In an impassioned speech at the Georgetown University Law Center, incoming Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy of Vermont marked the 40th anniversary of the passage of the Freedom of Information Act and promised to improve transparency of government during the 110th Congress. The senator cited Texas Republican colleague John Cornyn as a strong ally in the fight to change the climate created by the Bush Administration, which has shown a "dangerous disdain for the free press and the public." Leahy says one of his priorities for the committee will be "to continue efforts to strengthen and improve our open government laws."
The fate of two San Francisco Chronicle reporters could be a journalistic watershed, the New York Times reports. District Judge Jeffrey S. White wants Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada to serve up to 18 months in jail for refusing to divulge their grand jury sources. "This is the single, biggest case I have ever been involved in," says Eve Burton, the Hearst lawyer representing the reporters. "If the government wins in this case, every reporter's notebook will be available to the government for the asking," Burton says.
A case winding down in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia could revive the Child Online Protection Act, a federal law that makes it a crime to knowingly post sexually explicit material that is "harmful to minors" on the Internet. Enacted in 1998, COPA was immediately blocked by a federal injunction at the behest of a coalition headed by the American Civil Liberties Union. CNET News says U.S. District Judge Lowell A. Reed Jr. could elect to lift the injunction by early 2007.
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