10News November 5, 2009 Southwestern College officials are investigation the actions of four professors currently on paid leave after a campus protest over budget cuts.The officials are concerned that the professors incited students to leave the free speech area and disregarded police instructions. -DB
Many California county health officials are discounting arguments that it is in the public interest to know who died from swine flu and refusing to release the records to journalism students from University of Southern California’s Annenberg School of Journalism. In denying the requests, officials cite privacy issues and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, a federal law to keep patients’ health records confidential. -DB Neon Tommy Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism November
Nov 6, 2009—In a case filed by the First Amendment Coalition, the Modesto Bee and the California Newspaper Publishers Association, a California Superior Court has ruled that county governments, upon request, must disclose–by name–their retirees’ pension payments. The Superior Court for Stanislaus County reasoned that the public interest in access to government employees’ pensions outweighs the public interest in protecting the confidentiality of that information. In 2007 the California Supreme Court ruled that government employees’
A federal court of appeals heard arguments this week on whether the government can impose criminal penalties on a man for falsely claiming he served in the military and earned the Congressional Medal of Honor. The man was convicted of violating the Stolen Valor Act which prohibits lying about military service. -DB Metropolitan News-Enterprise November 5, 2009 By Kenneth Ofgang A federal act making it a crime to falsely claim that one holds the Congressional
A federal court of appeals ruled that the City of Santa Cruz could eject a man from a city council meeting for a Nazi salute since the salute contributed to disrupting the meeting. The man’s attorney argued that the salute could not have been disruptive since no one noticed it. -DB Metropolitan News-Enterprise November 4, 2009 By Sherri M. Okamoto A man who was ejected from a city council meeting for giving a Nazi salute in