First Amendment News

The City of Salinas did not violate any campaign laws in listing projects and services that could be terminated or curtailed if a tax-cutting ballot measure is approved, the California Supreme Court ruled.–DB Metropolitan News-Enterprise April 21, 2009 By Kenneth Ofgang A public entity does not engage in illegal campaign activity by disseminating a list of projects and services that will be curtailed or eliminated if a tax-cutting ballot measure is approved, the California Supreme

A state assembly hearing is scheduled for April 27 on a bill to allow courts to order ‘abusive” or “harassing” requestors from using the California Public Records Act to obtain documents. -DB CalAware April 20, 2009 Attorney General Jerry Brown’s Department of Justice is sponsoring a bill, opposed by Californians Aware and the California Newspaper Publishers Association (CNPA), to allow courts to order “abusive” or “harassing” requestors to stop requesting using the California Public Records

An advocate for open and accountable government writing in a Glen Falls, New York newspaper won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing, edging out entries from the Chicago Tribune and The Washington Post. -DB The Post-Star April 21, 2009 Staff report Mark Mahoney, The Post-Star’s editorial page editor, has won the editorial writing category of the 2009 Pulitzer Prizes, journalism’s top honors. The national contest annually recognizes the best reporting and writing published in

In about 80 percent of Tenneessee schools, students are blocked from information about gay, bisexual or transgender issues. ACLU is threatening to file a suit to provide access to the informational sites that are free of obscenity. -DB eSchool News April 20, 2009 The American Civil Liberties Union has asked public school officials in Tennessee to stop blocking students’ access to lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender web sites on school computers — or face a

The Obama administration is looking at the extensive interceptions of private e-mail and phone calls by the National Security Agency to determine if the practices exceed authority granted by Congress last July. -DB The New York Times April 16, 2009 By Eric Lichtblau and James Risen WASHINGTON, D.C. — The National Security Agency intercepted private e-mail messages and phone calls of Americans in recent months on a scale that went beyond the broad legal limits