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Commentary
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
CFAC files suit in affirmative action case to defend researcher’s academic freedom and oppose State Bar’s claim that it is above the law of access
By Peter Scheer
Richard Sander, a highly regarded UCLA law professor and statistician, is conducting research with important implications for higher education. To complete the research, which has been the subject of many scholarly articles and intense academic interest, he needs access to a California government database.
So why has the State Bar, which controls the database, denied Sander and his research team access to the records? Because Sander’s…
CFAC, scholars sue CA State Bar for access to records on affirmative action
A debate about the effects of affirmative action in higher education has moved from the classroom to the courtroom following the filing today of a lawsuit against the State Bar of California to force it to disclose years of statistical records on bar exam results. The records are sought for an academic research project that will test the controversial theory that affirmative action policies at law schools harm the very minority students they are intended to help. The State Bar has blocked access to the…
Security plans for the Democratic convention in Denver must be changed to make room for dissent
By Benjamin Grant Ladner
The upcoming Democratic National Convention inspires optimism among many advocates for free-speech and open government; an Obama presidency, should it come to pass, is seen as a welcome opportunity to redraw the balance between government secrecy and accountability. That optimism, however, must be tempered by what stands to go on outside of the convention, in the Pepsi Center’s parking lot and on the streets of Denver.
The Denver Police Department and the federal Secret…
Foreign media at Olympics urged to press home governments to demand China lift internet censorship
(CFAC, 8/1/08) A free speech organization leading a legal challenge to China’s internet-censorship has called on news media covering the Olympics to demand that China tear down “The Great Firewall"--the elaborate system of filters blocking access to online content deemed objectionable by government censors.
The California First Amendment Coalition, which has petitioned the US Trade Representative to contest China’s censorship as a restraint on international commerce that violates free trade rules, urged news organizations to demand that their own governments, as…
Judge Kozinski, controversial conservative and free speech supporter, to speak at Oct. 18 Assembly
Acclaimed--and controversial--jurist Alex Kozinski, Chief Judge of the US Court of Appeals (for the Ninth Circuit), will be the featured speaker at CFAC’s 2008 Free Speech and Open Government Assembly at UC Berkeley. He will speak on Saturday, Oct 18.
Judge Kozinski, appointed to the Court of Appeals by President Reagan (when Kozinski was all of 35!), is a favorite of the conservative legal establishment, but also a champion of First Amendment rights.
On Independence Day 2008, words to remember from Independence Day 1776:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed”
The full text: When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to…
Don’t pass new laws to try to curb the abuses of paparazzi. To force the paparazzi to clean up their act, turn the cameras on them.
By Peter Scheer
You know summer is here when hordes of paparazzi descend, locust-like, on southern California beaches, angering locals as they pursue money-shots of sun-tanning celebrities---while politicians, seeing an opportunity for self-promotion, promise new laws to tame the unruly photogs.
It has become a political rite of summer: Paparazzi behave badly, and elected officials suspend their…
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 July reminder about the importance of access to information about government.
San Bernardino County officials June 30 arrested Adam Aleman, a 25-year-old assistant assessor in that county. Aleman was charged with six felony…
California First Amendment Coalition to Tell Congressional Commission that China’s Internet Censorship Violates WTO Treaties
CFAC, June 16, 2008--The California First Amendment Coalition (CFAC) will testify before a Congressional commission this week concerning the Chinese government’s system of internet censorship, which CFAC is challenging as a violation of free trade treaties enforced by the World Trade Organization (WTO).
The hearings on “Access to Information and Media Control in the People’s Republic of China” are being held Wednesday, June 18, in Washington, DC, before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission,…
Will All Judges Who Have Viewed Porn Please Stand Up?
By Peter Scheer
As the whole world now knows, federal appeals court judge Alex Kozinski has looked at pornography and has stored some pornographic files on a personal, nonpublic website. This revelation, and the invasion of privacy that it entails, are apparently justified by the fact that Kozinski is currently presiding, as a temporary trial judge, over a high-profile obscenity prosecution in Los Angeles. Judge Kozinski
Before this public flogging of a gifted jurist proceeds much further, let’s stop to consider that…
Judge Kozinski 
