COMMENTARY
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
Judge Walker’s decision in the NSA surveillance case reflects a growing distrust in the federal judiciary of the Bush administration’s expansion of executive power
By Peter Scheer Three cheers for Vaughn Walker. Vaughn who? you ask. Until very recently, he was also unknown to lawyers and policy makers in the White House. But on July 20 the unassuming chief judge of the federal district court in San Francisco dropped a judicial bomb. In a suit against AT&T for alleged collaboration in the National Security Agency’s warrantless wiretapping and…
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Posted in: News & Opinion
COMMENTARY
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
Illegal immigrants have access rights too. The benefits of the Brown Act and Public Records Act do not depend on citizenship. By Peter Scheer California’s open government laws--the Brown Act and the Public Records Act, primarily--are often said to vindicate the “people’s right to know” about their government. And indeed they do. But this formulation begs the question: which “people” exactly? At the country’s founding, seemingly universalist references to “the people” actually meant a minority of the population: white men who owned land. Today, to be sure, the term is more inclusive with respect…
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Posted in: News & Opinion
CFAC on NPR
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
Take the Fifth CFAC’s Peter Scheer is interviewed by NPR’s Alex Chadwick about the 5th Amendment’s privilege against self-incrimination as a possible defense for reporters facing subpoenas in criminal “leak” investigations---the subject of an article recently published on Slate.com. The 5th Amendment may offer an additional defense, not a substitute for 1st Amendment defenses, Scheer says. Listen to the interview.
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Posted in: CFAC In The News
NEWS
Monday, July 03, 2006
New Study Finds Commercial Uses of Federal FOI Outpace Requests by Journalists, non-profits and all Others July 3, 2006 CJOG--The federal Freedom of Information Act, which turns 40 on Tuesday, July 4, is a critical tool for businesses seeking government information and companies conducting competitive research. A new analysis of FOIA use showed that about two-thirds of the requests to 20 departments and agencies were from commercial requesters. The study also showed FOIA use by the media is considerably less than conventional wisdom would have one believe. The report by the Coalition…
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Posted in: News & Opinion
COMMENTARY
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
Thanks to AG’s threats to indict press in leak cases, reporters need not rely on 1st Amendment to protect sources. They can take the Fifth. By Peter Scheer Our Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales, has stated publicly that he believes journalists may be prosecuted under federal espionage laws for publishing articles based on leaks of classified information. The comments, in an ABC News interview, were directed at the New York Times (for its disclosures about NSA’s warrantless eavesdropping) and the Washington Post (for stories about foreign countries’ assistance in the CIA’s use of “extraordinary rendition"). He…
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Posted in: News & Opinion
COMMENTARY
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
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 By Peter Scheer “Deeply troubling.” “Profoundly disturbing.” “A huge disappointment.” So intoned various media law mavens in lamenting the decision of the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, ABC News, Washington Post and Associated Press to join 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…
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Posted in: News & Opinion
COMMENTARY
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
Wanted by the FBI: Journalists’ phone records showing calls to and from confidential sources. By Peter Scheer Last week two reporters for ABC News reported that the FBI had secretly obtained their phone records—showing whom they had called and who had called them—in order to identify a confidential source as part of an apparent leak investigation. Neither ABC nor the reporters, Brian Ross and Richard Esposito, had an opportunity to go to court and try to block the government’s access to the phone records—by the time they found out what the government was up to (which,…
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Posted in: News & Opinion
Dan Gillmor Joins CFAC Board
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
Dan Gillmor, a pioneer of journalism on and about the Internet, is the newest member of CFAC’s board of directors. Gillmor is currently director of the Center for Citizen Media, a joint project of UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism and the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School. Gillmor was a technology columnist at the San Jose Mercury News from 1994 to 2004. He is the author of We the Media: Grassroots Journalism by the People, a 2004 book that is widely credited as the first comprehensive look at how the collision of technology and…
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Posted in: News & Opinion
Regulators analyzing MediaNews’ acquisition…
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
Regulators analyzing MediaNews’ acquisition of the San Jose Merc, CC Times and Monterey Herald will focus on role of Hearst, owner of SF Chronicle. Will publishers disclose their secret antitrust filings? By Peter Scheer The MediaNews Group, which proposes to buy the 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…
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Posted in: News & Opinion
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