Coalition News

FAC Announces Advisory Board Members

The First Amendment Coalition is pleased to announce the creation of a Board of Advisors to provide advice to FAC’s Directors and staff. Members of the Advisory Board are leaders and experts in areas of importance to FAC, including First Amendment law, journalism, the internet’s impact on free speech, Freedom of Information, philanthropy and the media industry. The initial nine members of the Advisory Board are listed below (in alphabetical order): Floyd Abrams, partner at the

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Wired.com Editor Hansen elected president of FAC board; media attorney Melamed is VP; Gingras, of Google, joins Board.

The First Amendment Coalition is pleased to announce that Wired.com Editor in Chief Evan Hansen has been elected President of FAC’s board of directors. He takes over from John Raess,  San Francisco Bureau Chief for the Associated Press, who had served as President of the Board since 2010. Carol Melamed, media attorney and former counsel to the Washington Post, has been elected Vice President of the FAC board of directors.  She and Hansen will serve

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AG Holder, in speech, describes al-Awlaki “lethal targeting” memo that is the subject of recent FAC suit

FAC—Attorney General Eric Holder last week began the process of explaining the administration’s controversial policy regarding the “lethal targeting” of terrorists abroad who are also US citizens. Holder’s remarks offered a distillation of the legal rationale developed in a classified Department of Justice memo that is the subject of a First Amendment Coalition (FAC) lawsuit. The memo concerns al Qaeda operative al-Awlaki, a New Mexico-born American citizen who was killed in a US drone strike

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FAC sues US for memo on “lethal targeting” of al Qaeda figure (& US citizen) al-Awlaki, killed in 2010 drone strike

SAN RAFAEL, CA—-The First Amendment Coalition (FAC) today filed suit to require the Obama Administration to make public its legal rationale for the “lethal targeting” of Anwar al-Awlaki, an American- born US citizen and al-Qaeda operative who was killed in a CIA drone strike in Yemen last September. The lawsuit seeks public access under the FOIA to portions of a 2010 Justice Department legal memo that reportedly analyzes legal issues raised by the killing of

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FAC sues Sacramento Council for emails discussing controversial voting map

The First Amendment Coalition and a Sacramento community group have filed suit against the Sacramento City Council for access to Council emails and other records concerning a  controversial redistricting plan for Council districts that was adopted last summer. The suit, filed Friday by FAC and Eye on Sacramento, a local nonprofit, grows out of the Council’s refusal to disclose certain records requested by the organizations under the California Public Records Act. The withheld records include

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