firstamendment

A group of Sausalito citizens wants to know the details of closed-door deliberations leading to a failed bid on waterfront property in February. The group wants to know who voted to keep the deliberations secret and their reasons for doing so. -DB Marin Independent Journal May 23, 2009 By Mark Prado A grassroots Sausalito group is circulating a petition asking the City Council to disclose closed-door deliberations regarding a failed attempt to buy a 16-acre

Ventura County judges are failing to meet guidelines set down by the Supreme Court in closing murder trials to the public. Peter Scheer of the California First Amendment Coalition says that recent court rulings require judges to state their reasons in open court when they exclude the public. -DB Ventura County Star May 13, 2009 By Raul Hernandez In at least three separate murder cases between 2006 and this year, Ventura County Superior Court judges

Allvoices.com, a new citizen journalism site, is now paying contributors and working to improve quality by taking such steps as eliminating copyright violations. -DB San Francisco Chronicle May 26, 2009 By Deborah Gage Last August, we reported on Allvoices.com, a news site that had started to pay people for contributions. The idea was to create a community where people from all over the world could get together and talk about current events. Ten months later,

A federal judge threatened sanctions for the Obama administration for withholding a secret document he ordered them to hand over to lawyers suing the government for its warrantless wiretapping. -DB San Francisco Chronicle May 22, 2009 By Paul Elias SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A federal judge on Friday threatened to severely sanction the Obama Administration for withholding a top secret document he ordered given to lawyers suing the government over its warrantless wiretapping program. U.S.

Apple has approved the e-book reader Eucalyptus for the iTunes App Store, setting aside earlier objections to the reader’s ability to download the Kama Sutra. -DB Wired May 26, 2009 By Charlie Sorrel Apple has finally approved the gorgeous-looking e-book reader, Eucalyptus, for the iTunes App Store. The application was previously banned for pornographic reasons: not because it contained objectionable material but because it could be used to download the Kama Sutra, an ancient text