CalAware Today

Threats against, Attacks on Wikileaks Condemned

What do Congressman Ron Paul (R-Texas), Viggo Mortensen, and Noam Chomsky have in common? They and more than 2500 others (as of 10 PM PDT tonight) have gone public in opposing the U.S. Government's condemnation and efforts to sabotage Wikileaks. Paul's objections are reported here; the others' names are on the open online petition here.

Journalist: Guide Can Slow Court Secrecy Trends

By Anne Lowe

FREE PRESS– The California Judicial Council's new guide to the law of public access to court records, now in preparation, can be a great opportunity to increase the transparency of the often-secretive California court system, comments veteran journalist Bill Girdner for Courthouse News Service.

Newspaper Sued for Naming Brutally Beaten Child

By Anne Lowe

FREE PRESS – The legal guardian of a severely beaten child has filed suit against the Redding Record Searchlight for publishing the boy’s name in one article and making him identifiable in three others.

Journalist/Watchdog/Gadfly: Oakland's Mr. Handa

By Anne Lowe

FREE PRESS/OPEN GOVERNMENT – Sanjiv Handa is a one-man city hall bureau who's taken the responsibility of acting as open government monitor of the Oakland City Council.

School Paper Censored with Post-press Pasties

By Anne Lowe

FREE PRESS – The student newspaper at Willows High School in Glenn County found its first editorial section of the year censored by a principal concerned about potentially explosive inaccuracies, the Sacramento Valley Mirror reports—but only after it had come off the press.

Idyllwild Newspaper Defeats Defamation Claim

By Anne Lowe

FREE PRESS – A former Chamber of Commerce president has filed a motion to dismiss his defamation lawsuit against the Idyllwild Town Crier, the Press-Enterprise in Riverside reports.

Dismissal of Chronicle Libel Suit Upheld on Appeal

By Anne Lowe

FREE PRESS – The California Court of Appeal has upheld an anti-SLAPP motion granted to the San Francisco Chronicle, ending a libel suit brought by an Oakland City Council member.

Feinstein: No Shield Law for Bloggers, Wikileaks

By Anne Lowe

FREE PRESS -- A bill headed for a vote in the U.S. Senate could extend protection to journalists who refuse to divulge their materials or sources, but contentions have arisen as to who should share that protection. California's Sen. Dianne Feinstein, unsuccessful at excluding bloggers from the bill, now wants an amendment excluding Wikileaks.

Ex-chief: Cops Decking Journalists Were Excessive

FREE PRESS -- "In the trial over the violent break-up of a demonstration, a former deputy police chief testified that the club-wielding police who knocked reporters down were acting outside of the rules set out by the Los Angeles Police Department for dealing with reporters," reports Kie Akiba for Courthouse News Service.

Judge: Warrant for Journalist's Camera Was Illegal

FREE PRESS -- Terence Chea for the Associated Press reports that a judge has ruled that the University of California police illegally searched the camera of a photojournalist covering a protest outside the chancellor's campus home.

Censorship Proves Costly to State Prison System

FREE PRESS -- Elizabeth Banicki reports for Courthouse News Service that Prison Legal News, non-profit publisher of magazines and books related to prisoners' rights, will get $595,000 from the California Department of Corrections to pay bills it says it accrued to comply with a settlement agreement, the 9th Circuit, U.S.Court of Appeals has ruled.

Attorney: Unsealed Doc Shows Search Unlawful

FREE PRESS -- After San Mateo County Superior Court Judge Clifford Cretan Saturday ordered the release of the previously-sealed warrant affidavit that led to the search of Gizmodo editor Jason Chen’s house, says Electronic Frontier Foundation Senior Staff Attorney Matt Zimmerman, "the affidavit confirmed that there was no legal basis for the search"—and that could cost the prosecution some evidence.

Judge Unseals Police Raid Records in iPhone Saga

FREE PRESS -- Apple pressed local police to investigate the loss of a next-generation iPhone a day after Gizmodo published photographs, telling investigators that the prototype was so valuable, a price could not be placed on it, according to court documents made public Friday, reports Declan McCullagh for cnet.com.

Tables Turn in iPhone Who-done-what Inquiry

FREE  PRESS/PUBLIC INFORMATION -- In a court proceeding where lawyers for the press are trying to learn why a blogger's home was raided by police for information the lawyers say is protected by the shield for journalists, prosecutors are trying to block that discovery by stressing protection for their own confidential source, reports David Kravets for Wired.com.

iPhone Lost/Found/Sold/Outed Plot Thickens

FREE PRESS -- As a further twist to an already complex conflict of personal, press, corporate and governmental interests, a lawyer for the young man who found what appears to be Apple's prototype iPhone in a bar—and apparently sold it to a blogger— is expected to oppose a request by a coalition of media organizations to unseal search warrant records relating to the police raid on the blogger's home, report Greg Sandoval and Declan McCullagh for CNET News, in what may be the most thorough account of the episode to date.

D.A.: Press Aide's Taping Phone Interviews Was OK

FREE PRESS -- The Alameda County District Attorney has agreed with Attorney General Jerry Brown's staff that the secret taping by Brown's press spokesman of phone interviews by a reporter was not unlawful, given that the results were going to be on the record in any case.

Web Watchdog to Monitor Yolo Justice System

FREE PRESS -- A local government watchdog website in Davis reports that it has spun off a more specialized web monitor to focus on the criminal justice system in the county, including the trial courts.

Iranian Regime Sifts Photos of Protesters Here

FREE PRESS -- The Orange County Register has discovered a troubling consequence of publishing what appears in its pages on the Internet: the visiting Iranian students it photographs protesting on local campuses against the regime back home are identified by the regime, which holds their families in its power.

This Is What It Takes to Keep the Public Aware

PUBLIC INFORMATION/FREE PRESS -- Anyone who thinks there's a journalistic substitute for the local newspaper and its resources and procedures needs to consider this project and what it says about the task of converting public records into public awareness of serious failings in society. Not all papers are this diligent, of course, but when they are, no other form comes close to their value.

Bill Would Shield Charter School Students' Speech

FREE PRESS/FREE SPEECH -- A new bill by Senator Leland Yee (D-San Francisco) to extend protection for student expression to charter schools cleared its first test in the Senate Judiciary Committee today by a unanimous 5-0 vote.

The New Tax on Invasion of Celebrities' Privacy

FREE PRESS -- AB 524 (Bass), the new amendment to California's Paparazzi Law that takes effect as of January 1, will not stop and will probably not even slow the most invasive and aggressive photographic pursuit of Hollywood celebrities. But it does effectively create a tax on the sale of the photos, split between local and state governments, without ever using the t-word.

California's Most Courageous Newspaperman

FREE PRESS -- Tim Crews, editor and publisher of a small community newspaper in Glenn County and a member of the board of directors of Californians Aware, was named the California Press Association's Newspaper Executive of the Year at an awards dinner at the Marines Memorial in San Francisco this past Friday.  Recipients are publishers, editors-in-chief or equivalents who have involved themselves in the directions of the editorial and news side of their newspapers by showing exceptional editorial achievement. In Crews' case, the award was for his journalism in creating and maintaining "California's most courageous newspaper."

No Such Thing As a (Government) Free Press

FREE PRESS -- "The myth is that the commercial press in this country stands wholly independent of governmental sustenance," say media scholars Geoffrey Cowan and David Westphal, writing in the Online Journalism Review. "Here's the jolt: There's never been a time in U.S. history when government dollars weren't propping up the news business. This year, federal, state and local governments will spend well over $1 billion to support commercial news publishers through tax breaks, postal subsidies and the printing of public notices. And the amount used to be much higher."

Berkeley Paper Suffers Boycott for Views on Israel

FREE PRESS -- A free weekly newspaper (with a daily website) reporting city news, comment and controversies to the residents of Berkeley is under serious attack and could be shut down for loss of advertising because of charges that its editorial content, including but not limited to published letters, is anti-Israel, anti-semitic or both, reports Jesse McKinley in the New York Times.

Posterior Restraint: A Courthouse Comp for VIPs?

FREE PRESS -- If the courtroom bailiffs in Las Vegas are going to lock reporters in after a hearing so they can't chase a departing VIP party for interviews, let's not treat this as a constitutional crisis, writes Brendan Buhler in the Las Vegas Sun. Let's offer it as another benefit of the secrecy hospitality of the town that reassures visitors, "What happens here stays here."

"It Is the Soldier" Salute Ignores Half Our History

FREE SPEECH/FREE PRESS -- Veterans Day marks a surge in the online circulation of a certain versified tribute to the military as the exclusive source of our freedoms under the Bill of Rights.  It's not clear why those who claim to celebrate veterans feel it necessary to deny the role of civilian contributors to our civil liberties.  And it's not even true to history.

AG Taping Flap: What Does "on the Record" Mean?

FREE PRESS -- Two new items have emerged in the last 24 hours concerning the secret recording of journalists' interview calls by a former press spokesman for Attorney General Jerry Brown: the actual recorded call transcripts and a formal investigative finding by a top official in the criminal division of Brown's office concluding that, since press interviews are "on the record," no law prohibits the government from recording them unannounced.

No A.G. Secret Taping Law Violation? Not So Fast

FREE PRESS -- Was the practice of Attorney General Jerry Brown's former press spokesman quietly to tape record his phone discussions with inquiring reporters a violation of California law?  No, say the A.G.'s office and the First Amendment Coalition, in a rush to exoneration that ignores a central court decision.

AG Taping Should Cool Probe of ACORN Watchdogs

FREE PRESS -- Today's disclosure that a press spokesman for Attorney General Jerry Brown routinely and secretly recorded phone discussions with journalists should disable Brown's Justice Department from prosecuting self-appointed investigators who secretly videotaped their bogus consultation with a San Bernardino ACORN office staffer about getting help setting up a prostitution enterprise.

Former Court PIO: O.J. Trial Cost Camera Access

OPEN COURTS/FREE PRESS -- "Fourteen years ago today—shock and awe. After 16 tawdry months of the Simpson case wallpapering the public square, a Los Angeles criminal court jury found O.J. Simpson not guilty of the hideous murders of his ex-wife, Nicole, and her friend, Ron Goldman," recalls Patt Morrison in the Los Angeles Times, introducing her interview with the former court public information officer who's written a book about her experiences with the media in that episode.