Search

Categories

Total Results

No Record Found

View All Results
DONATE

News & Opinion

California: Solano County supervisor accuses colleagues of secret meetings on fairgrounds issue

donal brown February 28, 2011

A Solano county supervisor said her colleagues have resorted to back-room meetings to discuss future plans for the Solano County Fairgrounds. She complained that since there were no reports on the issue from the staff for the last six months that secret meetings must have been convened to instruct the staff.  A staff member said there were only two meetings on the issue, both in January and both were properly noticed to the public. -db

Read More »

California: Monrovia wins open meeting law suit

donal brown February 28, 2011

A Superior Court judge ruled that Monrovia had not violated open meetings laws by making changes to public documents in secret before approving revisions to a development project. The judge said the changes were minor so did not violate the letter and the spirit of the Brown Act, the state’s open meeting law. -db From Monrovia Patch, February 21, 2011, by Nathan McIntire. Full Story

Read More »

Free speech: Retired professor held for distributing pamphlets to prospective jurors

donal brown February 28, 2011

Federal prosecutors have indicted a former chemistry professor for jury tampering in distributing pamphlets to prospective jurors urging them to ignore law if they disagree with it and base their verdicts on conscience. Writing in The New York Times, Benjamin Weiser quotes Christopher T. Dunn, associate legal director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, about the pamphleteering, “This is classic political advocacy. Unless the government can show that he’s singling out jurors to influence a

Read More »

Traveling with a laptop: Do your privacy rights end at the border?

FAC February 22, 2011

Your laptop computer and smart phone carry a picture of your digital life: browsing history, pictures, personal files, e-mail. According to the New York Times, U.S. Border Patrol agents find such devices to be a trove of information in their quest to unveil criminal activity. But at what point do these electronic inspections cross the line from valid crime-fighting tool to violation of Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure? The American Civil Liberties

Read More »

Lara Logan story points to need for greater protections for women on assignment

donal brown February 21, 2011

In an opinion piece in Mother Jones, Mac McClelland writes that the dangers women face covering volatile events in distant lands have for various reasons been neglected. The Lara Logan sexual assault in Egypt is but the latest of a number of frightening incidents. McClelland supports current efforts to include a section on sexual harassment and assault in the Committee to Protect Journalist’s “Journalist Safety Guide.” -db From Mother Jones, February 15, 2011, by Mac

Read More »