CalAware Today

Ellsberg to Tech Crowd: Time to Take a Stand

Pentagon Papers Ur-leaker Daniel Ellsberg told an audience of social media technologists Wednesday night that giants like Google, Facebook and Twitter need to decide if they're going to help destroy Wikileaks to keep the government happy, or defend Wikileaks and use their power on the side of freedom and privacy.  Robert McMillan reports for IDG News Service.

Public Access TV Revival Begins in Los Angeles

A campaign "to protect and restore public access television studios and channels" has begun in  Los Angeles, reports the Full Discosure Network in a press release. The Public Television Industry Corporation (P-TIC) has launched a website www.ptic.tv to attract supporters and television producers to join the cause.

Two Ways Not to Strike Back at the New Media

1. Threatening to sue a website for carrying a post with words which, considering their proximity, could lead readers to see a company name and then think it was being accused of, well . . .

2. Outing yourself on national television as the person shown on YouTube taking a header into a shopping mall fountain while distracted by texting.

No First Amendment Right to Tape Cops in Public?

In Illinois, police may audio record any conversation in a public place, but no one else may record their conversations—among themselves or with citizens they interact with, no matter how audibly—in a public place; to do so is a felony. A federal judge last week dismissed a First Amendment challenge to this law brought by the ACLU.

To Serve and Protect—from the Evening News

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Initial L.A. County Sheriff's explanation for keeping news media from getting close enough to tree-perched trespassing protesters to see and hear them: The whole area, including the approach street, is a crime scene.  The later explanation: OK, it wasn't a crime scene.  We wanted to protect the protesters from any harm that might have befallen them.  Nathan McIntire reports for Monrovia Patch.

California Lawmaking Tracked by New Portal

OpenGovernment.org, a free, open source online portal designed to make state government more available to citizens, launched this morning, with California one of its first test beds. "OpenGovernment.org makes it easier for citizens to learn about pending legislation and their legislators by combining open government data, information about state legislators, multiple databases of voting information, social mentions and news coverage into a lightweight online user interface," reports Alex Howard for O'Reilly Radar.

Wrongfully Accused Official's Name Emerges Again

In November Menlo Park voters voted to deny another term to a member of the city council. That member, Heyward Robinson, complained that he was the victim on the eve of the election of a baseless accusation of having violated the Brown Act.  Now, while looking into an alleged violation of that law by a fellow council member in the same time period, the San Mateo County District Attorney has turned up some interesting evidence from a year ago, reports Bonnie Eslinger in the Palo Alto Daily News.

Disgracebook: Would This Faze Nick Nolte?

Salon.com reports that police in Huntington Beach, "a city ranked top in the state for alcohol-related traffic fatalities, might soon be trying a new tactic to keep drunken drivers off the road: electronic shaming on Facebook."

Court Uses a Double Standard to Protect Its Own

In the first known test of the California court system's year-old double standard of accountability, a current public records request denial shows how the insulation of lower-level judicial officers against public awareness of misconduct complaints—confirmed or otherwise after investigation—differs from how the courts say such information in other government agencies should be exposed to public review.

Brea's Bold Sunshine Ordinance Heads to Voters

Here's the text of the sunshine ordinance that will go on the June ballot for voter approval—southern California's first foray into citizen-drafted demands for local government transparency comparable to the movement spreading in the San Francisco Bay Area since the 1990s. The most interesting and unprecedented proposals start with Section 9.

State's Speech-Gagging Public Campuses Listed

California's public higher education campuses show a sorry record of censorship in placing limits on student speech, reports Erica Perez for California Watch. Speech codes and free speech zones are teaching a whole generation of grads to tame their tongues and muffle their minds. "A new report from a national free speech advocacy organization," she says, "found most of the four-year universities it surveyed had speech codes that substantially limit students' freedom of speech, including dozens of colleges in California."

Bill Would Constitutionalize Meeting Notice Rules

The Legislature’s strongest advocate for government transparency has introduced a state constitutional amendment to ensure that government councils, boards and commissions follow requirements to post meeting agendas and to disclose any actions taken.

Our Plan Is Legally Sound—Take Our Word for It

Government agencies have the right to insist that the advice their attorneys give them is privileged and thus need not be publicly released.  But as Liam Dillon notes in the Voice of San Diego, that's a poor argument to make once officials have said that their controversial proposal is perfectly legal—because their lawyer told them so in a written opinion.

Exposing Manhattan Beach Manager's Golden Exit

Richard McKee—Californians Aware's Vice President for Open Government Compliance—explains, in a guest commentary in the South Bay Daily Breeze, why he's suing the City of Manhattan Beach for its sneaky and expensive sendoff of a city manager in 2009.  The case is set for hearing in Los Angeles Superior Court on January 18.

A Slow Year for the Sutter County Grand Jury

As reported by Ryan McCarthy in the Marysville Appeal Decomcrat, "Sutter County Auditor Robert Stark did not violate the California Public Records Act by releasing the salaries paid to county employees, the grand jury says in a report released today." It's been more than three years since the California Supreme Court ruled that such information—including the names of those being paid specific amounts—is a matter of public record.

 

County: Speakers Needn't ID Themselves After All

The Orange County Board of Supervisors' written advisory to citizens wishing to speak at its meetings is that they must first state their name and city.  But when this rule is questioned on free speech grounds, officials say it's only voluntary, reports the Voice of OC.

Council Member: Our Emails Should Be Public

They don't call it a sunshine ordinance, but the Long Beach City Council has just approved proposals for a lot more information and citizen discussion online. And yet one council member—a co-proponent of the changes—points out that so long as she and her peers are free to confer and prearrange decisions using their private email accounts, all the new transparency initiatives are of limited comfort.

A Final Shrinking from Public Scrutiny

Arnold Schwarzenegger didn't have to issue a special executive order sealing from public view the papers relating to his last-minute shortening—by more than half—of the prison sentence of a convicted killer lucky enough to be the son of a former Speaker of the Assembly. The law already has that effect for any ex-governor's papers. All the order did was to call attention to the secrecy rule as providing political cover for the administration of that specially tempered justice reserved for the comfortably connected.  An editorial in the Sacramento Bee elaborates.

Scholar: Espionage Act Fixes Are Unconstitutional

Can the government compensate for its failure to keep its secrets secret by punishing those who pass the leakage on to the public in a manner judged "prejudicial" to national interests?  Not, says constitutional law scholar Geoffrey R. Stone in a New York Times guest column, under the First Amendment.

Latest Bulletins from Washington's DHC . . .

Happy New Year from the federal Department of Hometruth Suppression. Here's how:

> A single Senator's secret hold killed major improvements to the Whistleblower Protection Act

> Bureaucrats continue to classify as secret news that's already been reported in the media

> Supreme Court decisions bloated the concept of corporations as persons with their own rights

Non-members Get to CalAware by Message Board

As of January 1, questions from CalAware members about open government law or First Amendment rights will continue to be answered offline by General Counsel Terry Francke by phone—(916) 487-7000—or by email. 

Non-members can get responses only by posting their questions on our message board, the CalAware Community Forum. 

Membership information is here.

Court Orders Police Shooters' Names Withheld

Despite case law and a California Attorney General's opinion to the contrary, the Long Beach police union got a local judge's order last week barring the city from releasing the names of officers involved in shootings, reports Victoria Kim in the Los Angeles Times:

Thumbs up for Marin's Brown Act Training Video

Marin County has created an artful video briefing on the highlights of the Brown Act for training its various advisory boards and commissions.  While one or two of the minor points made may be subject to question, the presentation is on the whole a refreshing alternative to powerpoint or handout approaches to making citizen volunteers aware of the open meeting law. Notable also is a closing statement by the district attorney showing concern for Brown Act compliance.

Greater Elections Transparency Due January 1

Secretary of State Debra Bowen has announced that two new bills she sponsored— to make details of voting equipment flaws and more campaign disclosure filings available online—will take effect January 1.

Judge: City Can Privatize Public Library Service

A judge has ruled that nothing in the California Public Records Act prevents a city from contracting with a private firm to administer its public library—even if it means giving the contractor access to patrons' confidential borrowing records.

State's Lawmakers: Do As We Say, Not As We Do

The California Legislature is among those of a half-dozen states that exempt themselves from the  tough transparency rules they impose on the executive branch and local government.

Health Care Reform Includes Data for Consumers

Who knew "Obamacare" had some sunshine provisions to help people make informed decisions about where and how to spend their health care dollars—x-raying hospitals and other providers to permit comparisons of not only prices but readmissions, infections and doctors' and nurses' performance?

Editorial: Open up Juvenile Dependency Courts

The Los Angeles Times, in a lead Sunday editorial, has called for the opening of juvenile court dependency hearings, where decisions are made as to who is appropriate to provide parental care for a neglected or abused child. A champion for fathers' custodial rights promptly seconded the motion.

CalAware: Meeting Speakers Needn't Provide ID

A local transportation authority board is revisiting its requirement that citizens who address it at meetings must fill out cards with their names and contact information, after CalAware criticized the rule as a Brown Act violation.

A National Security Veteran Dispels 'Wikimyths'

From the statement of Thomas Blanton, Director of the National Security Archives, George Washington University, at yesterday's hearing of the House Judiciary Committee on " The Espionage Act and the Legal and Constitutional Implications of Wikileaks:"