CalAware Today

Santa Clara County to Study Sunshine Ordinance

Santa Clara County would become one of just a handful of California counties to adopt a "sunshine" law granting greater access to the inner workings of government, under a plan being introduced this week, reports Karen de Sa in the San Jose Mercury News.

Editorial: Sidewalk Bids for Work Must Be Allowed

It's one thing to forbid people from using street medians to solicit anything from passing motorists, says the Los Angeles Times in an editorial; it's a safety issue.  But day laborers who use the sidewalks to seek work have as much right under the First Amendment to convey their appeals for support there as anyone else anwhere else in public.  The full U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals should recognize that right and strike down a Redondo Beach ordinance, the paper argues.

Voter Registrar to Refund Copy Fee Overcharges

CalAware's audits have found a surprising number of public agencies unlawfully charging more that the 10 cents per page maximum permitted by the Political Reform Act for copies of financial statements which that law requires key public officials and campaign commitees to file as public records. But one public agency—and maybe the first to do so—is actually correcting that mistake by offering refunds to those subjected to this kind of overcharge.

New Site Tracks Court Challenges to FOIA Denials

Those who've had their requests for information turned down by a federal agency based on one or more Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) exemptions can now keep track of who's taking similar denials to court. Details about every new court challenge to the withholding of information by the Obama Administration are now available on a new website developed by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC).

Petitioning, Picketing in the Marketplace Still Hot

It's often easy to assume that the most labor-intensive First Amendment activities—people holding signs or clipboards and trying to persuade others within earshot—are settings for settled law, with free speech doctrine's open questions now confined to all sorts of mass media and technical communications. But the right to send or seek support for a message at pavement level where the crowds are is still a legal work in progress, as recent court challenges involving the rights of gays and union members show.

Has the Cryptocracy Made Wikileaks Inevitable?

Steven Aftergood, the nation's most renowned observer of federal secrecy policy and practice in general and the national security state in particular, is beginning to think that apparatus is literally out of control.  And while he has been one of the soberest critics of WikiLeaks, he seems close to acknowledging that it may be an inevitable response to official powerlessness against the forces that ever-increasingly erode freedom of information.

Kosinski: Why We Must be Free to Tell Most Lies

While the matter may still go to the U.S. Supreme Court for the final word, until then the Stolen Valor Act, which criminalizes lying about being awarded military decoration, is unenforceable in California and the West as violating the First Amendment.  The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has let stand the ruling of a three-judge panel to that effect, incidentally providing Chief Judge Alex Kosinski, concurring, with an occasion for the exercise of his pungent and witty prose style.

Officials' Stealthy Exit Tactics Cost City Dearly

The Manhattan Beach City Council's efforts to conceal the circumstances and price of its city manager's abrupt departure in December 2009 has just cost it a sum probably approaching $100,000, to say nothing of the chastening of having to admit it violated the law and to undergo remedial training.

Sunshine Week Salutes to Two CalAware Officers

Two officers of Californians Aware—a former elected council member of the state's second largest city and a veteran country newspaper editor—were recognised tonight by the Society of Professional Journalists for their remarkable contributions to open government.  Both are also remarkable for their plainspoken directness and skepticism.

Government Must Open Itself up to Be Trusted

By Richard McKee, Vice President/Open Government Compliance, Californians Aware

Duing this Sunshine Week it's important to remember that our Founding Fathers, revered for their courage and determination, knew far too well the nation they were creating was only an experiment; that persistence lay ahead if a people’s government was to survive. 

Seven Watchdogs Profiled for Sunshine Week

In observance of National Sunshine Week, running now through Saturday, the Sacramento Bee today published thumbnail portraits of seven Californians from Shasta Lake to San Diego who spend a lot of time keeping city halls and other local government agencies open to public scrutiny.

Court Ends Feds' 'Wild Card' Loophole in FOIA

The U.S. Supreme Court, which only last week rejected a bid for personal privacy protection for corporate business information sought from federal regulators under the Freedom of Information Act, yesterday closed a far wider judge-created loophole in FOIA that's been operating for a generation—one which allowed the government to deny access to records whenever it believed that there was no conceivable public interest in them and an unacceptable risk of frustrating government activity or enabling crime.

Court: No Privacy Figleaf for Corporate Data

Those troubled by last year's U.S. Supreme Court decision giving corporations the same First Amendment speech rights as individuals in terms of political campaign spending should take some solace in the court's decision last week that corporations have no "personal privacy" rights when it comes to blocking access under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to facts about them acquired by a government agency in a law enforcement investigation.

The Laws It Takes to Keep Californians Aware

A story in today's (March 5) Los Angeles Times shows the importance of investigative journalism—the old-fashioned kind that more and more news organiztions are less and less inclined to pay for—in keeping government officials honest and free from corruption.  But it equally shows the importance of

• the Political Reform Act in requiring officials to disclose financial ties that might compromise their integrity,
• the California Public Records Act in tracing paper trails of decision-making through contracts and e-mail documentation, and
• laws that require the preservation of public records—including e-mail—for several years, rather than promptly destroying them.

Funeral Protest Ruling Predictable Given the Facts

The U.S. Supreme Court's 8-1 decision this week in Snyder v. Phelps should not be that surprising. And its logic could help any First Amendment court challenge to a new law giving survivors of soldiers killed in war a veto over—or a royalty from—the marketing of messages naming the deceased.