First Amendment News

The Orange County Board supervisors is paying the Voice of OC $121,396 in legal fees after the news outlet secured a court order for the release of public records about a supervisor’s handcuffing a preacher at a fish taco restaurant. (Voice of OC, August 9, 2017, by Nick Gerda) A citizens group alleges that the Bakersfield City Council violated the Brown Act, California’s open meeting  act, when it cancelled an energy-efficiency financing program in July

Restraint, transparency and community oversight are gaining in Seattle and Los Angeles County as Seattle passed a law mandating civilian oversight of new purchases of surveillance technologies and a L.A. County oversight group rejected policies governing the use of surveillance drones. (Electronic Frontier Foundation, August 7,2017, by Shadis Buttar) Two years after acquiring two drones, the Los Angeles Police Department has resumed its campaign to use them in law enforcement. The groups opposing their deployment

A town’s law requiring a permit for commercial activity in the park survived a First Amendment test before the Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals who ruled that the law was not intended to stifle free speech but served to facilitate the expression of both commercial and non-commercial users of the park. Town officials said the permit was necessary to mitigate congestion by allowing exclusive use of certain areas. (St. Louis Record, August 7, 2017,

After Attorney General Jeff Sessions lambasted leakers and journalists last week, Rod Rosenstein, his deputy, said the Trump administration did not intend to target reporters in investigating leaks. Sessions warned in his Friday remarks that reporters  could not expect “unlimited” leeway in receiving leaked information, but Rosenstein said they were concentrating on leakers who committed the crimes. (The New York Times, August 6, 2017, by Noah Weiland) Rosenstein left the door open to the possibility

Movie studios are delaying release of reviews until the last moment to dampen the effect of poor reviews reported on Rotten Tomatoes. With Fandango, now Rotten Tomatoes owner, posting Tomatometer scores for every movie on its site, questions has arisen as to the wisdom of those potentially withering reviews that produce a green splat. And movie makers are concerned that Fandango could hurt borderline films needlessly. But one critic said the solution is simply for