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Texas governor tries to block selected members of media from his Twitter account

donal brown March 1, 2011

Texas Governor Rick Perry has blocked Dallas News’ Tom Benning from access to his Twitter account along with two other Texas journalists. In AllTwitter, Lauren Dugan notes that to get to the Twitter account, the blocked journalists can simply use someone else’s account. But Twitter users are upset that Perry is violating Twitter’s open spirit. -db From a commentary in AllTwitter, February 28, 2011, by Lauren Dugan. Full Story

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Public interest group sues CIA for violating FOIA

donal brown March 1, 2011

National Security Counselors of Virginia has filed three lawsuits against the Central Intelligence Agency for its failure to comply with the Freedom of Information Act. The violations include failing to provide unclassified information and treating all training materials, guidelines and reference materials provided by CIA FOIA analysts as exempt regardless of content. -db From a commentary in Unredacted, February 28, 2011, by Nate Jones. Full Story

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Supreme Court rules no FOIA privacy exemption for corporations

donal brown March 1, 2011

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that corporations cannot use the person privacy exemption of the Freedom of Information Act. In an 8-0 decision, the court said that AT&T could not block the Federal Communications Commission from releasing government records pertaining to AT&T on grounds it would violate the corporation’s “personal privacy.” In his decision, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that the word “personal” often means just the opposite of business-related, “We speak of personal expenses

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Espionage Act challenged by defense in trial of former CIA officer

donal brown February 28, 2011

Secrecy News’ Steven Aftergood says the federal government has once again seen how awkward it is to use the Espionage Act to indict its employees, in this case Jeffrey A. Sterling, a former CIA officer, for allegedly disclosing classified information to the press. Aftergood says, “An initial difficulty for the prosecution is that the espionage statute cited against Mr. Sterling (18 USC 793) concerns the protection of ‘national defense information.’ It does not mention ‘classified

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Media Bloggers Association criticizes Righthaven in amicus brief

donal brown February 28, 2011

The Media Bloggers Association has asked a federal judge in Nevada to award only minimal damages and no lawyer’s fees to Righthaven who is suing a blogger for violating copyright in publishing an article from the Las Vegas Review-Journal on his website. The lawyers for the bloggers argued in the brief that the damages asked, $150,000, and $1,850 in lawyer’s fees were excessive in light of nature of the alleged infringement. -db From a commentary

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