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Former Education Secretary Bill Bennett came down hard on journalists who leak sensitive information to the public.

"The First Amendment is not a license to ruin your country," Bennett remarked to "Fox & Friends" on Monday.

The Trump administration has been plagued by illegal leaks through the press of sensitive and even classified information.

The latest leak debacle occurred last week when transcripts of President Trump's phone conversations earlier this yearwith the leaders of Mexico and Australia were published in the Washington Post. The leak embarrassed the administration, suggesting a lack of control over confidential information.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions vowed to crack down on leakers last week, saying they will be found and prosecuted.

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Bennett agreed, saying all leakers should be prosecuted, and even reporters should not be exempt.

"Let's not have excluded special categories," he advised. "These are tough cases to make. I understand it."

"The law is the law and it has to be honored," he said.

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Bill Bennett on Leaker Journalists: First Amendment Not a License to Ruin Your Country - Fox News Insider

The Israel anti-boycott law penalizes boycotts, which are a nonviolent and legal freedom of expression. That violates the First Amendment. People complain about the over-regulation of business. This bill is a prime example. It would be an expensive, time consuming, and intrusive process for a court or other government agency to determine why a business was not doing business with Israel or Israeli companies. No matter what your views are on the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions movement are, I hope that people can agree that we need to protect our constitutional rights, especially in todays political climate.

Dorah Rosen Shuey, Davenport

The Sentinel welcomes your letters to the editor. Letters should be short, no more than 150 words. We do not accept anonymous letters. Letter-writers should include their full name as well as a street address and telephone number. We dont publish those details in the newspaper, but need the information for verification purposes. Occasionally, we reject letters simply because weve had so many on the same subject. Submit your letters online at santacruzsentinel.com/submit-letters.

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Letter: Anti-boycott law violates the First Amendment - Santa Cruz Sentinel

Lata Nott

When we talk about the importance of a free press, what were really talking about is how important it is for the press to serve as a watchdog on the government. The highest responsibility of journalism is to supply the people with information about what their government is doing, so that the people can hold the government accountable, and make the best possible decisions when they vote.

But if youre not a journalist (full disclosure: I am not), you may not give a lot of thought to how journalists get that information in the first place. Official government press releases and briefings arent really the place to find information about government misconduct. Obviously, leaks are a much better source when it comes to getting the real dirt. But the recent emphasis on prosecuting leakers is likely to have a major chilling effect on that source of information.

But there is a way that journalists can get their hands on FBI records, secret military policy memos, and NSA email exchanges without having to worry about their sources getting arrested or fired.

They can ask the government for them.

The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) is a law that requires the government to hand over its records if someone asks for them. The act applies to federal government agencies, but every state has laws that allow the public to access its government records. Anyone can request information, whether theyre a U.S. citizen or foreign national. And anything can be requested.

A government agency can, of course, deny your request if it decides that the information youre seeking falls into an exemption category, like information that would threaten national security, or invade someones privacy. But if you think your FOIA request was unfairly denied, you can appeal, and if that doesnt work, you can sue.

Nabiha Syed, assistant general counsel for BuzzFeed, is intimately familiar with this process. A large part of her job involves getting government agencies to give up information that they would rather not share information that often ends up being crucial to BuzzFeeds reporting. She sees the right of the public to access government information as an exciting First Amendment frontier. For the most part, the First Amendment says, This is hands off, the governments not going to be involved, you guys figure out speech,' Syed says. And then you have the First Amendment right of access, which says, Yes, but also, we are going to allow you to use the law as a sword to get access to judicial proceedings, to official recordsto administrative proceedings.'

Requesting or fighting for government records is an instrumental part of BuzzFeeds reporting strategy. Such records have allowed the BuzzFeed News team to report on misconduct in death penalty executions, for-profit foster care scandals, and the widespread abuse of seasonal migrant workers. Just last month, BuzzFeed News obtained a secret Department of Defense report that stated that Chelsea Mannings disclosure of Iraq-related documents would be unlikely to have any impact on U.S. operations in Iraq (directly contradicting the governments position at Mannings trial).

To be sure, the system is far from perfect, as many information-seekers can attest. As Jason Fagone wrote in his article The Secret to Getting Top-Secret Secrets, The Freedom of Information Act, passed in 1966 to increase trust in government by encouraging transparency, has always been a pain in the ass. You write to an uncaring bureaucracy, you wait for months or years only to be denied or redacted into oblivion, and even if you do get lucky and extract some useful information, the world has already moved on to other topics.

But when it does work, the payoffs can be enormous. As Nabiha Syed says, How do we at least inject the information we need into the commons, into the public square, to try and heighten the conversations were having? At least getting the underlying facts out there, in ways that are hopefully more authoritative than anecdotal, I think would be really helpful.

Lata Nott is executive director of the First Amendment Center of the Newseum Institute. Contact her via email at lnott@newseum.org, or follow her on Twitter at @LataNott.

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First Amendment: When leaks dry up, we turn to FOIA - Hays Post - hays Post

Last week, a Dallas jury sent a loud message to loudmouth online reviewers. A wedding photographer whose reputation was smeared by newlywed customers won a major verdict for defamation.

The customer's complaint: $125 charged by the couple's wedding photographer. The couple felt the circumstances around the additional charge were unfair.

So, they took to the social media and local television to air their grievance.

The harm alleged by the business: An astronomical loss of business, after the posts. The photographer went from 100 weddings in 2014 to only 2 weddings in 2015.

The judgment award: $1.08 million owed by the customer to the business.

According to the photographer's attorney, the couple's negative publicity campaign included the following allegations:

* The photographer was "holding their pictures hostage;"

* She "blatantly stole money while holding pictures ransom and then adding on extra fees;"

* She was "nickel and diming" them;

* Colleagues of the photographer were harassing the couple for taking their complaints public.

This ruling is a sign that the justice system may be used to offset consumer review power prevalent in the social media age.

The lesson for angry consumers: take a deep breath before you trash a company online. The First Amendment will only protect you so much.

Attorney James Haroutunian practices real estate, estate planning and business law in Billerica at 630 Boston Road. and can be reached with questions at hlawoffice.com, 978-671-0711 or via email, James@hlawoffice.com.

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First Amendment only protects you so much - Lowell Sun

Be careful before you invite Brian Davison to become a Facebook friend. You shouldnt expect warm and fuzzy posts from a tenacious rabble-rouser who wages personal campaigns for free speech, accountability and freedom of information.

Over the last two years, Davison has filed three separate civil rights lawsuits against the Loudoun Board of Supervisors and Chairwoman Phyllis Randall (D), Commonwealths Attorney Jim Plowman (R) and the Loudoun County School Board. They have at times blocked him from their Facebook pages, deleted critical comments he posted and attempted to ostracize him. One needs only to read Davisons online comments to understand why he gets under their skin.

Davison has sought public access to the school systems student growth percentile (SGP) scores. Hes accused Plowmans office of refusing to investigate perjury by school officials. Hes offended Randall with comments about corruption, lack of accountability and conflicts of interest that extend to the families of public officials, some of whom work for county government or the school system. And, yes, Davison pokes at the Times-Mirror for what he sees as a failure to report rigorously on alleged corruption and conflicts by elected officials.

To his supporters, many of whom are members of the anything-goes club of anonymous online commenting, Davison is a valiant campaigner for truth. To his critics, hes a self-righteous insulter. Before last week, few would have characterized him as a patriot. Now hes mentioned in the same sentence with James Madison, the Virginian who wrote the First Amendment and the Bill of Rights.

The Times-Mirror has consistently campaigned for open government and freedom of information in a county that frequently conducts business behind closed doors and uses Virginias Freedom of Information Act to block disclosure of information rather than provide access to it. Were also wary of anonymous, online comments that can distort stories with bias, prejudice, insults and inaccuracies. We acknowledge that were not always comfortable with the tone of anonymous discussion on LoudounTimes.com, but we regard it as important forum for readers to express their views on stories and discuss them with fellow citizens. When we err, we're more comfortable erring on the side of freedom of expression rather than censorship.

These are uncomfortable times. First Amendment lawsuits now raise the legal argument in which Twitter users claim their constitutional rights have been violated because President Donald Trump the commander-in-tweet blocks them from his personal Twitter handle. The argument about social media rights rages in a day and age when politicians, from the president on down, are using their private accounts to discuss public affairs or socialize their positions with constituents.

Davisons cases may provide a legal precedent. A federal judge ruled Chairwoman Randall violated Davison's First Amendment rights because she briefly banned him from her personal Facebook account.

"The suppression of critical commentary regarding elected officials is the quintessential form of viewpoint discrimination against which the First Amendment guards," U.S. District Judge James Cacheris wrote in the ruling on Davisons suit.

The judge didn't issue punishment against Randall since her Facebook ban only lasted about 10 hours. That said, the judge noted Randall committed "a cardinal sin under the First Amendment" by barring the constituent who posted about county corruption. What's more, the judge pointed out from the first sentence of the ruling that "this case raises important questions about the constitutional limitations applicable to social media accounts maintained by elected officials."

Somehow that decision was interpreted by the county as a victory for the countys elected officials. The status of social media is a novel question in the law, huffed County Attorney Leo P. Rogers as if Facebook was a passing fad.

Meantime, Randall insists shes a defender of the First Amendment and cites legal confusion. In earnest calls to the Times-Mirror she defended her takedown of Davison as an appropriate response to offensive comments pertaining to family members of public officials. Later, in reaction to the ruling in the School Board case, she acknowledged confusion:

while I blocked the plaintiff overnight for approximately eight hours because he made inappropriate comments, not about the elected official but about the members of their families, and another court finds a First Amendment infraction. It just doesnt make sense to me.

It all makes perfect sense to Davison, who argues that Loudouns elected leaders will go to any lengths -- and at any cost -- to defend arcane rules that enable them to govern behind closed doors, provide cover for conflicts of interest and shut down dissent.

Despite our distaste for bad behavior, online or off, we are inclined to agree.

There is a simple resolution to confusion over public participation in government: Open access to all meetings and information that impacts the welfare of citizens and provides accountability for public decisions.

True leaders have nothing to hide. They lead us out of the dark and into the sun even if it occasionally causes sunburn. Whether in Madisons time or Davisons or Davison's children's, open government, free speech and the First Amendment must stand as the foundations of American democracy and represent the values of our American experience.

You may not like Brian Davison or the democratizing platform of social media that he uses, but how one feels about either is wholly irrelevant. Our leaders should not worry about whether Davison is a pain. They should consider whether he is right.

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EDITORIAL: First Amendment 2.0 | LoudounTimes.com - Loudoun Times-Mirror