FREE PRESS -- Exploiting a computer network's imperfect security, a hacker unlawfully gains access to private company messages and other documents and copies and forwards them to an Internet information site, where some are posted. The company seeks to find out who the hacker was. If the Internet site is found to be a journalistic publisher under California law, it may be able to ignore the company's subpoena, which would be unenforceable, notes attorney Jeffrey D. Neuburger in MediaShift.
WHISTEBLOWERS -- " If he had kept his mouth shut and
his head low, Bradley Birkenfeld would be a free man today. He
didn’t, so now the former UBS Swiss banker wears an electronic
bracelet on his ankle and, beginning in January, will spend
three years and four months in a federal penitentiary," notes columnist Ann Woolner for Bloomberg News.
WHISTLEBLOWERS -- On a 22-14 vote, the California State Senate today approved legislation
to provide University of California employees who report waste, fraud
and abuse with the same legal protections available to other state employees, reports the bill's author,
Senator Leland Yee (D-San
Francisco/San Mateo).
WHISTLEBLOWERS -- Bradley C. Birkenfeld, the former UBS banker who helped break the secrecy of the Swiss bank—a
practice that not only sustained uncounted spy novels, but was widely
considered inviolable—is facing years in prison after blowing the whistle on tax cheating via offshore accounts.
As reported by David S. Hilzenrath for the Washington Post,
PUBLIC RECORDS -- A former staff lawyer for the Connecticut Freedom of Information Commission, beset by personal problems and clashing with police for the third time this year, had his side of an incident that led him to be tased by two officers backed up by . . . a publicly released police surveillance video.
OPEN COURTS -- Henry Samueli, the co-founder of Broadcom Corp., is fighting to keep
the public out of a pending hearing before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court
of Appeals in which he is seeking to reinstate a plea deal that he
reached last year with prosecutors, reports Amanda Bronstad for the National Law Journal.
FREE PETITION -- "Berkeley
may take great pride as a champion of free speech and civil rights," writes Matthai Kuruvila for the San Francisco Chronicle, "but
an unusual campaign has been under way—led by most of the city's top
elected officials—to stop residents from signing a citizen's petition."
PUBLIC INFORMATION -- The Herald in Monterey says in an editorial, "Before it's over, don't be
surprised if the apparent suspension of Seaside's police chief, a
deputy police chief and two police officers helps make the case for
loosening California's extreme restrictions on the public release of
information about investigations into alleged law enforcement
misconduct."
FREE PRESS -- A federal judge in New York has ruled that the government is
not entitled to withhold information from Internet news sites
related to sealed indictments. "Her ruling is significant for all
online media outlets whether it be the Huffington Post, The Daily
Beast, Perez Hilton or TMZ.com," comments Jagajeet Chiba for Gambling911.com.
OPEN GOVERNMENT -- Free speech groups are trying to force the state’s public universities to disclose financial relationships
worth more than $6.25 billion. At issue are scores of nonprofit foundations
linked to the schools, each serving a campus in the UC and CSU systems, which insist that disclosing the
finances would cost millions of dollars in staff time, reports Maryam Ali for Capitol Weekly.
PUBLIC INFORMATION-- For someone with his eyes so clearly on the Governor's office, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom seems to have no concern for the impression he is leaving of indifference to secrecy about government spending. As noted by Marisa Lagos in the San Francisco Chronicle's City Insider blog,
PUBLIC INFORMATION -- Lobbyists have to register their activities and expenses with Congress,
but well-funded "grassroots" firms don’t — a fact that frustrates
watchdog groups, reports Jim Snyder for The Hill.
WHISTLEBLOWERS -- Sibel Edmonds, the Turkish-American FBI translator who was fired and gagged in a cause celebre for what she attempted to say about a suspect co-worker, has begun to talk freely and name names far beyond her initial complaint—under oath—in a deposition to which she was subpoenaed by the Ohio Elections Commission, reports the Brad Blog. Surprise: the Department of Justice did not step in to use state secrets authority to stop the deposition.
OPEN COURTS -- Senator Arlen Specter (D-PA), a senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, writing in the National Law Journal, has two suggestions for the U.S. Supreme Court: start producing more decisions and let TV cameras in your courtroom.
PUBLIC INFORMATION --
The Stanislaus County Employees'
Retirement Association has refused to release records about public
service employees receiving the most lucrative pensions, reports Ken Carlson in the Modesto Bee.
PUBLIC INFORMATION -- Experts estimate that 98,000 people die from preventable medical
errors each year, report Cathleen F. Crowley and Eric Nalder in the San Francisco Chronicle, and one of the main contributing causes is medical and governmental secrecy.
OPEN MEETINGS -- Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger yesterday signed legislation to update the open meeting law for state boards and commissions to tighten its prohibition against the use of serial meetings, reports the California Newspaper Publishers Association (CNPA) in its Legislative Bulletin.
OPEN GOVERNMENT -- This blogger is not the only observer dissatisfied with the degree of transparency provided by the state's major spending disclosure website. Otherwise strange bedfellows Pedro Morillas of the California Public Interest Research Group and Jon Coupal of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association placed a joint op-ed piece in the Sacramento Bee this week leading with the statement, "when it comes to government transparency, we are surely reading off the same sheet of music."
FREE SPEECH -- A federal judge has ruled that a 2008 Oakland ordinance barring abortion protesters from coming within eight
feet of women entering and exiting abortion clinics is constitutional, reports Robin Abcarian in the Los Angeles Times.
PUBLIC INFORMATION -- A day laborer
support group has sued the Riverside Police Department for records about the
agency's arrests of undocumented immigrants as well as correspondence with the U.S. Border Patrol, reports Sonja Bjelland of the Press-Enterprise.
PUBLIC INFORMATION -- Despite a provision in its Sunshine Ordinance forbidding spending to support lobbying for more secrecy in state law, San Francisco's representatives in Sacramento won passage of a bill that keeps confidential the photos taken by city cameras of vehicles parked in transit-only lanes, reportsJoe Eskenazi for SF Weekly.
PUBLIC INFORMATION -- A judge has ordered Riverside County not to destroy a
variety of email messages that are more than 45 days old—a purging practice
strongly opposed in a lawsuit brought by a union representing 6,000 county
employees, reports the Desert Sun in Palm Springs.
OPEN GOVERNMENT -- Those assigned to "redact" (remove) sensitive information from either private legal documents or public records prior to release are finding the job more challenging because of imperfect manual techniques and the greater conseqences for error in the e-records age, reports Jason Krause for Law.com.
WHISTLEBLOWERS -- "Despite its pledge to better protect federal employees who expose
wrongdoing, the Obama administration privately sought to weaken
protections for national security whistleblowers under legislation
making its way through Congress, according to correspondence obtained
by The Washington Times," reports Tom LoBianco.
OPEN GOVERNMENT -- Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger today signed into law
legislation to prohibit public entities from recovering attorney’s fees
from individuals who sue to enforce the state’s open government laws,
unless the court expressly finds the suit frivolous—ensuring that what happened to Californians Aware will not happen to others.
FREE PRESS -- Mike Rhodes reports in Indybay.org that "Boston Woodard, a prisoner/journalist who is a frequent contributor to
Indybay, has been put in solitary confinement in retaliation for an
article he wrote about conditions at Solano State Prison."
OPEN COURTS -- Brian Baxter reports for The AmLaw Daily that four press organizations are suing for access to the transcript of a civil lawsuit tried almost entirely behind closed doors in a federal courtroom in Los Angeles recently—an almost unheard of use of judicial secrecy outside the realm of national security.
OPEN GOVERNMENT -- Patrick McGreevy reports in the Los Angeles Times, "Although
28 members of the California Assembly supported a measure to allow new
oil drilling off the Santa Barbara coast, their votes are nowhere to be
found in the official state database."
OPEN MEETINGS -- Brown Act controversy roundup: Planning commission e-mail and Wal-Mart expansion in Chico;health care district board's closed "trade secrets" session on zoning restrictions in Patterson; library commission chair's silencing of public comment in San Francisco; wrongful police impounding of vehicles discussed in "personnel evaluation" closed session in Farmersville.
FREE SPEECH -- Leslie Berestein, writing for the San Diego Union-Tribune, reports that Caltrans and the San Diego
Minutemen have reached a settlement that "gives the anti-illegal-immigration activists what they
were hoping for: the right to keep their Adopt-A-Highway sign on
northbound Interstate 5, a cash payment, and litter cleanup on an
additional stretch of the freeway."
