Wednesday, February 18, 2004

FOI Gets Some Help in Maryland Two recent developments may improve access to government information in that state -- one on open meetings and the other on court records. On Feb. 17, 2004, the Maryland Senate approved two open meetings bills. One, approved 43-0, enlarges the definition of a public body to include appointed boards and similar bodies. The other, approved 42-1, gives any person standing to sue for failure to comply with the MD Open Meetings Act. Maryland's highest court, the Court of  Appeals, on Feb. 9, 2004, adopted new rules governing public access to records in the state court system. Observers said the new rules put electronic and paper records on an equal footing. The rules included most of the changes sought by the Maryland-Delaware-District of Columbia Press Assn. Full story. 9:42:42 PM

Environmental Group Charges Google Censored Its Issue Ads   Charges of censorship from the environmental group Oceana have raised new questions about whether and how free speech applies to advertising in privately owned online media. Oceana protested publicly (via a Feb. 13, 2004, press release) when search-engine portal Google rejected Oceana's ads criticizing the wastewater treatment practices of the Royal Carribean cruise line. They complained further that PR Newswire had declined to carry unchanged an anti-Royal Carribean press release. The case balances the free-speech rights of political groups who want to advertise against the free-speech rights of media who may not want to be forced to publish things.   The case may be more of a PR contest than a legal one. Courts have upheld a newspaper's right to reject ads. Search engine Yahoo obligingly carried on its news ticker an Oceana-generated story about Google's "censorship," and Oceana took its release-distribution business elsewhere -- getting U.S. Newswire to carry the release that PR Newswire would not. 11:47:59 AM