FAC conducts a program of strategic litigation by initiating “test case” lawsuits to resolve key legal issues in a way that maximizes chances for a favorable outcome, with potentially far-reaching effects.
The city of Los Angeles has agreed it must retain city records for at least two years as part of a settlement agreement reached today with the First Amendment Coalition–a victory for transparency and government accountability in the nation’s second-largest city, and an assurance that the public will have the
The First Amendment Coalition today secured an important victory in its long-running fight with the U.S. Department of Justice to bring to public light legal memos analyzing the use of drone strikes to kill American citizens abroad. In a unanimous ruling, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit held
The First Amendment Coalition today filed a “friend of court” brief in the United States Supreme Court, urging that court to review and reverse a decision by the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals that punished a political candidate for speech that should have been protected under the First Amendment.
FAC recently filed a “friend of court” brief in a California Court of Appeal case addressing an issue of critical importance to the public’s ability to obtain records under the California Public Records Act: should a CPRA requester be required to get a court order—an injunction—to prevent the government from
FAC sues Milpitas for access to information about alleged misconduct by city officials A new lawsuit filed by the First Amendment Coalition against the city of Milpitas highlights the growing use of so-called “reverse California Public Records Act” suits to pre-empt the public’s right of access to information about their
A new lawsuit filed by the First Amendment Coalition against Los Angeles highlights local governments’ all-too-common—and illegal—practice of destroying public records. The suit, filed Thursday in Superior Court for Los Angeles County, focuses on documents that went missing when a termed-out council member, Tom LaBonge, left office in 2015. Thousands