Rating the leading Presidential candidates on First Amendment issues. And the winner is .  .  .

By Peter Scheer

Voters generally don’t pick a presidential candidate on the basis of a single issue--nor should they. But with the presidential campaign accelerating toward potentially decisive primaries in the next few weeks, it’s worth considering how the leading contenders compare in their commitment to First Amendment rights.

All political leaders are champions of free speech and open-government--in a vacuum. The real question is how they would balance those principles against competing interests in decisions involving issues…

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Acting globally and locally: From internet censorship in China to a TRO against Atherton, CA

By Peter Scheer

This is to update CFAC supporters on our latest efforts to stir up trouble on behalf of First Amendment freedoms. I’m pleased to report that CFAC has managed to create a whole lot of trouble, both globally and locally, in the last 2 months.

First globally: CFAC has initiated a proceeding that will attempt to use international trade laws to force the government of China to end its censorship of the internet. In a submission and…

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Anonymous speech, although constitutionally protected, is mostly digital graffiti. Freedom of expression means taking responsibility for what you write.

By Peter Scheer

A Chinese blogger, defying a government censorship decree, publishes information about the crash of a military transport plane. Another blogger, an Egyptian, posts photos of the scarred body of a teenager who was tortured by Egyptian police.

Both bloggers are anonymous.

No one can doubt these speakers’ need to hide their identities. Their internet postings are in the venerable tradition of the Federalist Papers and other revolutionary pamphlets and manifestos…

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Readers respond to article criticizing anonymous postings

Amen.

-Mark Baird Alameda CA
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The author reveals to us that his name is Peter Scheer and he works for something called the California First Amendment Coalition. However we do not know who financed and established the organization or whether the author represents a client, or who that client may be. I suspect he does in fact represent a client organization that he is reluctant to reveal because if readers knew the identity of his client we may somehow disapprove. It is odd that…

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2007 Open Government Legislative Roundup:  Some successes and some failures

By Nick Rahaim

The 2007 legislative session started with a host of promising bills that would have created more transparency and would have reversed recent judicial and Attorney General opinions permitting excessive secrecy.  There were some successes and some disappointments.  The major disappointment was the failure to overturn the 2006 state Supreme Court decision in Copley Press v. Superior Court, which effectively sealed all police disciplinary records. The major success was legislation creating more oversight and accountability for the UC Regents’ and CSU Trustees’ executive pay…

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CFAC Names Six Award Winners, One Big Loser

CFAC, San Rafael, CA-- The late Chauncey Bailey, jailed videoblogger Josh Wolf, New America Media executive director Sandy Close, AP reporter Martha Mendoza, and legislators Gloria Romero and Mark Leno are among the recipients of awards given by the California First Amendment Coalition (CFAC) at the organization’s Free Speech and Open Government Assembly held at the Annenberg School for Communication in Los Angeles. 

The awards are given in recognition of an individual’s or organization’s courage and commitment to First Amendment principles.

Chauncey Bailey
The…

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In their handling of controversy surrounding Chemerinsky and Summers, UC’s leaders showed themselves unable or unwilling to defend academic freedom

By Peter Scheer

The best that can be said about the University of California’s leaders is that they are neutral in their spinelessness:  in the face of political pressure, they are quick to surrender the university’s academic freedom--its lifeblood—whether that pressure comes from the ideological right or the left.

From the right, UC-Irvine was criticized for its hiring of law professor Erwin Chemerinsky, a liberal, as the dean…

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Watershed CA Supreme Court decision is major win for government transparency. A stunning end to the media’s 20-year losing streak in high court access cases.

By Peter Scheer

America’s highest courts are justly criticized for avoiding hard issues. The judicial fetish for deciding cases on the narrowest possible grounds yields opinions so limited and unambitious in scope that they often raise more questions, and generate more legal disputes, than they resolve.

Exceptions are the rare court decisions that, by boldly staking out broad and enduring legal principles, sweep away…

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It starts again: A Washington, DC judge has ordered 5 journalists to name their confidential sources for stories about the anthrax letters of 2001

By Peter Scheer

Just when you thought it was safe again for journalists to talk to confidential sources inside government, a federal judge in Washington, DC has ordered five prominent reporters---Allan Lengel of the Washington Post; Michael Isikoff and Daniel Klaidman, both of Newsweek; Toni Locy, formerly of USA Today; and James Stewart of CBS News---to disclose the names of government sources to whom they promised confidentiality.

The order comes…

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Call for Nominations for Annual Bill Farr Award

The California First Amendment Coalition and the California Society of Newspaper Editors are seeking nominations for the 2007 Bill Farr Award, given each year to an individual or group for exemplary work to further principles of free speech, free press and public access to government.

The award is given in honor of former Los Angeles Herald Examiner reporter Bill Farr, who went to jail in 1971 after refusing to reveal the names of confidential sources for his reporting on the infamous Charles Manson case.

Deadline for…

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