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Mexican citizens held for ‘Twitter terrorism’

donal brown September 13, 2011

Two Mexican citizens were arrested in Veracruz for  reporting on Twitter something they heard,  that a drug gang had attacked a primary school and conducted a kidnapping. It turns out that the report was untrue and caused a panic and over twenty car accidents as parents rushed to get their kids out of class. The government blamed the two for causing the panic and charged them with terrorism that carries a sentence of two to

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MediaNews, Denver Post drop copyright troll Righthaven

donal brown September 13, 2011

The CEO of MediaNews Group declared it “a dumb idea” to sign up with the copyright troll Righthaven. Righthaven was founded over a year ago to make money by buying copyrights from news outlets then suing for copyright infringement. Courts have recently ruled that the Righthaven agreements with the media did not actually result in true acquisition of the copyrights so Righthaven had no standing to sue for copyright infringement. -db From Wired, September 8,

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Chicago Tribune censors ‘Doonesbury’

donal brown September 13, 2011

The Chicago Tribune has admitted that they are removing the comic strip “Doonesbury” over its depiction of maybe-presidential candidate Sarah Palin. The Tribune claims they are doing it out of “fairness” since the strip contains excerpts from a book not yet on the market and unavailable to the Tribune for verification. Sounds suspect. Is verification necessary before the fact? Can’t the readers all view the strip in the Tribune then wait for the book on

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A&A: Budget committee meets behind closed doors

FAC September 13, 2011

Q: Our county budget committee meets behind closed doors and keeps no written records of meetings. County staff says it’s OK because the budget committee is an ad hoc committee. They say they can designate ANY committee as an ad hoc committee and meet behind closed doors. A: Government Code section 54952(b) contains the definition of agencies that are covered by the Brown Act: “A commission, committee, board or other body of a local agency,

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‘Stolen valor’ transgressions rile public

donal brown September 12, 2011

Few issues get the American public as perturbed as some fellow citizen, many pillars of their communities, claiming to have fought in Iraq or Afghanistan and to have received a military award for valor. So far the courts have ruled that laws punishing the deadbeats violate the First Amendment right to free speech. The U.S. Supreme Court may rule soon on the constitutionality of the federal Stolen Valor Act passed in 2006. The court has

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