A federal judge ruled that the Bureau of Prisons must either provide records to the Prison Legal News or show that their refusal to provide the records was proper under FOIA guidelines for exemptions. -DB Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press March 30, 2009 By Ahnalese Rushmann The federal Bureau of Prisons was ordered by a U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., on Thursday to either look again for records requested by a legal

Newspapers, including recently the New York Times, are suing under the Freedom of Information Act for documents on the bailout they have been unable to obtain from the Obama administration. -DB Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press March 30, 2009 By Hannah Bergman Realizing litigation may be the best option to receive records related to the financial industry bailout, yet another news organization lawsuit has joined the FOIA lawsuit parade. The New York Times

A First Amendment Center senior scholar says that a recent decision ending a school-sponsored religious service in a Florida school strengthens religious freedom and does nothing to prevent students from exercising their free speech rights in praying by themselves or in groups so long as their prayers do not disrupt the school or interfere with the rights of others. -DB First Amendment Center March 29, 2009 Commentary By Charles C. Haynes Hundreds of Christians rallied

Efforts are underway to insure that university campus speakers with unpopular messages in some quarters will not have to pay higher fees for security. The Supreme Court ruled in 1992 that fees should not be based on a speaker’s content. -DB San Francisco Chronicle March 29, 2009 By Bob Egelko When a UC Berkeley student group invited a speaker known for his hard-line pro-Israel stance, the university feared clashes with Palestinian supporters and billed the

The Citizen Media Law Project uses a Canadian free speech case to argue that so far the United States has done a commendable job in protecting the right to anonymous expression. The argument comes as a challenge is emerging to this freedom in the case of an Illinois suit seeking the identities of anonymous bloggers -DB Citizen Media Law Project March 26, 2009 Commentary By CMLP Staff Over the past few weeks everyone at the