First Amendment News

A federal grand jury looking into government leaks to New York Times reporter James Risen have been shown phone records of their calls with the reporter. How did the Justice Department get its hands on those records without Risen or the newspaper knowing anything about it? Here’s the Times’ own story: April 12, 2008 Leak Inquiry Said to Focus on Calls With Times By PHILIP SHENON WASHINGTON — Former government officials have recently been called

Christopher Edley, Jr. , Dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law, has published a thoughtful statement explaining why, much as he deplores the legal “advice” law professor John Yoo gave to President Bush, Yoo’s tenure at the law school is protected by principles of freedom of speech and academic freedom. Yoo infamously opined that President Bush had authority, notwithstaning statutes and treaties to the contrary, to authorize torture of terrorist suspects. Here’s Edley’s statement:

An amendment to a bill seeks to push police salary and other basic information about officers back out of public view. The bill comes on the heels of two state Supreme Court rulings last year finding that salaries and other basic information about police officers are indeed public records. AB 1855, authored by Assemblyman Anthony J. Portantino, D-La Canada Flintridge, would declare that the salaries of police officers as well as their badge numbers and