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National Stories
Benjamin C. Bradlee, who presided over The Washington Post newsroom for 26 years and guided The Post’s transformation into one of the world’s leading newspapers, died Oct. 21 at his home in Washington of natural causes. He was 93. The most compelling story of Mr. Bradlee’s tenure, almost certainly the one of greatest consequence, was Watergate, a political scandal touched off by The Post’s reporting that ended in the only resignation of a president in U.S. history. But Mr. Bradlee’smost important decision, made with Katharine Graham, The Post’s publisher, may have been to print stories based on the Pentagon Papers, a secret Pentagon history of the Vietnam War. The Nixon administration went to court to try to quash those stories, but the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the decision of the New York Times and The Post to publish them.
Washington Post
New York must release data connected to registration and enforcement of its new gun-control law, firearms advocates say in court. Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed the New York Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement Act of 2013, known as the NY SAFE Act, about a month after a lone gunman killed 26 children and staff in a December 2012 rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. In addition to sparking a handful of state and federal lawsuits from Second Amendment enthusiasts, the law became a talking point in New York's gubernatorial campaign. Most prominently, Cuomo's Republican opponent in next month's election Rob Astorino has vowed to repeal the law if elected. On Oct. 6, a trio of lawsuits filed in Albany County Supreme Court challenged the state's refusal to release data relating to the law under the Freedom of Information Law (FOIL). The actions name the governor, the New York Division of State Police and State Police Superintendent Joseph D'Amico as defendants.
Courthouse News Service
Last month, Google and Apple both announced that their next mobile operating systems would encrypt user data by default. Both Google and Apple also noted that the new forms of encryption would make it impossible for the companies to "unlock" encrypted phones, including in order to comply with lawful search warrants. These announcements have prompted officials to express concern about the risk that encryption will interfere with government's ability to investigate crime. In response to Apple's and Google's respective announcements, FBI Director James Comey suggested that the new default encryption was being marketed "expressly to allow people to place themselves beyond the law." In an event at the Center for National Policy, White House cybersecurity czar Michael Daniel acknowledged that while "encryption is a best practice in cybersecurity," government is concerned about the threat that information would be "completely beyond the reach of law enforcement." And in a speech at the Brookings Institution last week, Comey spoke extensively of the threat of "going dark" — the risk that law enforcement would not be able to "access the evidence we need to prosecute crime and prevent terrorism even with lawful authority."
Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press
President Barack Obama joked at a fundraiser Monday night that while visiting his Chicago home he found junk left on his desk — “including some unpaid bills” — that he said he believes were eventually paid. But the official White House transcript of the event omitted the exchange, raising questions about why the quote didn’t appear. A print reporter at the event said Obama noted that “one of the nice things about being home is actually that it's a little bit like a time capsule. Because Michelle and I and the kids, we left so quickly that there’s still junk on my desk, including some unpaid bills — I think eventually they got paid — but they're sort of stacked up. And messages, newspapers and all kinds of stuff."
McClatchy
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