Republican members of Congress are asking the Secretary of Defense to lift restrictions on information about budgets and inspections. The members are particularly interested in records of ship inspections and those pertaining to Uighur prisoners in Guantanamo who may be released into the United States. -DB Secrecy News Federation of American Scientists May 7, 2009 Questions of secrecy and disclosure are increasingly prominent in congressional interactions with the executive branch, particularly on the part of

The South Carolina attorney general is the latest to ask Craigslist to remove its erotic services section. Henry McMaster has given Craigslist 10 days to comply. Craigslist defenders say it has already cleaned up the site and that under the law the company is not liable for content posted by third parties. -DB Electronic Frontier Foundation May 6, 2009 By Matt Zimmerman Here we go again. On Tuesday, South Carolina Attorney General Henry McMaster notified

The California Interscholastic Federation has not been required to comply with open record laws. This will change if an assembly bill passes the legislature and is signed by the governor. -DB CalAware May 1, 2009 PUBLIC INFORMATION — A Republican Assemblywoman’s bill to open the records of the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) to public scrutiny has moved to the Assembly floor’s consent calendar, amended to protect pupil privacy. AB 352 by Assemblywoman Audra Strickland (R-Westlake

A federal judge ruled that the Georgia state shield law protects a former Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter from revealing sources. A journalism professor had brought an invasion of privacy suit against the reporter asking her to identify the sources. -DB The Atlanta Journal-Constitution May 5, 2009 By Bill Rankin A former Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter does not have to testify in a case brought by journalism professor John Soloski against the University of Georgia, a federal judge

When someone calls another person a Communist in the Vietnamese-American community, it carries a load of emotionally-charged baggage. That makes it difficult to defend defamation charges even if the target of the allegation is a public figure. -DB Citizen Media Law Project May 6, 2009 By Eric Robinson In the United States after the Cold War, saying that someone is a Communist may not have the same sting that it did during the the decades