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Editorial: Feds drag heels on releasing records going back as far as World War II

donal brown August 30, 2011

While the Obama administration is making some progress in breaking the backlog of Freedom of Information Act requests, the National Security Archive says that there are still requests that go back over a decade and even to World War II. There are reasons for the slow pace but none that make much sense or could justify a delay of over 60 years. -db From an editorial in The New York Times, August 27, 2011. Full

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WikiLeaks’ unredacted U.S. diplomatic cables show up online

donal brown August 30, 2011

WikiLeaks has once again fueled criticism that it is irresponsible in handling its cache of U.S. diplomatic cables. The cables have surfaced online, unredacted with names of informants and intelligence agents. WikiLeaks denied they leaked the cables, putting the blame elsewhere. “The issue relates to a mainstream media partner and a malicious individual,”  they wrote. -db From Wired, August 29, 2011, by Kim Zetter and Kevin Poulsen. Full story

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California court orders county to disclose data on employee retirement

donal brown August 30, 2011

A California appellate panel held that the California Public Records Act required the Sonoma County Employees’ Retirement Association to release the names and benefits of its members. The association argued that disclosing the information would subject its members to consumer fraud, but the panel rejected that argument. The Santa Rosa Press Democrat had sued for the information. -db From the Metropolitan News-Enterprise, August 30, 2011, by a MetNews Staff Writer. Full story

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Political blogger fails in one of defamation suits over memoir alleging Obama engaged in gay sex

donal brown August 30, 2011

Daniel Parisi, a political blogger, filed a defamation suit against Jeffrey Rense, a radio talk show host who had written a foreword for a twisted memoir by Larry Sinclair claiming President Barack Obama had engaged in gay sex, drug use and murder. A federal district court ruled that Parisi had not made the case that Rense’s foreword had anything to do with the shutdown of his website Whitehouse.com since the book was published months after

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First Amendment victory in federal appeals decision on filming police at work

donal brown August 30, 2011

Police in Massachusetts use the state’s wiretapping law to arrest citizens recording video of arrests and other law enforcement activities. But the First Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled last week that since the recording of an arrest was not done secretly, the wiretapping law did not apply. The court upheld the citizen’s First Amendment right to film a police arrest using what the citizen thought was excessive force. -db From a commentary in techdirt,

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