewhere have extended protection to some false speech as a prophylactic measure, needed to assure adequate First Amendment protection for true speech. The Justice Department contends that First Amendment protection for false speech should be narrowly limited to those areas.

FAC’s brief argues that the Court should resist the government’s invitation to carve out a new category of non-protected speech under the First Amendment. FAC also points out that the infamous Sedition Act of 1798, which criminalized “false and malicious writings” against the federal government, would survive First Amendment scrutiny under the test urged by the Justice Department.

Here’s the Court of Appeals decision in US v. Alvarez.

– PS

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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BY PETER SCHEER—Why is it that the First Amendment Coalition, like other organizations that defend freedom of speech, is so often aligned in support of seriously unsavory characters?

Just last week FAC filed an amicus brief in the US Supreme Court in support of a local politician and serial liar (no redundancy intended) who claimed to have served in the Marines (a lie) and to have been awarded the nation’s highest military honor for heroism in combat (another lie). He has been prosecuted under the federal “Stolen Valor Act” for the speech-crime of claiming falsely to have received the Congressional Medal of Honor. (United States v. Alvarez).

In still other recent Supreme Court appeals, FAC has filed First Amendment amicus briefs in support of:

–persons who make and sell videos of the torturing of small animals (United States v. Stevens);

–hate-filled homophobes who picket near funerals for US servicemen, carrying signs saying “Thank God for Dead Soldiers” (Snyder v. Phelps); and

–companies that sell–to children!—graphically-violent video games featuring, in the words of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, “victims who are dismembered, decapitated, disemboweled, set on fire, and chopped into little pieces” (Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association).

Of course, FAC also assists many perfectly normal folks–even journalists!–whom you wouldn’t hesitate to hire as babysitters for your kids. Nonetheless, advocacy in support of the free speech rights of all manner of extremists and outcasts is central to our mission.

FAC gets involved in these cases because freedom of speech is a principle, not a litigation tactic. If you invoke freedom of speech only to protect ideas and viewpoints with which you agree, you can’t claim  to adhere to the First Amendment as a matter of principle. Selectivity in the application of free speech rights–advocating protection of some speakers, and not others, based on their views–is fundamentally at odds with the idea of freedom of speech.

In a democracy, the need for free speech protection is greatest for ideas and speakers that are opposed by the political majority.  The more unpopular, the greater the need. Although democracy depends on First Amendment freedoms, the First Amendment also serves as a vital check on democracy’s excesses. These include the majority’s impulse to validate its own views by invalidating–through censorship–views that it fears or dislikes.

The temptation is always great to carve out exceptions to freedom of speech for expression that is so hateful and offensive as to have zero social value. After all, so-called “hate speech” is barred to varying degrees in most liberal democracies (including, for example,  France, Canada, Germany, Great Britain and Australia). The United States is the notable exception–and we must continue to be.

Hate speech needs constitutional protection not because bigoted rants, lies and snuff videos deserve an audience–they don’t–but because speech having no social value can’t be proscribed without also suppressing speech that does have social value. Even more than we dislike hate speech we fear a government that has the power to decide what speech will be heard and what speech will be silenced.

Constitutional safeguards for speech that really matters–political speech, informed criticism of official policies, artistic expression–are at their strongest when protection is also intact for speech that makes you want to cover your ears.

The time to really worry about personal freedom in America is when you can no longer hear the voices you hate.
———–

Peter Scheer, a lawyer and journalist, is executive director of the First Amendment Coalition.

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.

Full story

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.

Full story 

Q: I am interested in a possible cause of action arising from events at a meeting of the high school Site Council, at which public comment was cut off by the chair.  The individual was repeatedly ruled “out of order.”

The person was then ordered out of the meeting and, when he failed to comply, an armed police officer was summoned. The officer, however, determined that situation was not a police matter and refused to remove the man from the meeting.

Nonetheless, the action had a chilling effect on parents and other members of the public attending the meeting.  This seems to be a First Amendment violation as well as a violation of the Brown Act. Can you help?

A: It sounds like you may already know that under the Brown Act — California’s open meetings law — the legislative bodies of local agencies are required to provide opportunities for the public to comment at regular meetings, as follows:

(a) Every agenda for regular meetings shall provide an opportunity for members of the public to directly address the legislative body on any item of interest to the public, before or during the legislative body’s consideration of the item, that is within the subject matter jurisdiction of the legislative body, provided that no action shall be taken on any item not appearing on the agenda unless the action is otherwise authorized by subdivision (b) of Section 54954.2.

However, the agenda need not provide an opportunity for members of the public to address the legislative body on any item that has already been considered by a committee, composed exclusively of members of the legislative body, at a public meeting wherein all interested members of the public were afforded the opportunity to address the committee on the item, before or during the committee’s consideration of the item, unless the item has been substantially changed since the committee heard the item, as determined by the legislative body.

Every notice for a special meeting shall provide an opportunity for members of the public to directly address the legislative body concerning any item that has been described in the notice for the meeting before or during consideration of that item.

(b) The legislative body of a local agency may adopt reasonable regulations to ensure that the intent of subdivision (a) is carried out, including, but not limited to, regulations limiting the total amount of time allocated for public testimony on particular issues and for each individual speaker.

(c) The legislative body of a local agency shall not prohibit public criticism of the policies, procedures, programs, or services of the agency, or of the acts or omissions of the legislative body. Nothing in this subdivision shall confer any privilege or protection for expression beyond that otherwise provided by law.

Gov’t Code § 54954.3

With respect to removing individuals from public meetings, the Brown Act provides that:

In the event that any meeting is willfully interrupted by a group or groups of persons so as to render the orderly conduct of such meeting unfeasible and order cannot be restored by the removal of individuals who are willfully interrupting the meeting, the members of the legislative body conducting the meeting may order the meeting room cleared and continue in session.

Only matters appearing on the agenda may be considered in such a session. Representatives of the press or other news media, except those participating in the disturbance, shall be allowed to attend any session held pursuant to this section.

Nothing in this section shall prohibit the legislative body from establishing a procedure for readmitting an individual or individuals not responsible for willfully disturbing the orderly conduct of the meeting. Gov’t Code § 54957.9.

As you can see, this provision allows for removing individuals from a meeting only when they have “willfully interrupted” the meeting so as to “render the orderly conduct of such meeting unfeasible.”

Obviously, there may often be room to disagree as to whether interruption was willful and whether it rendered the orderly conduct of the meeting unfeasible.

The provision must, however, be applied consistent with the mandate in California’s Constitution that “a statute, court rule, or other authority … shall be broadly construed if it furthers the people’s right of access, and narrowly construed if it limits the right of access.”

In addition, note — as you may also already know — that the Brown Act’s public comment requirements create a “limited public forum” under the First Amendment. See Baca v. Moreno Valley Unified School Dist., 936 F. Supp. 719, 729 (C.D. Cal. 1996).

Spaces such as sidewalks and parks have traditionally been used for conduct protected by the First Amendment, and are considered “public forums,” and therefore conduct in these forums is protected by the First Amendment and can only be restricted if a high standard is met.

The other end of the spectrum is the “non-public forum,” or places not traditionally open to the public for speech or petition-related activities. Restrictions in non-public forums need only be reasonable and are generally upheld.

In between these two extremes are “limited public forums,” or areas that traditionally have not been made open to the public, but have become public forums for at least some purposes because the government body that regulates a particular area has made it available for use by the public.

The same high standard that applies to public forums — the restriction must be narrowly drawn and serve a compelling interest — also applies to limited public forums where the conduct fits within the time or purpose for which the place has been made open. See Perry Educ. Ass’n v. Perry Local Educators’ Ass’n, 460 U.S. 37, 45 (1983).

Meetings of public bodies typically fit into this “limited public forum” category.

In order to restrict speech in a public forum or limited public forum, reasonable time, place and manner regulations are permissible, but restrictions must be “content neutral” (as opposed to “content based”) and narrowly tailored to serve a significant government interest, and must allow ample alternative channels of communication. Perry Educ. Ass’n, 460 U.S. at 45.

Restrictions on speech in a public forum “must be justified without reference to the protected speech’s content.” ACLU v. City of Las Vegas, 466 F.3d 784, 792 (9th Cir. 2006). Content-neutral restrictions are those that are both viewpoint and subject matter neutral, i.e., do not contain any restrictions based on either the ideology of the message or the topic of the speech, whereas content-based restrictions are those that endeavor to restrict or prohibit speech based on either the viewpoint or subject matter. See, e.g., Boos v. Barry, 485 U.S. 312, 320 (1988).

Regulations related to public comment, therefore, must be neutrally administered. Baca, 936 F. Supp. at 728-29 (if access to the forum is limited based on subject matter or speaker identity, limitations must be reasonable in light of the purpose served by the forum and must be viewpoint neutral).

As for next steps, the Brown Act provides that any person may sue to “prevent[] violations … of this chapter by members of the legislative body of a local agency or to determine the applicability of this chapter to actions … of the legislative body.” Gov’t Code § 54960(a).

In other words, you could sue for a determination that the body’s actions in cutting off public comment and/or removing you from the meeting violated the Brown Act (as well as the First Amendment).

Whether you would be likely to prevail in such an action would require a highly fact-intensive analysis that is beyond what we can provide through this service.

You might be able to locate legal assistance through one of the following resources, however:

California State Bar-certified attorney referral services (http://www.calbar.ca.gov/Public/LawyerReferralServicesLRS.aspx

866-442-2529)

ACLU of Southern California (http://www.aclu-sc.org/contents/view/6)

Bryan Cave LLP is general counsel for the First Amendment Coalition and responds to First Amendment Coalition hotline inquiries. In responding to these inquiries, we can give general information regarding open government and speech issues but cannot provide specific legal advice or representation.

Q:  I was fired a year ago, but I am only now reading that the board violated the Brown Act by not disclosing that my position would be discussed in closed session — 54957. (2) is the violation. I see from your A&A section that there is only only a 90-day window of opportunity to submit a Cure & Correct letter, but I do not see that spelled out in the Brown Act itself. Where is the statue of limitations spelled out? And if it is only 90 days, are there lawsuits that have been successful in having that deadline set aside?

A: The Brown Act at Government code section 54960.1 requires that for any legal action that seeks to nullify an agency decision because of a Brown Act violation, that the “cure or correct” demand regarding the violation be made within 90 days from the date the action was taken.

The only exception cited is if the action was taken in an open session but in violation of Section 54954.2 (failure to provide notice of the action on the agenda), in which case the demand must be made within 30 days. See Boyle v. City of Redondo Beach, 70 Cal. App. 4th 1109 (2009).

The date runs from the date the action occurred, not the date upon which one learned of the action. See Regents of the University of California v. Superior Court (Molloy), 20 Cal. 4th 509 (1999) (interpreting a parallel provision of the Bagley-Keene Act).

The “cure or correct” demand requirements, and the associated timing requirement, of section 54960.1 only apply to the sections listed therein: 54953, 54954.2, 54954.5, 54954.6, 54956 or 54956.5. Those are the only sections by which an individual is authorized to bring an action that seeks to nullify a board action.

However, as you are aware, section 54957(b)(2) contains its own nullification provision, independent of section 54960.1. That is, it provides that any action taken in violation of it “shall be null and void.”

Lawsuits brought for violations of section 54957 are thus brought under section 54960. Because no statute of limitations is indicated in section 54960, the question of what statute of limitations does apply is difficult to answer in the scope of the services we offer in this hotline.

An argument can be made that the applicable statute of limitations is the one for civil actions based on statutory violations found in Civil Code found in Code of Civil Procedure section 338(a), which is three years running from the first date on which the action could have been commenced.

However, at least one unpublished decision appears to assume that the strict requirements of section 54960.1 apply, see Horton v. San Diego Unified Sch. Dist., 2003 Cal. App. Unpub. LEXIS 2251 ( March 10, 2003), and notes further that in termination decisions, the aggrieved former employee may be required to exhaust administrative remedies as well under a strict timeline.

Bryan Cave LLP is general counsel for the First Amendment Coalition and responds to FAC hotline inquiries. In responding to these inquiries, we can give general information regarding open government and speech issues but cannot provide specific legal advice or representation.

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.

Full story

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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