UC student government can exclude students
OPEN MEETINGS UCLA student council will limit access to a meeting dealing with a divestment/boycott resolution against Israel—because it can PUBLIC INFORMATION Cal Poly SLO journalism prof sues his...
View ArticleFOIA improvement, Brown Act ruling, mayor’s promises
PUBLIC INFORMATION U.S. Senate’s Judiciary Committee today takes up the Freedom of Information Improvement Act, already passed by the House OPEN MEETINGS Judge rules that Monterey County Supervisors’...
View ArticleYour ideas sought on campaign $ sunshine
The Federal Elections Commission invites you to tell it how to make campaign contribution data more transparent—by January 15. As the Sacramento Bee pointed out in a recent editorial, The six-member...
View ArticleCourt: No basis for short window on records access
The San Diego area’s Fourth District Court of Appeal has concluded that police and sheriff’s departments have no legal authority to restrict public access to the information in crime and arrest reports...
View ArticleCourt: Ambitious public records demand not “frivolous”
The California Court of Appeal for the First District has concluded that an attorney’s overly “aggressive” demands for public records, including a proposal to search officials’ private computers for...
View ArticleYour Nominations Sought for FOI “Foilies”
It rhymes with “doilies” and it means a chance to recognize the most remarkable—but not in a good way—reactions or practices by government agencies in response to requests for information under the...
View ArticleWater Consumption’s No Longer a Private Matter
As of today, with Governor Brown’s emergency water consumption restrictions, the Legislature can no longer justify a law that keeps secret how much water is used by whom. In 1997, the Legislature...
View ArticleCalAware Sues for Asset Forfeiture Records
Californians Aware has filed suit against the City of Baldwin Park for failing to provide access to records showing how it justifies claims for “equitable shares” of cash and property seized by the...
View ArticleSenate Resistance to Sunshine Clashes with Public Poll
A Sacramento judge tentatively ruled last week that the state Senate must provide the press and public with copies of the appointment calendars and travel schedules of two former state senators now...
View ArticlePolice Body Cam Videos Headed for Secrecy
Unless the legislation now brewing in Sacramento to regulate police use of body cameras expressly provides otherwise, the public will seldom see and hear the documentation they gather. The reason:...
View ArticleBill Would Limit, Publicize Youths in Solitary
A bill by Senator Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) aims to reduce the practice of sending detainees under age 18 to solitary confinement, in part by making reports about such placements public records. SB...
View ArticleThanks to the Public Records Act we’ve learned . . .
ENVIRONMENT 300 farm parcels slated for condemnation to make way for Governor Brown’s Delta Tunnels water project SURVEILLANCE Why Stockton (and more than 60 other California cities) have ended the use...
View ArticleBack Away from the Wallet
Highway robbery isn’t—when it’s done by a California police officer or sheriff’s deputy. Instead, it’s called civil asset forfeiture. If you’re caught with large amounts of cash in your vehicle, you...
View ArticleA.G.’s New “Open Justice” Site Helpful, But Only a Start
By Kelly Davis, Guest Contributor Since the early ’90s, the California Department of Justice has allowed public access to data it receives on all deaths that occur in law enforcement custody — jails,...
View ArticlePublic records show how government really works
By Tim Crews Reprinted with permission, The Sacramento Bee "No, you can’t see it.” That refrain is what people unaccustomed to using the California Public Records Act are likely to get from most...
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Our right to know who funds what politics
Bob Stern, godfather of the 41-year-old effort to expose and reduce the corrosive role of money in politics, is working with others to offer California voters their best chance to limit the damage of...
View ArticleGovernor vetoes military surplus transparency
Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. has vetoed AB 36 by Assembly Member Nora Campos (D-San Jose), which would have required local agency governing bodies with authority over law enforcement agencies to...
View ArticleHow private email could neuter the Brown Act
If the California Supreme Court should decide that government officials’ private emails about public business cannot be reached by Public Records Act requests, the Brown Act requirements for open and...
View ArticleFederal FOIA Improvement Act goes to the President
The U.S. Senate yesterday sent to the President, who is widely expected to sign it into law, S. 337, the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Improvement Act of 2016, after years of slow progress and...
View ArticleMore sunshine due on local government executive pay
Governor Brown yesterday (August 22) signed into law, effective January 1, an amendment to the Ralph M. Brown Act requiring local government bodies, prior to voting in open session to approve new pay...
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