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US relaxes gag order, permitting Google, Facebook et al to disclose scope of NSA access. But what if the firms don’t know the extent of NSA access?

[…] NSA requests resulting in access to companies' user data, including access to user content (e.g., emails). This week the companies made the newly okayed disclosures. They revealed, for the period January to June of 2013, that . . . -Google provided content on somewhere between 9,000-9,999 accounts. -Yahoo provided content on somewhere between 30,000-30,999 […]
- Government Transparency and Accountability
February 4, 2014
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Advocacy Blog

Update on open-government legislative proposals in Sacramento

AB 1978 AB 1978, a Bill that would have closed public access to ‘basemap’ data for Geographic Information Systems (GIS), put forth by Assemblymember Jose Solorio, was dropped after opposition from the GIS/GeoData and freedom of information communities. GIS "basemap" data is used to create the base layer for all local computer mapping. The […]
- Government Transparency and Accountability
June 6, 2009
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Trumping Trump: California’s Attack on the First Amendment

[…] authoritarian tendencies. Unless you favor press freedoms and the First Amendment. On that front, the Land of the #Resistance has felt, of late, like a proving ground for Trump’s "enemy of the American people" mantra against the press. First, there was Becerra’s deeply disturbing and only-slightly-veiled threat to prosecute journalists who lawfully received a […]
- Free Expression
- Press Freedom
May 21, 2019
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Tracy case tests the power of government officials to avoid disclosure of their emails on public business

[…] accepted by the courts, would convert California’s Public Records Act into its opposite, an Official Secrecy Act. Elected officials and public employees would use official email accounts for proclamations, resolutions, press releases and other official drivel intended for public consumption, while switching to their personal yahoo accounts, insulated from public attention, for everything else--which […]
- Government Transparency and Accountability
June 2, 2009
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Blog Cases

Successful outcome in FAC suit pulls back curtain on “deliberative process”

[…] Judge Paul Haakenson sided with FAC and Schnapf. The court held that each document had to be considered on its own and that there was no blanket exemption for supervisors' notes or preliminary drafts. "'The deliberative process privilege does not justify nondisclosure of a document merely because it was the product of an […]
- Government Transparency and Accountability
August 23, 2015
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Short Takes: government email, historical police records, fee awards against requesters

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 […]
- Government Transparency and Accountability
January 21, 2015
Latest News

Regulators analyzing MediaNews’ acquisition…

[…] San Jose Mercury News, Contra Costa Times, Monterey Herald, and 30 Bay Area weekly newspapers, is paying a 20% premium over the price that McClatchy paid Knight-Ridder for these same publications less than two months ago. Antitrust regulators in the U.S. Justice Department, who must decide whether to go to court to try to […]

June 2, 2009
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Cases Press Release

Public Records Lawsuit Seeks Transparency at San José City Hall

[…] ways. And it cites numerous instances when the city improperly withheld a range of records, blacked out information without adequate justification and failed to conduct thorough searches for records that would shine more light on the city’s interactions with lobbyists and special interests. As an example of the city’s flagrant disregard for its transparency […]
- Government Transparency and Accountability
February 3, 2022
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PLAYING HIDE AND SEEK WITH PUBLIC RECORDS

By Karl Olson It’s not unusual for newspapers, or lawyers in Public Records Act or Freedom of Information Act cases, to accuse the government of trying to "hide" things. Now a San Bernardino County case has revealed what may be a criminal attempt at hiding public records, just in time for a Fourth of […]
- Government Transparency and Accountability
June 3, 2009
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Newspaper finance crisis: Nonprofit model no panacea but may be part of the answer

[…] authorizes newspapers to operate as nonprofits but clarifies that the ban on political endorsements would apply to such restructured news media. Still, if Congress can make an exemption for Major League Baseball to the anti-trust laws, it could exempt nonprofit news agencies from the prohibitions on endorsing political candidates. Whether as nonprofits or for-profits, […]

June 3, 2009