The media and open government advocates won a battle over the California Attorney General by gaining access to a list of hundreds of current and former police convicted of criminal acts. Journalists obtained the public record by asking a state agency for it, but Attorney General Xavier Becerra claims the journalists are breaking the law by possessing a document it never should have been given. (techdirt, November 15, 2019, by Tim Cushing)
With UC Berkeley journalism students, the Bay Area News Group discovered from the document that over 80 law enforcement officers were still working despite criminal convictions that would have sidelined any other worker. Drunk driving and other driving offenses head the list with domestic violence in second place. One fourth of the convictions were never reported in the media. (San Jose Mercury News, November 10, 2019, by Robert Lewis, David Debolt, Jason Paladino, Katey Rusch, Laurence Du Sault and Ali Defazio)