118 FOIA Cases Here; One Concerns Assassinations

Posted by Terry Francke, General Counsel | Mar 1, 2012 | Awareness Area: Government, Awareness Area: Justice, Legal Issue: Public Information, News, Uncategorized | 0 |

A website based at Syracuse University shows 118 active Freedom of Information Act cases filed in the federal courts in California since October 1, 2009. The display shows seven cases filed in Sacramento, eight in San Jose, nine in San Diego, 10 in Fresno, 21 in Los Angeles, 22 in Oakland, and 41 in San Francisco.

Clicking on any of these cities shown on the site’s map brings up a list of the cases filed in the local U.S.District Court, and clicking on each case brings up full details of what information is being sought from which agency by which plaintiff requester.

The most recent is First Amendment Coalition v. Department of Justice, seeking access to a memo, already sought in litigation by the New York Times and the American Civil Liberties Union, concerning the legal basis for the drone strike assassination of two U.S. citizens, Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan, in Yemen last year as agents of the terrorist organization Al Queda.

About The Editor

Terry Francke, General Counsel

Terry Francke has a 39-year history of helping journalists, citizens and public officials understand and use their First Amendment and open government rights. With CalAware, Francke has authored comprehensive and authoritative guidebooks to California law on access to government meetings and public records and the news gathering and publication rights of journalists. Focusing on these issues in public forum law, he supervises CalAware's legislative and litigation initiatives; conducts workshops on legal compliance; helps design public records audits; supports local sunshine ordinance drafting efforts; writes CalAware Today, a blog on current developments and proposals in the law and best practices; and answers countless queries by phone and e-mail from citizens, journalists, public officials and employees, and lawyers. Francke previously served 14 years as executive director and general counsel to the California First Amendment Coalition, after a 10-year post as legal counsel for the California Newspaper Publishers Association. He has served as an advisory panel member to the National Center on Courts and the Media; taught journalism law at the Department of Communication at Stanford University; and served as an expert contributor to the 1994 major revisions to the Ralph M. Brown Act and the 2004 ballot proposition making open government a basic right of citizens under the California Constitution. Francke is a 1967 graduate of the University of Notre Dame and a 1979 graduate of McGeorge School of Law, University of the Pacific. Prior to his legal career, Francke worked as a weekly newspaper editor and in military and local government public affairs positions.

Search

Help our cause

Help Our Cause

$ Donation Amount:

Personal Info

First Name *

Last Name

Email Address *

Credit Card Info

This is a secure SSL encrypted payment.

Card Number *

CVC *

Cardholder Name *

Expiration *

Billing Details

Country *

Address 1 *

Address 2

City *

State *

Zip / Postal Code *

Donation Total: $25

SOS to All Attorneys

CalAware Members can use our Solicitation of Service (SOS) form to describe their legal problem and request an attorney’s response regarding representation or other services, and have that request sent in an individual email to every attorney in the Directory, setting a deadline for response.

Attorney SOS