From The Florida Senate: Senate President Don Gaetz (R-Niceville) today announced the appointment of Barbara A. Petersen, President of Florida’s First Amendment Foundation, to a legislative panel that will evaluate and recommend how to provide better public access to state financial records and contracts.
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Read More… from First Amendment expert named to Florida legislative panel on transparency
From Watchdog.org: The most recent congressional threat to the free press in the United States comes from California Democrat U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein.
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Read More… from Sen. Feinstein wants to limit who can be a journalist
From Yahoo! News: The Senate Free Flow of Information Act of 2013 would establish a national “shield law” that would give journalists protection from testifying in situations when investigators want the sources of confidential information used in media reports.
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Read More… from Senators ponder if bloggers deserve First Amendment protection
From Miami Herald: Public bodies in South Carolina cannot use the Freedom of Information Act to justify decisions not to release records or hold open meetings, the state's highest court ruled Wednesday.
In a 3-2 decision, the state Supreme Court ruled that a circuit judge should not have allowed the South Carolina Association of School Administrators to argue that open records requirements harmed its members' free speech rights.
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Read More… from S.C. Supreme Court rules public bodies cannot say FOIA hurts speech
Opinion from the First Amendment Center: An irony of timing twice has put U.S. Army Pfc. Bradley Manning in the headlines at critical moments in gaining congressional approval of a federal shield law that would protect journalists and their confidential sources.
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Read More… from Gene Policinski: Second try at a shield law echoes the first
By Gene Policinski, senior vice president and executive director of the First Amendment Center, via Pocono Record:
The First Amendment protects our free speech from government control, punishment or interference — but when public officials speak freely through private e-mail accounts or mobile phones, are they free to ignore freedom of information laws?
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Read More… from Can public business ever be ‘private’ conversation?
From Standard-Examiner, this opinion piece from Gene Policinski at the First Amendment Center:
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Read More… from What is at stake in publishing public records such as gun permits
Remarks from NFOIC's executive director, Kenneth F. Bunting, at the 2012 MizzouDiversity Summit on the University of Missouri-Columbia campus:
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From Reuters:
Delaware's push to expand the state's legal industry was dealt a blow on Thursday when a federal judge ruled its high-profile Court of Chancery judges could not preside over arbitration proceedings that are closed to the public.
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Read More… from U.S. judge bars Delaware’s Court of Chancery secret arbitrations
From our friends at Project on Government Oversight (POGO):
Dear Senator:
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Read More… from Oppose the anti-speech policy in the Intelligence Authorization bill
