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David Snyder

Free Speech And A Free Press Were Under Attack in 2019. But You Made A Difference.

David Snyder November 18, 2019

A letter from the executive director 2019 was a year of grave threats to First Amendment rights. In San Francisco, police raided the home and office of a freelance journalist, Bryan Carmody, seizing his entire newsroom. In Washington, D.C., the Department of Justice blocked efforts to shed light on their seizure of phone and email records from a New York Times journalist, apparently in violation of DOJ’s own rules. And across California, police unions waged

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Trumping Trump: California’s Attack on the First Amendment

David Snyder May 21, 2019

By DAVID SNYDER—California leaders have scrambled to position themselves at the vanguard of the resistance to President Trump, with Attorney General Xavier Becerra filing some 50 lawsuits against the Trump Administration, including—ironically as we shall see—at least one challenging the president’s failure to release records under federal open-records laws. The state Legislature—more than two-thirds Democratic—passed a “sanctuary state” bill limiting how much state and local law enforcement agencies can cooperate with federal immigration enforcement. Not to be

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California AG Xavier Becerra and the Thick Blue Wall of Police Secrecy

David Snyder March 6, 2019

By DAVID SNYDER—California Attorney General Xavier Becerra appears to believe there are two sets of rules about government transparency—one for his office, and another for everyone else.   Back in 2017, when the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) refused to disclose public records about EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt’s potential ethical conflicts, Becerra promptly sued under the federal Freedom of Information Act, coming down hard on Pruitt. “The EPA is legally required to respond to our FOIA

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FAC Urges California Highway Patrol to Release Public Records Relating to 2016 California State Capitol Violence

David Snyder February 16, 2018

The First Amendment Coalition today submitted a letter to the California Highway Patrol, urging CHP to release public records it has refused to disclose regarding the violent clashes at the California State Capitol on June 26, 2016.  The letter also calls CHP to task for the apparent use of a public records request as a bargaining chip in witness interviews for an ongoing criminal investigation.  As disclosed in a transcript filed in court recently, CHP

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San Francisco City Attorney Releases Reams of Records in Response to FAC CPRA Request

David Snyder November 8, 2017

In response to multiple California Public Records Act requests from the First Amendment Coalition, San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera produced hundreds of pages of emails between Herrera campaign supporters and Herrera’s staff or Herrera himself.  The City Attorney initially asserted that the records were not subject to disclosure under the CPRA.  FAC respectfully disagreed, and after weeks of correspondence and telephone calls with City Attorney staffers, finally convinced the office to release a substantial

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