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First Amendment News

Gates case: Disorderly conduct or protected speech?

donal brown July 30, 2009

Concerning the arrest of the Harvard Professor Louis Gates, a commentator for Forbes Magazine says it is important to look beyond the racial and class issues to those of the First Amendment. Does loud and offensive necessarily constitute disorderly conduct? -DB Forbes Magazine Commentary July 28, 2009 By Harvey A. Silverglate The now-infamous Gates story has gone through the familiar media spin-cycle: incident, reaction, response, so on and so forth. Drowned out of this echo chamber

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Oregon: Environmental groups win release of list of people affected by pipeline

donal brown July 28, 2009

The U.S. District Court ordered the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to release a list of people affected by a proposed gas pipeline. Two environmental groups had requested the list under the Freedom of Information Act. -DB The Daily Astorian July 28,2009 The U.S. District Court in Portland has ruled in favor of Columbia Riverkeeper and Willamette Riverkeeper in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit regarding the Palomar pipeline. The Court ordered the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission

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Students punished for off-campus speech

donal brown July 28, 2009

A CMLP intern says that there is an epidemic of cases in which students are reprimanded for off-campus speech. A case in a Mississippi high school illustrates the way students can be denied their First Amendment rights. -DB Citizen Media Law Project Commentary July 28, 2009 By Lee Baker The Supreme Court once famously said that public school students do not “shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.”  Tinker

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No transparency in the Oakland shootings of SWAT team sergeants

donal brown July 28, 2009

Troubling questions remain about how such experienced Oakland policemen were killed by a single gunman in March. The police chief is withholding 911 tapes and other documents to flout open government laws and keep the media and others from seeking the truth. -DB The Oakland Tribune Commentary July 26, 2009 By Thomas Peele THE SHOOTING DEATHS of four Oakland police officers in March represented perhaps the most tragic day in the history of California law enforcement.

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New York: Journalists among those blocked from bringing electronic devices into federal court

donal brown July 28, 2009

A New York committee is expected to develop a policy placing severe restrictions on electronic devices in the federal court building, except, of course, those belonging to attorneys. -DB Citizen Media Law Project July 27, 2009 By Eric P. Robinson Attorneys in New York are hot and heavy (or should that be a-Twitter?) over rules being drafted by the Southern District of New York’s Ad Hoc Committee on Cell Phones that may place severe restrictions on

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