News & Opinion

The Los Angeles County district attorney exonerated Cerritos Mayor Pro-Tem Carol Chen after a citizen contended that she and other council members held a private meeting with other local elected officials to plan ways to oppose an improvement bond by a local school district. The district attorney questioned the propriety of the meeting but found no Brown Act violation in that there were no majorities of any elected body at the meeting. (Los Cerritos News,

California newspaper interests are suing the state Senate to obtain calendar entries of two recently indicted senators. Leland Yee, D-San Francisco, is changed with a number of offenses including public corruption and weapons trafficking. Ron Calderon, D-Montebello, has also been indicted for multiple offenses among them wire fraud, bribery and money laundering. (Contra Costa Times, July 31, 2014, by Matthias Gafni) Requests for the information were filed under the Legislative Open Records Act and rejected

The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the Florida law banning doctors from discussing gun safety with patients.The judge writing for the majority in the 2-1 decision said that discussions of guns were irrelevant and invaded patients’ privacy. The ACLU claimed that the law violates the free speech rights of doctors to discuss a crucial public health issue. (Space Coast Daily, July 31, 2014, by Dr. James Palermo) Writing in the Miami Herald, Helen Aguirre

Iran arrested Jason Rezaian, a Washington Post reporter, last week. The Iranians did not offer much information on the reasons for Rezaian’s arrest saying that he was detained for questioning. Rezaaian who holds U.S.-Iranian dual citizenship was detained with his Iranian wife also a reporter. (The Washington Post, July 25, 2014, by Ernesto Londono and William Branigin) Iran is notorious for jailing journalists, some jailed even dying from torture. While Iran is not saying much about

When journalists do online investigations of perhaps the National Security Agency, they are without realizing it allowing the NSA to know their identity.  Kevin Gallagher of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, July 28, 2014, suggests that journalists should protect their anonymity by using the Tor Browser or a Virtual Private Network (VPN) when working on stories online. Journalists enjoying the mobile apps that allow them to record phone calls need to know that when