First Amendment News

W. Mark Felt, the former No. 2 man in the FBI official, was a crucial source for Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward during the Nixon-era Watergate scandal. He died at the age of 95 in Santa Rosa. Mark Felt, Watergate’s `Deep Throat,’ dies at 95 By LOUISE CHU, Associated Press Writer Friday, December 19, 2008 (12-19) 07:51 PST San Francisco (AP) — W. Mark Felt, the former FBI second-in-command who revealed himself as “Deep Throat”

The Bush administration is expanding the definition of confidential “education records.” The Student Press Law Center says that parents and journalists will have a harder time obtaining basic information about campus safety, student performance and discipline. PRESS RELEASE: New Education Privacy Rules Threaten Public Accountability © 2008 Student Press Law Center December 15, 2008 Contact: Frank D. LoMonte Executive Director (703) 807-1904 director@splc.org New education privacy regulations slipping into effect at the eleventh hour of

The Ventura County judge who banned a newspaper from publishing details of a court document in a murder case admits his order was unfair and unenforceable, but he declines to lift the ruling until a defendant can ask an appellate court to uphold the order, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. See the Ventura County Star’s previous story here. Judge won’t lift order he says is unenforceable Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer Tuesday, December 16, 2008

A Superior Court judge has issued a gag order preventing the Ventura County Star from publishing details from a search warrant it obtained after a year-long legal battle. The judge says his order is intended to “protect the rights of the parties” in the case; the newspaper’s editor calls the edict illegal and “a blatant violation of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. The Star’s story, a podcast and a link to law

A trial court in Texas has ordered a lawyer in a pending case to remove from YouTube a deposition video-excerpt that the lawyer had posted to the site. The court reasoned that deposition records and other “discovery” materials are not public records until they have been introduced in evidence in a lawsuit.–PS —– Texas Lawyer December 9, 2008 By Brenda Sapino Jeffreys Jeffrey Weinstein’s client was so outraged by the deposition testimony in her fraud