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Federal judges seek to videotape some civil trials

FAC April 28, 2011

Federal judges in the Northern District of California have asked to join a pilot project that would allow video recordings of civil trials under certain circumstances. The project, approved in September by the U.S. Judicial Council, would permit cameras in the courtroom for later posting on the Internet if the judge and both sides of the case agree. Thirteen of the Northern District’s 18 judges said they would participate, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

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Real agenda cloaked in government buzzwords and bafflegab

FAC April 19, 2011

BY DICK ROGERS—When it came time last December to vote on a labor contract for hundreds of city workers, San Leandro leaders didn’t scurry into a back room to make the politically hot decision in secret. That’s the good news. The bad news is that San Leandro, like other local governments, obscured its intent and minimized public participation in another way. Call it hiding in plain sight. Instead of helping the public by spelling out

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Video record of same-sex marriage trial in dispute

FAC April 16, 2011

Backers of Proposition 8, the anti same-sex marriage initiative in California, want to restrict use of video recordings of the U.S. District Court trial that ruled the ballot measure unconstitutional. Under a pilot program in the Ninth Circuit, District Court Judge Vaughn Walker permitting video recording during the 12-day trial last year. Walker used an excerpt of the recording in a speech this year at Arizona State University, an action that Prop. 8 backers say

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Obama receives double whammy on transparency record

FAC April 14, 2011

Just as the Obama Administration and BP Oil  found out they’d “won” a 2011 Muzzle Award for restricting media access to the Gulf oil spill, transparency advocates were getting their first look at the 2011 Federal Budget deal struck late last week and wondering how the “Open Gov” Prez could agree to gut funding to his Electronic Government Fund from a proposed $35 million down to $8 million: Ed O’Keefe writes  in the Washington Post’s

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SF public hearing tonight: Should entertainment venues be required to record IDs, photo of patrons?

FAC April 12, 2011

The Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco  is urging attendance at a public hearing tonight. The San Francisco Entertainment Commission is proposing to require all venues with an occupancy of over 100 people to record the faces of all patrons and employees and scan their ID’s for storage in a database which they must hand over to law enforcement on request. If adopted, these rules would pose a grave threat to the rights of freedom

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