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Governor signs FAC-sponsored access bill

[…] Amendment Coalition Executive Director Peter Scheer wrote, The (anti-SLAPP) Legislature never meant to expose plaintiffs in litigation under these open- government laws to the risk of liability for a government agency’s attorney’s fees merely because they end up on the losing side. That risk is so great it will deter virtually all plaintiffs, no […]

August 10, 2009
Posts

FAC Urges California Courts to Ensure Public Access Amid COVID-19 Emergency

[…] barriers to access judicial records and proceedings. The coalition makes a number of recommendations: First, telephonic hearings must be conducted on conference lines that make some allowance for free public usage. And dial-in information must be readily available to the public in advance of the hearing.Second, criminal proceedings, such as arraignments and sentencing, that […]
- Government Transparency and Accountability
March 25, 2020
Posts

FAC Joins Coalition Urging SF Mayor to Restore Rights Under Sunshine Ordinance

[…] to receive documents and information exchanged during contract negotiations, nor the right to a response to a Public Records Act request unimpeded by the often abused 'catch-all' exemption from disclosure found in Government Code section 6255, to combat this public health emergency. In fact, the Sunshine Ordinance section expressly forbids 'assert(ing) an exemption for […]
- Government Transparency and Accountability
April 20, 2020
Posts

First Amendment

FAC Urges Court to Reject Attorney’s Attempt to Censor Vallejo News Site

On January 25, the Vallejo Sun published "Vallejo officer fired for Willie McCoy shooting had history of complaints before joining Vallejo police," a story that details former Vallejo police officer Ryan McMahon's history of misconduct complaints at other police departments before joining the Vallejo Police Department in 2017. McMahon is currently in arbitration to […]
- Press Freedom
January 27, 2024
Posts

FAC Opposes Legislation That Would Harm Your Right to Know

[…] opposition letter sent to lawmakers. Join us in opposing this measure that would take California in the wrong direction. Note: Link will take you to the website for Alliance for Californians for Community Empowerment, which has set up a one-click way to raise your voice Make your voice heard this week, while the budget […]
- Government Transparency and Accountability
June 21, 2023
Posts

First Amendment

Brown vetoes bill limiting cellphone searches by police
- Government Transparency and Accountability
October 11, 2011
Latest News

Blog

Why the doom-and-gloom about the settlement in the Wen Ho Lee case? Under the circumstances, this deal is a victory for the press

[…] in a settlement of an invasion of privacy lawsuit filed by Wen Ho Lee, an atomic scientist once suspected of espionage. Lee had sued the federal government for its leaking of damaging information about him to the press, which, in a flurry of articles in 1998, had rushed to the apparently premature judgment of […]
- Press Freedom
June 2, 2009
Latest News

Blog Cases

Victory: California Appeal Court Orders Records Unsealed

[…] make the required statutory findings, but because less restrictive means exist to protect respondent’s private medical information and the identity of third parties," Justice Victoria Chavez wrote for the panel. As part of FAC's long-standing commitment to enforcing the public's right to know, it teamed up with EFF and First Amendment scholar Eugene Volokh […]
- Government Transparency and Accountability
April 15, 2020
Latest News

Blog

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