First Amendment News

With the permission of the family, the media was granted permission to cover the return of an airman killed in Afghanistan. This was the first time in 18 years that the media has been allowed access. -DB Yahoo! Inc. April 6, 2009 By Randall Chase DOVER AIR FORCE BASE, Del.(AP) – The Pentagon’s 18-year ban on media covering the return of fallen U.S. service members ended with a solemn ceremony for the arrival of a

The Exclusive Brethren, a reclusive religious group, is challenging the right of a disaffected former member to publish on the internet “confidential documents” they say were stolen. -DB Burlington Free Press April 5, 2009 By Sam Hemingway “This is a very closed group,” said Twinam, 54, a native of Great Britain. “They don’t circulate much with people, and over the years they’ve become ever more exclusive and cultish.” The Exclusive Brethren says Twinam is a

When a veteran Baltimore police officer gave a reporter a memo on a police shooting in his district, he was fired. His newly reinstated suit contends he wrote the memo as a private citizen rather than as a private citizen. -DB The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press April 3, 2009 By Kathleen Cullinan A former Baltimore police official’s lawsuit, alleging his free-speech rights were violated when he was fired after leaking a memo

When a UC Berkeley student expressed her dislike of her hometown on myspace.com, her comment ended up in the newspaper. A federal court ruled that she cannot sue the newspaper but can pursue a claim against the high school principal for sending the comment to the newspaper which could be found to intentionally inflict emotional distress. -DB Metropolitan News-Enterprise April 6, 2009 By Kenneth Ofgang Comments posted on a publicly accessible website are not private,

Reacting to recent scandals, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is requiring staff and agency executives to put travel reimbursement claims and gift reports online. But when the information is put into pdfs, it is not possible to access it in any intelligible way. -DB CalAware April 2, 2009 CalAware Commentary OPEN GOVERNMENT — We’re going to be a nag about this. Putting public officials’ travel expense claims and other integrity-sensitive information on the Internet as pdfs is