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A first: Size of budget for National Intelligence Program revealed

donal brown February 15, 2011

For the first time, the Director of National Intelligence disclosed the budget request for the coming year’s budget. For 2012, the amount requested is $55 billion. The call for  transparency has had a long history of contentious debate and litigation with the government arguing that revealing the budget could  hurt national security and compromise intelligence methods. From a commentary in Secrecy News, February 15, 2011, by Steven Aftergood. Full Story

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Washington: High school student suspended for abandoning school-approved speech

donal brown February 15, 2011

A high school sophomore from Edmonds, Washington, running for student government, was suspended for a day and a half after he substituted his own speech for a school-approved one. The student had urged students to boycott the election since student government officers were puppets of the teachers and had no real power. The boy’s mother is appealing the suspension to the school board on the grounds that the speech created no disruption at the school.

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Yale and ACLU campaign to stop schools’ censorship of web on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender content

donal brown February 15, 2011

The American Civil Liberties Union and Yale Law School are assessing public high school censorship of  LGBT web content by asking students to report instances of censorship. Reads the release: “Students may not realize that it actually is illegal for their schools to block educational and political content geared toward the LGBT community,” said Joshua Block, staff attorney with the ACLU LGBT Project. “With this initiative, we hope to inform students of their rights, and

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Hazelwood applied to college nursing student’s criticism of classroom practices

donal brown February 15, 2011

A federal judge applied Hazelwood v. Kuhlmeier to a free speech case at the university level much to the dismay of First Amendment advocates. The judge upheld the dismissal of a nursing student at Auburn University at Montgomery for criticizing the nursing school’s disciplinary system. The judge later reconsidered her decision, modifying it to protect criticism of school curriculum and narrowing in on the disruption caused by directly talking back to an instructor during class.

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Parody not funny to conglomerate Koch Industries

donal brown February 15, 2011

The conglomerate Koch Industries is suing Youth for Climate Truth for publishing a fake press release in their name which stated that the company was supporting climate change advocacy. Koch enterprises are minerals, oil and fertilizers. Koch is seeking damages including the cost of correcting the record created by the fake release. Public Citizen, which is defending Youth for Climate Change, said the parody qualified as political speech and protected under the First Amendment. -db

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