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FAC Fights Unprecedented Effort by School District to Recover Nearly $500K From Records Requester

FAC February 6, 2018

The First Amendment Coalition and the American Civil Liberties Union on Monday submitted a friend-of-court brief arguing that an effort by the Newark Unified School District to recover nearly half a million dollars in attorneys’ fees from a woman who requested public records under the California Public Records Act is legally meritless, unprecedented, and would cast an intolerable chill over the public’s ability to learn about their government. Newark Unified has asked the Alameda County

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FAC Sues Bakersfield For Open Meetings, Records Violations

FAC December 22, 2017

The First Amendment Coalition (FAC) yesterday filed suit against the city of Bakersfield over the city council’s repeated practice of holding closed-door meetings to discuss topics that under California law must be heard in public. The lawsuit, jointly filed with Californians Aware (CalAware) in Kern County Superior Court, also demands that the city release public records relating to the unlawful council sessions—records the city is required to disclose under the California Public Records Act but

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FAC Lawsuit Prompts Disclosure of Records Alleging Misconduct by Milpitas City Official

FAC October 26, 2017

The City of Milpitas has released a trove of previously undisclosed documents alleging serious misconduct by a recently departed city manager— records the city refused to release until after the First Amendment Coalition sued Milpitas under the California Public Records Act. FAC first requested the records in May, and sued the following month after Milpitas refused to disclose them. On Wednesday evening, the city released the more than 100 pages of documents to FAC— less than 15

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Los Angeles Settles Suit Filed By FAC, Agrees to Retain City Records For At Least Two Years

FAC September 20, 2017

The city of Los Angeles has agreed it must retain city records for at least two years as part of a settlement agreement reached today with the First Amendment Coalition–a victory for transparency and government accountability in the nation’s second-largest city, and an assurance that the public will have the access to city records to which it is entitled under California  law. Under the settlement terms, the city agreed to amend its “records disposition schedules”–rules

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Victory in the Ninth Circuit for FAC and for Government Transparency

David Snyder August 25, 2017

  The First Amendment Coalition today secured an important victory in its long-running fight with the U.S. Department of Justice to bring to public light legal memos analyzing the use of drone strikes to kill American citizens abroad. In a unanimous ruling, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit held that FAC is entitled to have the government pay FAC’s attorneys’ fees for its five-year legal battle with DOJ over the release of the so-called

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