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Settlement in Database Access Suit Announced
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June 17, 2009
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Showing 1401 - 1410 of 1858 results
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Secret Docket Revealed: FAC Wins Cal Supreme Court Rulings Unsealing Clemency Files
[…] courts are generally presumed to be available to the public. In order to seal such documents from public view, courts are required to determine, on a case- by-case basis, whether the high legal standard for sealing has been met. The court’s recent rulings require Governor Newsom to follow that process. He must submit previously […]September 16, 2019
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Regulators analyzing MediaNews’ acquisition…
[…] with the Justice Department or Federal Trade Commission in such "pre-merger reviews" are traditionally confidential, let’s hope that McClatchy, MediaNews and Hearst, which are all in the business of making information public, will elect to tell their readers what they are telling government regulators. Peter Scheer, a lawyer and journalist, is Executive Director of CFAC.June 2, 2009
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Reader-comments sections of news websites needn’t be cesspools. Editors should EDIT comments as they would letters-to-the-editor.
[…] remove the need to edit comments for length, it does not diminish the obligation to edit for substance. The First Amendment insulates news organizations from interference by government in their editorial decisions. The independence thus established includes the right, under the Constitution, to control all content published on a paper’s pages or its website. […]March 5, 2010
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Prop 8 Supreme Court hearing is best evidence yet for allowing cameras into the courtroom
By Peter Scheer The California Supreme Court's hearing yesterday in the Prop 8 case--broadcast live over the internet via streaming video--erased any doubt about the wisdom of allowing cameras into the nation's courts. Let's hope US Supreme Court Justices David Souter, Stephen Breyer, Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas were watching the […]June 3, 2009
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Police Failed to Tell Judge of Bryan Carmody’s Status as Journalist Before Obtaining Warrant, Unsealed Records Show
[…] department’s extreme overreach here, the more the city’s violation of California and federal law becomes obvious. There must be accountability, at the highest levels of San Francisco government, for this trampling on journalists’ rights. Judge East on July 18 ordered police to publicly release the search warrant application, which police used to collect call […]July 23, 2019
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Pardon Power and Your Right to Know
[…] the court records generated when the governor recommends clemency for those twice convicted of felonies — a specific category of people whose applications are subject to oversight by the California Supreme Court — have been routinely filed in total secrecy.That means documents that would help all of us understand the decision-making of both the […]September 18, 2021
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Op-Ed: Passing SB 16 Will Bring Transparency to Police Misconduct
[…] California Senate Bill 16, which would expand the types of police misconduct records that would be subject to disclosure under the Public Records Act. The bill, authored by state Sen. Nancy Skinner, builds on a measure FAC strongly supported in 2018, "The Right to Know Act," or SB 14, a landmark law that improved […]June 9, 2021
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One judge’s brilliant (and hilarious) rejoinder to lawyers trying to cut off public access to court documents
[…] for the public’s interest in access and openness. The other driver of over-sealing is the conviction, bordering on fetishism, among lawyers representing corporations that every bit and byte of information about their client, no matter how obvious, widely known, or inconsequential, must be sealed because it is so sensitive that disclosure will imperil the […]August 25, 2015
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On Access: The First Amendment Crisis You Probably Haven’t Heard About
The decline of proactive litigation by news organizations has had a profound negative effect on the public’s access to information. Anyone who follows the media knows that a seismic shift is underway in the way Americans produce and consume journalism. The financial decline of the legacy media has been exhaustively documented — its causes, […]January 13, 2020