firstamendment

Foreign media at Olympics urged to press home governments to demand China lift internet censorship (CFAC, 8/1/08) A free speech organization leading a legal challenge to China’s internet-censorship has called on news media covering the Olympics to demand that China tear down “The Great Firewall”–the elaborate system of filters blocking access to online content deemed objectionable by government censors. The California First Amendment Coalition, which has petitioned the US Trade Representative to contest China’s censorship

Judge Kozinski, controversial conservative and free speech supporter, to speak at Oct. 18 Assembly Acclaimed–and controversial–jurist Alex Kozinski, Chief Judge of the US Court of Appeals (for the Ninth Circuit), will be the featured speaker at CFAC’s 2008 Free Speech and Open Government Assembly at UC Berkeley. He will speak on Saturday, Oct 18. Judge Kozinski, appointed to the Court of Appeals by President Reagan (when Kozinski was all of 35!), is a favorite of

On Independence Day 2008, words to remember from Independence Day 1776: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed” The full text: When in the Course of

Don’t pass new laws to try to curb the abuses of paparazzi. To force the paparazzi to clean up their act, turn the cameras on them. By Peter Scheer You know summer is here when hordes of paparazzi descend, locust-like, on southern California beaches, angering locals as they pursue money-shots of sun-tanning celebrities—while politicians, seeing an opportunity for self-promotion, promise new laws to tame the unruly photogs. It has become a political rite of summer:

PLAYING HIDE AND SEEK WITH PUBLIC RECORDS By Karl Olson It’s not unusual for newspapers, or lawyers in Public Records Act or Freedom of Information Act cases, to accuse the government of trying to “hide” things. Now a San Bernardino County case has revealed what may be a criminal attempt at hiding public records, just in time for a Fourth of July reminder about the importance of access to information about government. San Bernardino County