News & Opinion

The U.S. Supreme Court rejected an appeal from a New York Times reporter, James Risen, attempting to protect his source in a trial of a former CIA official who allegedly provided classified information to Risen. The rejection leaves in place a federal appeals court decision against Risen. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. indicated that the Justice Department could ask the trial judge in the case to not send Risen to jail if he refuses

The California Supreme Court ruled 6-1 that the public has the right to names of police officers involved in shootings while on duty. The Los Angeles Times filed a lawsuit in 2010 to obtain the names of Long Beach officers involved in a fatal shooting and the names of all city officers involved in on-duty shootings in the previous five years. The police officers association said it was essential to withhold the names as part

A libertarian activist won a ruling in federal appeals court on the right to report a traffic stop in a public place. The activist, Carla Gericke, sued a New Hampshire police department to defend her First Amendment rights after she was arrested for using  her video camera to film a late-night traffic stop. (Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, May 27, 2014, by Kevin Delaney) Eugene Volokh wrote that barring safety issues, a citizen

The Justice Department is asking a federal appeals court for more redactions, beyond those approved in federal court in April, to a legal opinion justifying drone killings . The Obama administration had earlier said they would not appeal the April decision that called for the release of the opinion. (Politico, May 27, 2014, by Josh Gerstein) The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals answered the request by directing the Justice Department to make its case for

A patent troll company failed to convince the D.C. federal appeals court that it should gain access to over 1000 names and addressed of alleged porn downloaders. The company, AF Holdings, was suing to protect its rights to a porno movie that they claimed was illegally downloaded on the Internet. In its decision, the Court called the request for the names and addresses an abuse of the discovery process. (Courthouse News Service, May 28, 2014,