Archive for category Newspapers
MFIA Amicus in Illinois First Amendment case- with EFF
Posted by Margot in Newspapers, Privacy, first amendment, lamp, news on March 23, 2010
The Media Freedom and Information Practicum is proud to announce that, along with EFF, it has filed a friend-of-the-court brief urging the Illinois Court of Appeals to block the unmasking of an anonymous online critic of a local political candidate in the comments section of a local newspaper’s website.
Battle Over Message Board Flame War Must Not Circumvent the First Amendment
The First Amendment provides qualified protection for anonymous speakers. MFIA and EFF encourage the court to recognize such protection by instituting the same process established by other courts across the country (see, eg, Dendrite).
The viability of newspaper websites as forums for such political discussion and whistleblowing is at stake, along with fundamental First Amendment values inherent in the protection of political speech.
For the full brief, click here.
Can Judicial Openness Initiatives Disqualify Judges from Access Cases?
Posted by patrick in Newspapers, cases, first amendment, lamp, open access, secret dockets on October 10, 2009
The Supreme Court has refused to indulge a stay sought by the Bridgeport Roman Catholic Diocesan Corporation which would have kept 12,000 pages of court records and depositions in a long-running CT clergy abuse case from public view.
The judgment sought to be stayed, Rosado v. Bridgeport Roman Catholic Diocesan Corp., raises some fascinating access issues, including an institutional-reform question which I haven’t seen elsewhere. Does a judge’s participation on an open access task force mandate recusal by creating an appearance of impropriety in deciding open access questions?
Here, the Connecticut Supreme Court held that the trial judge’s failure to recuse himself in Rosado, despite his involvement with the Judicial Branch’s Public Access Task Force, did not amount to abuse of discretion:
“A trial judge has no affirmative duty to step down from a case merely on the basis of membership on a task force unless the agenda of the task force is inconsistent with the judge’s duty to judge impartially. Case law confirms that service on a commission concerned with improving the legal system and the administration of justice, without more, is not a basis for disqualification, even if the subject matter generally relates to the area of the law at issue in the case at hand.”
Good call, CT. An adverse ruling on this issue would certainly chill bench-led openness efforts. In this case, the precedent appears extensive and clear, but Justice Sullivan’s spirited dissent demonstrates how the “appearance of impropriety” standard can be stretched to embrace reform initiatives. Several features of the task force’s design were extremely important to the majority ruling, including instructions to consider privacy interests as well as disclosure interests. Take note, other states seeking to institute openness initiatives, lest you design a task force which might jeopardize judges’ ability to hear access cases.
The next steps, as the New York Times reports, will be unsealing hearings in the Connecticut Superior Court. We will follow those with interest.
A note on anonymous speech
Posted by Margot in Newspapers, first amendment, lamp on October 3, 2009
A First Amendment right to speak about politics anonymously was reaffirmed by the Supreme Court in 1995, when the court held that a lone pamphleteer had the right to distribute political literature without having her identity revealed.
But anonymity online has been subject to concerns about the harm inherent in gossip and reputation demolishing. This has brought up some needed legal analysis of when, and whose, anonymous speech should be protected. (See Nathaniel Gleicher’s YLJ piece)
There are certain cases, though, where anonymity should be completely preserved under American law. The Chinese government recently ordered news websites to require users to log in under their real identities to post comments on news stories. This has caused a noticeable, and understandable, chill in discussion on the sites.
Anonymity does enable the foundations for democracy– the more fearful the government, the more valuable the ability to anonymously speak your mind. But as in much law, legal development occurs on a continuum. It’s important to keep the Chinese scenario in mind even when discussing online gossip– law made in one area inevitably bleeds into its related counterparts.