Transparency: S.F. mayor wants texting banned during city meetings

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom wants a ban on text messaging during meetings of the Board of Supervisors and city commissions to limit the influence of  lobbyists texting city officials and to keep the city government more transparent. -db San Francisco Chronicle March 10, 2010 By Heather Knight San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom wants to [...]

California State Assembly Speaker bans texting in session

The new California Assembly Speaker has banned text messaging on the assembly floor prompting skepticism from First Amendment advocates that the ban is enforceable or efficacious. -db CivSource Commentary March 9, 2010 By Bailey McCann Last week, when John A. Perez became California’s new Assembly Speaker a point in his opening speech caught our eye [...]

Big Brother is alive: Chinese government to monitor text messages for ‘unhealthy content’

The Chinese government continues its campaign to bring the the cyber world under its control by announcing that it will check cell phone messages and punish users for “unhealthy content”. -DB The New York Times January 20, 2010 By Sharon LaFraniere BEIJING — As the Chinese government expands what it calls a campaign against pornography, [...]

A&A: Councilman asks intern on date via city issued cell

Q: I have learned that a city councilman was sending text messages to a city intern, asking her for a date. I would like to file a CPR request for the text messages sent from his city issued Blackberry. I’m sure they (the councilman and the city attorney) would try to argue that such a [...]

Federal agency accused of hiding data on dangers of cell phone use in cars

Although the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration collected alarming data in 2003 of the safety risk of cellphones in automobiles, the agency failed to release their findings for political reasons. -DB New York Times  July 21, 2009  By MATT RICHTEL In 2003, researchers at a federal agency proposed a long-term study of 10,000 drivers to assess [...]