News & Opinion

California enacted a law preventing paparazzi from using drones to take photos of celebrities. It and another recent bill strengthening an existing law against revenge porn reflect a growing concern by legislators about privacy. (Business Insider, September 30,2014, by Agence France-Presse) Celebrities are taking a more aggressive tack after a number of run-ins with paparazzi trying to take photos of their children. (International Business Times, October 1, 2014, by Jeff Stone) While California Governor Jerry

Freshly declassified documents from the Reagan years shows how the National Security Agency uses unchecked presidential powers to conduct surveillance. Reagan’s Executive Order 12333 is used to collect e-mails of U.S. citizens and to intercept overseas internet traffic between Google and Yahoo data centers. (Ars Technica, September 30, 2014, by Cyrus Farivar) Obtained by the ACLU and the Media Freedom and Information Access Center at Yale, the documents shed light on the process empowering surveillance.

The U.S. Forest Service is restricting media coverage in wilderness areas, forcing reporters to pay for permits and obtain permission to ply their trade. Permits cost $1,500 and failing to get one could bring fines of up to $1000. “The Forest Service needs to rethink any policy that subjects noncommercial photographs and recordings to a burdensome permitting process for something as simple as taking a picture with a cell phone. Especially where reporters and bloggers

A California appeals court ruled that the County of Los Angeles could make contracts for social services without public hearings. The court found that the contracts were made by executive officers not strictly a part of  a legislative agency so consequently the Brown Act, the state’s open government law, did not apply.  (Metropolitan News-Enterprise, September 26, 2014, by a MetNews Staff Writer) The Saugus Union High School board of trustees have been accused of violating