News & Opinion

The  Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press is launching an aggressive campaign in defense of journalists, for the first time hiring a legal director to bring lawsuits across the U.S. The RCFP is expected to focus on the right of journalists “to monitor government activities.” The move is seen as helping to fill a void as there has been a recent dropoff in cases over access and freedom of information. (Columbia Journalism Review, September

The 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals rejected a bid for an en banc hearing of case brought by Live Oak High School students of Morgan Hill  in North California after the administration kept them from wearing U.S. flag T-shirts on Cinco de Mayo day in 2010. A three-judge panel of the court ruled in February that the administration was acting lawfully given the potential of violence or disruption provoked by the wearing of the

A San Diego nonprofit filed a lawsuit claiming that the City of San Diego was violating the Brown Act, California’s open meeting law, by failing to add or allow non-agenda public comment on Monday agendas thus eliminating public comment. The nonprofit claims that the Brown Act requires public comment for each meeting. (San Diego Reader, September 12, 2014, by Dorian Hargrove) The San Diego city attorney told the city council that they were most likely

A law before California Governor Jerry Brown would require law enforcement agencies to obtain a warrant before dispatching drones for surveillance. The law allows use of drones without warrant in emergencies including fires, hostage crises, chase and search and rescue. There are concerns that drones could be used to monitor protests as suggested by the Alameda County sheriff and potentially used to violate protestors’ First Amendment rights. (CNET, September 12, 2014, by Daniel Terdiman) While

A federal district judge ordered the Justice Department to provide “in camera” review of documents on the no-fly list that the government claims are protected by the state secrets privilege. “…the Court has a particularly strong and heightened institutional responsibility in these circumstances to review and assess the propriety of such executive branch activity since to dismiss this case as the defendants request would, in essence, judicially sanction conduct that has far-reaching implications,” wrote Judge