Peter Scheer

BY PETER SCHEER–Despite the dysfunction in Washington, Congress occasionally surprises with a modest piece of legislation that points the way for California and many other states. So it is with a 2014 Federal Records Act amendment which addresses this question: Suppose a federal employee, using his own personal text or email account, sends a message that is clearly about government business? The Federal Records Act amendment, at section 2911, says that the employee is now

BY PETER SCHEER–Local government, Republicans and Democrats agree, is the most democratic (with a small d) form of government. The closer government is to the people, the theory goes, the more accountable it is to voters and the more responsive to the public will. Congress is the most remote, hence least accountable; your local city council is the closest, therefore most attuned to your needs and interests. Except in California and several other states where

BY PETER SCHEER–Freedom of speech suffered a serious blow when, last May, the European Union’s highest court, in the so-called “Right to be Forgotten” decision,  ruled that Google must remove search results that infringe individual citizens’ privacy rights under EU law. A first amendment red line had been crossed. A major publisher of information–which is what Google, in its search business, most emphatically is–had been directed by government authorities to censor its content. But the

BY PETER SCHEER—Video journalists and documentary filmmakers can breathe easier because of the suspension of a recent appeals court decision that interpreted federal copyright law in a way that might have handed a censor’s power to the subjects of interviews. The case, Garcia v. Google,  concerns  “Innocence of Muslims,” a highly inflammatory film—actually, a 13-minute movie trailer—-that was posted to YouTube in 2012. Intended to shock and offend, the Islamophobic video depicts the prophet Muhammad