Massachusetts Considering Strengthening Open Meetings Law

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Robert Ambrogi reports that:

The Massachusetts legislature's Joint Committee on State Administration and Regulatory Oversight today held a hearing on a number of open government bills and both the Senate and House chairs of the committee indicated support for measures that would add "teeth" to the law. In my capacity as executive director of the Massachusetts Newspaper Publishers Association, I testified in support of House Bill 3217, an MNPA-drafted bill that would allow fines against individual board members who violate the law and allow recovery of attorneys' fees by private citizens who bring actions to enforce the law.

Let's hope the Massachusetts legislature follows through on this. While state open meetings laws can provide useful leverage in the battle to get access to the workings of government, they typically lack any real enforcement mechanisms. Oftentimes the only recourse available when a meeting has been improperly closed is to get a "ruling" by a state official -- long after the fact -- that the meeting should have been open. Allowing fines and the recovery of attorneys' fees will add some real teeth to the Massachusetts act.

You can track the status of the Massachusetts bill at OpenMass.org.

 

 

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Google Opens Internal Public Policy Blog

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Not citizen media law related per se, but with Google's reach, it's recently opened Public Policy Blog, which offers "Google's views on government, policy and politics," is going to be must reading.   As Cory Doctorow reports:

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Dell Tells Site to Take Down Posting, Then Admits Goof

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Well, Dell Computer is learning about the web. See the confession at Consumerist, in which the company admits its mistake in demanding that the site take down a posting about its kiosk sales operation. Some things do change.

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Canadian Blogger Sued for Libel by Brewery President

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The president of Steelback Brewery, based in Ontario, Canada, filed a $2 million lawsuit against an Ottawa-based blogger that he claims libeled him on his sports website.  The Ottawa Citizen reports:

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Testimony on Shield Bill in Massachusetts

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Yesterday our very own Mary-Rose Papandrea, a professor at Boston College Law School, testified before the Joint Committee on the Judiciary at the Massachusetts State House regarding a proposed shield law. For most of the hearing, the questions focused on the scope of the privilege (the bill proposes an absolute privilege for the identity of sources and a qualified privilege for newsgathering materials) and not on who would be covered under the privilege.

However, near the end of the hearing, Senator Robert Creedon expressed concern about extending the privilege to bloggers, describing them as "loose cannons." Papandrea, together with Lucy Dalglish, Executive Director of the Reporters Committee for the Freedom of the Press, responded that the term "bloggers" is ill-defined and includes many journalists from the mainstream media. Given that it would be unwise to place internet communications outside the scope of any shield law, Papandrea and Dalglish argued that the better answer would be to define those covered under the law by their function - i.e., whether they are disseminating information to the general public. Papandrea also pointed out that the proposed shield law would not immunize bloggers - or anyone else - from libel suits, which appeared to be Senator Creedon's primary concern.

You can track the status of the Massachusetts "Free Flow of Information Act" at OpenMass.gov.

UPDATE: Robert Ambrogi has posted a detailed report on what happened at the hearing.

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Teen Arrested for Videotaping Police

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An 18 year-old from Carlisle, Pennsylvania has been charged with a felony under Pennsylvania's wiretap statute -- for videotaping a police officer during a traffic stop.

Brian D. Kelly didn't think he was doing anything illegal when he used his videocamera to record a Carlisle police officer during a traffic stop. Making movies is one of his hobbies, he said, and the stop was just another interesting event to film. [...] Kelly, 18, of Carlisle, was arrested on a felony wiretapping charge, with a penalty of up to 7 years in state prison. [...] Kelly is charged under a state law that bars the intentional interception or recording of anyone's oral conversation without their consent.

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OpenCongress Launches New Tools Section

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OpenCongress, a joint project of the Participatory Politics Foundation and the Sunlight Foundation, recently launched a new tools section that should be useful for anyone who follows Congress.  The site draws on a variety of sources -- from official government resources to blogs -- to provide an in-depth view of "the real story behind what's happening in Congress."

According to the site, OpenCongress brings together information from:

  • Official Congressional information from Thomas, made available by GovTrack.us: bills, votes, committee reports, and more.
  • News articles about bills and Members of Congress from Google News.
  • Blog posts about bills and Members of Congress from Google Blog Search and Technorati.
  • Campaign contribution information for every Member of Congress from the website of the non-profit, non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics, OpenSecrets.org.
  • Congress Gossip Blog: a blog written by the site editors of OpenCongress that highlights useful news and blog reporting from around the web. The blog also solicits tips, either anonymous or attributed, from political insiders, citizen journalists, and the public in order to build public knowledge about Congress.

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Lawyer Threatens Suit Over Online Review (of Him)

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Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Avvo's attorney rating system draws fire. Setting up an online rating system that attempts to rank the best and worst attorneys, is kind of like dipping your toes in shark-infested waters. Sooner or later, you are bound to get bitten. That's the situation facing Avvo, the heavily funded Seattle startup that just four days ago unveiled a controversial Internet site that ranks lawyers on a scale of one ("extreme caution") to 10 ("superb").

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N.C. Publisher Charged With Trespass For Refusing To Leave Closed Meeting

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Tom Boney, publisher of the Alamance News, a weekly newspaper in Graham, N.C., was arrested and charged with trespass after refusing to leave the Burlington-Alamance Regional Airport Authority's monthly meeting.  According to the Burlington Times-News, Boney refused to leave the meeting after the airport authority voted to hold a private meeting to discuss a possible economic development project at the airport. 

Under North Carolina's Meetings of Public Bodies Act, all official meetings of public bodies are presumed to be open to the public.  The law permits closure only under nine enumerated circumstances.  It is unclear whether the airport authority met any of these conditions when it closed the meeting.  Even the sheriff who arrested Boney commented that he respects him for sticking to his convictions. "He's got a valid point about having access to public meetings," the sheriff told the Burlington Times-News.

Boney, who has long campaigned for open government meetings, is scheduled to appear in court on June 25 to address the misdemeanor trespassing charge.

UPDATE: The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press reported that the district attorney's office dismissed the charge on July 20, 2007, saying the incident between Boney and the authority was a "civil matter."

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Massachusetts S.J.C. Denies Boston Herald's Motion for Reconsideration of Judge Murphy Libel Decision

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Yesterday Massachusetts' highest court rejected the Boston Herald's motion to reconsider its decision in a defamation case brought by Judge Ernest Murphy.  A month ago the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court had voted unanimously to affirm a $2.1 million jury verdict against the Boston Herald for its publication of a story in which it quoted Superior Court Judge Ernes

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Lack of Press Freedom Stifling Political Transformation in Africa

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At the 60th World Newspaper Congress, which opened yesterday in Cape Town, South Africa, Gavin O'Reilly remarked that

in dozens of African nations, political transformation has been deeply flawed, if not stillborn, because of the failure to secure one of the absolutely fundamental conditions for full, living democracy and pluralism ­ I'm talking, of course, about freedom of the press, which continues to be violated on a daily basis across the length and breadth of this continent.

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Content Fingerprinting and Citizen Journalism

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Editor & Publisher details a new venture between the Associated Press and Attributor, a service provider that will fingerprint and track the use of AP content on the web.

The Associated Press is moving to protect its content by partnering with the technology company Attributor, which will track AP material across the Internet. The arrangement will allow Attributor to "fingerprint" AP copy down to a level where it can be identified anywhere on the Web.

"Our goal is to get a feeling for some of the useful ways to monitor content," said Srinandan Kasi, vice president, general counsel and secretary at the AP. "We are looking at it not just to protect our rights but to derive some intelligence."

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Poynter Article on Legal Risks for User Comments

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Poynter Online has a useful article up on assessing the legal risks faced by sites that publish user comments.  The piece, while focused on traditional media organizations, provides some useful guidelines for anyone who runs a site that includes user submitted material.

According to attorney Robb Harvey, who is interviewed for the article,

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Pediatrician Settles Case After His Anonymous Blogging Is Revealed

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The Boston Globe reported today that a pediatrician settled a medical malpractice case in the middle of trial when opposing counsel revealed that she had discovered the doctor's anonymous blog in which he had provided "unvarnished" commentary on the lawyers, jurors, and defense strategy of his case.

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Shield Legislation Pending in Massachusetts

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Shield legislation pending in Massachusetts would likely provide a qualified privilege to citizen journalists.  Subject to certain exceptions, the bill provides a qualified privilege to "any covered person, who is providing or has provided services for the news media."

It appears that the bill's protections would extend to citizen journalists.  According to the bill, a "covered person" is defined as

a person who engages in the gathering of news information and has the intent, at the beginning of the process of gathering news or information, to disseminate such news or information to the public.

Whereas "news media" is defined as

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Islamic Society of Boston Drops Libel Suit

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The Islamic Society of Boston has dropped its lawsuit against 16 defendants - including The Boston Herald and Fox 25-TV - for allegedly defaming the organization by linking it to terrorist groups.  According to the Boston Globe:

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Shield Bill Dies in Texas

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Last week I noted that the Texas Senate had approved the "Free Flow of Information Act" and sent the bill to the Texas House of Representatives.  Well, that was short lived, as the bill has now died in the Texas House.

According to the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, the bill

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Looking For An Assistant Project Director

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Are you a lawyer interested in dealing with emerging legal issues relating to the intersection of law, journalism, and new media on the Internet?  

The Citizen Media Law Project is looking to hire an Assistant Project Director commencing in the summer or fall of 2007 to assist with the work of the CMLP.  The position requires a Juris Doctor degree with admission to at least one state bar; 1-5 years legal-practice experience with media, First Amendment, Internet, or intellectual property law; and litigation or transactional/licensing experience.  Previous experience in a clinical legal setting or the direct supervision and mentoring of young attorneys or students is advantageous. Superior writing and verbal skills, sound judgment, exceptional ethical standards, and interpersonal communication skills are essential.

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China Will Not Require that All Bloggers Register

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According to a recent article in Ars Technica, the Chinese government withdrew a proposal to require all bloggers in China to register their real identities.

The government-regulated Internet Society of China (ISC) said that real-name registration would now only be "encouraged" but not required, according to the Xinhua news agency. . . . The ISC's new code is still in draft, so changes might still be made before it is finalized.

While China has been the subject of some excellent studies concerning the government's use of technical measures to control access to information, including a recent report by the Open Net Initiative, there hasn't been a great deal of focus on the use of law to limit and censor citizen media within China and other countries that actively filter information.  If you are aware of countries that have, or are considering, registration requirements for bloggers or other citizen media, please let us know.

In addition, I've been receiving a lot of interest from people within and outside China to include Chinese law in our legal guide and other resources.  We will be adding that material to the site as soon as we can.

(Disclosure: The Open Net Initiative, like the CMLP, is a joint project of the Berkman Center.)

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