CalAware Today

Judge: Animal Experiment Details Can Stay Secret

UCLA's news service reports that a judge has ruled that the California Public Records Act does not compel the university to release detailed information on animal experiments done by particular researchers, in light of prior such disclosures that were followed by violence targeting those whose research protocols were revealed to animial rights activists.

New Legal Guide for Online News, Opinion Writers

The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press has just posted on its website a legal guide for those who regularly report and comment online—whether they think of themselves as journalists or not. "If you are gathering and disseminating news and information in any medium, this guide is for you. It will be as useful to bloggers as to a staff reporter at a national newspaper," says the introduction.

Racist Talk Withheld to Protect Slain BART Rider

The Oakland Fire Department is refusing to release copies of taped conversations it originally said didn't happen, in which its personnel at staff meetings allegedly used racial slurs to refer to the man shot and killed as he lay prone and unarmed in an Oakland Bay Area Rapid Transit stationi platform in 2009.  The department says the tape is being withheld to protect the man's privacy, according to a report posted by IndyBay Media.  The tapes are being sought by fire department paramedic who blew the whistle on the allegedly racist discussions and says he's been subjected to retailiatory discipline.

Local Whistleblower Programs Faulted as Failures

In San Francisco, no data exist on whether the city controller's whistleblower protection program for municipal employees works, reports Dan Noyes for KGO-TV.  In San Diego, a civic activist has had to sue to determine how the city auditor has performed in investigating and closing complaints from a whistleblower hotline, with a first hearing held on May 6 and a second set for next month. And in Sonoma County, the grand jury has concluded that owing to the very multiplicity of local programs operating without coordination, "for those trying to expose waste, fraud and abuse in government, the path can be torturous. Whistleblowers must contact one agency after another, and in the process, they can lose both their anonymity and faith in any follow-up," reports Brett Wilkison in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat.

Judge to City: Release Consultant's Aging 'Draft'

A judge's order means that the City of Encinitas must release to a civic watchdog a $2.8 million consultant's  study of street repair needs submitted in March of last year but made available to the public in 'final' form only last September.  The city had argued that disclosing the original draft of the report would make the staff's job of analyzing and polishing such reports too difficult.

Local Agency Sunshine Bills Avoid Fiscal Limbo

The fate of an appropriations committee's "suspense file," where legislative bills go to die because they're judged too costly, was avoided this week by two key Senate measures—one to allow voters to insulate the Brown Act from a  frequent threat of unenforceability, and another to require local agencies with websites to post local officials' expense reimbursements and all local agencies to disclose a wide variety of compensation data.

Court Denies Speech Defense of Grisly Photo Leak

The California Court of Appeal has held that a former Highway Patrol dispatch supervisor cannot argue a First Amendment defense in a lawsuit brought by the family of a teenager gruesomely mangled in a fatal auto crash, vivid photos of which he circulated by e-mail and which ended up on the Internet and were sent to the family with mocking messages. Defendant Aaron Reich, one of two dispatchers responsible for the leaked images, said he forwarded them as cautionary examples of the risks of drunken driving, reports Greg Hardesty in the Orange County Register.

Government Websites Purging Embarrassing Facts

San Diego County's Civil Service Commission has abandoned its practice of posting its agendas, minutes and audio files on its website.  The reason: To provide some privacy to county employees who have appeared before the commission on a rules violation or to pursue a discrimination complaint. And as San Diego City Beat reports, the Fair Political Practices Commission's new chair has stripped its website of information on opened  investigations, solicitous for politicians' and other political operatives' reputations.

Bill Brings Sunshine to Campus Foundations

Responding to Senator Leland Yee's amendments to his latest higher education sunshine bill, California college and university foundations and other "auxiliary organizations" have agreed to abide by transparency rules comparable to the California Public Records Act in return for keeping their donors' names confidential—except in certain circumstances.

CalAware Targets Bogus "Ad Hoc" Committees

The Oakland-based Bay Area Rapid Transit District (BART) is the latest—and quickest to reverse course—local agency challenged by Californians Aware for using an "ad hoc" label to allow its governing board's committees to duck the open meeting requirements of the Brown Act.

Judge: No Constitutional Right to Secretly Record

A federal judge has rejected a First Amendment defense in the lawsuit brought by the national community organizing group Acorn, whose San Diego branch office employee was secretly audio and video recorded by two conservative activists conducting an undercover sting operation.

Costa Mesa to Keep Its "Working Groups" Private

The City of Costa Mesa denies that its two-member city council "working groups" created in January are standing committees subject to the open meeting and public notice requirements of the Brown Act.  In a letter today responding to CalAware's May 10 challenge to that effect, City Attorney Thomas P. Duarte concludes that "no violations of the Brown Act have occurred" without responding to the arguments made by CalAware.  The latter's general counsel, Terry Francke, said he would recommend to the group's litigation committee that it file a court action seeking a judge's determination that would settle the dispute, plus an order to the city to conduct meetings of any of the working groups only in conformity with the open meeting law.

SEIU Bargaining: A One-sided Spectator Sport?

A unit of the Service Employees International Union representing Riverside County employees, in allowing its members to sit in to observe its bargaining sessions with the county, has led the latter to question both the lawfulness and fairness of this practice, reports Duane Gang in the Press-Enterprise. A simple response would one way or the other bring parity to the situation: invite members of the public to sit in as well.

Crushing the Windpipe of a Federal Whistleblower

If a democratic society creates a hypersecret government intelligence agency, how long will it take before large sectors of its unmonitored activity will turn wasteful, incompetent and even subversive of constitutional values—and how ferocious will its reaction be when a conscientious employee tries to call corrective attention to its deviations?

Campus Foundation Transparency Bill Advances

On a 7-1 bipartisan vote, the Senate Education Committee yesterday approved legislation supported by Californians Aware to bring greater transparency and accountability to campus-supporting foundations and other "auxiliary organizatioins" at California’s public colleges and universities.

Wanted: Ideas to Improve Online News Comments

Your suggestions are sought for technical approaches to organizing and presenting comments appended to online news stories or blogs in some saner, more thoughtful manner than just newest first or oldest first or thread hemorrhages.

The Whistleblower Minefield Gets Foggier

Whistleblowers beware: Whether the law protects your reporting of illegal or improper behavior in your organization depends critically on whether you work in a public corporation or a private company and whom you report your concerns to. And it could be getting worse if a certain colorful Congressman has anything to say about it

A Treat for Your Drive Time: Judge Alex Kosinski

The First Amendment may not be dead, but it's "fast asleep for the time being," until the law, technological innovation or both resolve baffling new challenges posed by the Internet and how it is used.  That's the view of Chief Judge Alex Kosinski of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, who recently spoke at Golden Gate University's third annual Intellectual Property Distinguished Speaker Program. Judge Kosinski talked about technology, bloggers, the First Amendment, his role as a judge and a lot more in this podcast you can download and listen to on the device of your choice.

Court: County Pension Benefits = Public Business

The public has a right to know the pension benefits paid to individual retired county employees, the Sacramento area district of the California Court of Appeal has unanimously ruled in the first appellate decision of its kind, after trial courts across the state have reached the same conclusion.

CalPers Corporate Governance Project Questioned

Keith Paul Bishop, a lawyer/blogger who keeps close tabs on California's Public Employees Retirement System as part of his corporate law practice, thinks it may be stretching the Bagley-Keene Open Meeting Act to the violation point in developing its corporate governance Focus List, through which it "encourages the market to reform companies and improve shareowner wealth for all owners."