|
A report by NBC News on Saturday says North Carolina state investigators and University of North Carolina college police collected personal information from the cellphones of antiracism protesters at the University of North Carolina after being tipped off by the FBI. NBC reports the tracking technology called "geofencing" was used by UNC after the school was tipped off by the FBI. NBC made the report after collecting documents obtained via a freedom of information request. NBC also reports UNC signed a three-year, $73,500 contract to use geofencing in 2016. The contract ran through the end of October 2019.
WRAL
In a move that 1st Amendment advocates say could be a step back for California’s open records law, Ventura County leaders agreed this week to sponsor state legislation that would bar the disclosure of death records to the public. The Ventura County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to find legislators willing to introduce a bill that would keep autopsy reports and death investigations private. The legislation has not been drafted, and the specifics of the proposed change have not been made clear. Dr. Christopher Young, the county’s chief medical examiner, indicated that he is in favor of a law that would not allow for the release of death records to the public, which would include journalists. Young said the state’s law governing the release of death records — the California Public Records Act — is murky and “does not clearly protect the privacy of families.”
Los Angeles Times
The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and a coalition of 23 news organizations are urging a Delaware court to reject a defamation claim that could threaten the use of hyperlinks in news stories. In a friend-of-the-court brief, filed on Dec. 19 by Reporters Committee attorneys and David L. Finger of Finger & Slanina LLP, the coalition urges the Delaware Superior Court to rule that linking to previously published articles online does not constitute republication. Tech entrepreneur Stephen G. Perlman’s defamation case against Vox Media centers on three online articles published by The Verge, a publication owned by Vox that covers technology, science, and culture. The first two articles, published in 2012, reported on Perlman’s former video game streaming venture, OnLive. While the third story, published in 2014, focused on a new cellphone technology invented by Perlman, it also included a hyperlink and brief reference to one of the previous articles, which Perlman claims were defamatory.
Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press
Chicago digital media entrepreneur Brian Timpone said he plans to appeal a recent court decision that blocked him from compelling Illinois state government to disclose the names of students who received state financial aid. That will require a petition to the Illinois Supreme Court after an Illinois appellate court decision last week sided with a state agency denying his Freedom of Information Act request for the information.That appellate court ruling reversed a lower court that had said the state should comply with his FOIA. Despite that earlier Cook County Circuit Court ruling in October 2017, the information hadn’t been released. Timpone, founder of residential real estate site BlockShopper and online publisher Locality Labs, in 2016 sued the state agency, the Illinois Student Assistance Commission, over its FOIA denial. In the request, he sought the names and home addresses of students who received state aid through the Monetary Award Program, plus the names of the schools they attended. But the Dec. 11 Illinois Appellate Court’s ruling determined that the student information was private and exempt from a FOIA request. It also reversed an earlier award the lower court had given Timpone for $10,478 to pay his attorney’s fees.
Crain's Chicago Business
|
|
