Archive

A new reporter's shield law, the Free Flow of Information Act, has been introduced in Congress. It would protect a broader group of people than earlier versions, including bloggers. It covers anyone engaged in journalism, such as gathering, preparing, collecting, photographing, recording, writing, editing, reporting or publishing of news or information. Read More

What was the Copley Press decision and what did it do?On August 29, 2006, the California Supreme Court in Copley Press v. Superior Court held that records of an administrative appeal of sustained misconduct charges are confidential and may not be disclosed to the public. The decision prevents the public from learning the extent to which police officers have been disciplined as a result of miscondu... Read More

The City of Fairfield and ten families adopted a settlement agreement yesterday providing for comprehensive new policies to address police conduct on school campuses. This agreement resolved a March 2, 2007 incident when the Fairfield police came onto the campus of Rodriguez High School and rounded-up a group of innocent students, accusing them of being gang members. Read More

Sacramento – The state Senate today voted to restore public access to records and public hearings related to complaints about police misconduct.In a 22 to 11 vote, the Senate approved SB 1019, overturning the state Supreme Court’s Aug. 29, 2006 decision in Copley Press v. San Diego, which blocked public access to records about police complaints and effectively stopped police commissions from... Read More

Google's new Street View service, which allows users of Google Maps to view and navigate street-level images may help some people get around, but it raises serious privacy concerns for individuals who are unwittingly captured by Google's candid cameras. Several websites have already taken up the sport of posting links to snapshots of the streets preserved by Google's camera vans. ... Read More

Today we filed a federal lawsuit against Jeppesen Dataplan, Inc., a subsidiary of Boeing Company. We are suing on behalf of three victims of the United States government’s unlawful “extraordinary rendition” program—a program where terror suspects are flown to countries where the U.S. government knows detainees are routinely tortured or otherwise abused in violation of universally accepted legal st... Read More

SAN FRANCISCO – The national American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Northern California today filed a federal lawsuit against San Jose-based Jeppesen Dataplan, Inc., a subsidiary of Boeing Company, on behalf of three victims of the United States government’s unlawful “extraordinary rendition” program. The suit charges that Jeppesen knowingly provided direct flight services to the... Read More

The blogosphere is buzzing with commentary about Facebook's announcement that the social networking site is opening its doors to third-party developers. The newly announced feature, Facebook Platform, allows third-party developers (including heavyweights like Microsoft and Amazon.com) to create their own applications to provide Facebook's users with enhanced functionality, such as the... Read More

The Identity Information Protection Act (SB 30), the first bill in the country to require privacy and security protections for the use of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags in state government-issued ID's passed the California State Senate this morning with a strong bipartisan vote of 33-2. Today's vote was an even more emphatic message to Governor Schwarzenegger that the priv... Read More

Earlier this week, the U.S. military ordered troops to stop posting to blogs and sending personal emails without getting clearance. More information here. And the regulations here. Now, the Defense Department is claiming that barring military troops from using social networking, video sharing, and other "recreational" sites such as YouTube and MySpace on military computers is purely a... Read More