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First Amendment News

Los Angeles area: District Attorney crucial in keeping local government open and honest

donal brown March 15, 2010

The Los Angeles District Attorney’s office has their hands full enforcing the California Public Records Act and Brown Act, the state’s open meeting law, and to make sure that public officials are acting with honesty and integrity. -db Pasadena Star-News Editorial March 14, 2010 For the most part, government acting in the open is based on the honor system. Remedies for violations of the Brown Act, the state’s open meeting law, are few and far between.

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Bay Area transit district to webcast its board meetings

donal brown March 14, 2010

The Bay Area Rapid Transit voted to post its board meetings live on the web. The decision was made after criticism that the district was not responsive to the community following a BART policeman’s fatal shooting of an unarmed passenger. -db San Jose Mercury News March 12, 2010 By Denis Cuff More than a year after an uproar over a police officer’s fatal shooting of an unarmed passenger spurred the BART board to call for

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Serious gaps found in government reporting of federal spending on economic stimulus

donal brown March 14, 2010

Government auditors revealed that the website tracking the $1 trillion in federal contracts for the economic stimulus package has unreliable data or serious omissions. -db The Los Angeles Times March 13, 2010 By Peter Nicholas WASHINGTON, D.C. – When he was a senator, Barack Obama pushed through a law setting up a kind of “Google-for-government” website — a one-stop-shop for tracking the $1 trillion handed out in federal contracts. Obama said the new site would

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Free speech: California man to get rehearing on his right to give Nazi salute to mayor

donal brown March 14, 2010

The majority of the 26 active judges of  the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals voted to rehear the case of homeless-rights advocate who sued the city of Santa Cruz after he was thrown out of a city council meeting for making a Nazi salute to the mayor. -db San Francisco Chronicle March 13, 2010 By Bob Egelko A federal appeals court granted a new hearing Friday to a homeless-rights advocate who sued the city of

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Transparency experts advising patience over Obama open government initiative

donal brown March 11, 2010

Federal agencies easily met the first deadline in the Obama open government initiative, but the next steps for improving transparency and getting public feedback will take longer say open government experts. -db Federal Times March 10, 2010 By Gregg Calstrom The first steps were easy: Most agencies met the first deadline of President Obama’s December directive to launch open government Web sites within 60 days. Agencies were also required to post three high-value data sets in

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