NEFAC files and joins amicus briefs, letters and statements addressing important First Amendment issues. This is a listing of those documents, as well as others that may be of interest to you. While our main focus is on freedom of information concerns, we will consider supporting any effort that addresses the First Amendment.
If you would like to have NEFAC sign onto your brief, or to have us file one on behalf of your cause, please email our executive director for more information. Briefs, letters and statements from previous years can be viewed here:
2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024
Maine Lobster v. Monterey Bay Aquarium Foundation (D. Me. 2025)
By allowing Plaintiffs’ claims to proceed, the decision contravenes the rule against group libel. It also introduces a new overly restrictive approach to the constitutional protection for statements that disclose the predicate facts for a defendant’s conclusions, a development particularly concerning where the content involves scientific research and related public policy. Because the protections against group libel and for opinion enable public interest journalism, the decision raises significant concerns for the press, and without immediate appellate review, risks chilling swaths of reporting and commentary.
To Maine Supreme Judicial Court Re: Proposed Amendments to Rules of Probate Procedure (Feb. 25, 2025)
Maine probate courts operate in the daylight. Except for certain narrow types of proceedings identified as confidential in the Probate Code, the Legislature has not directed that probate records or proceedings be closed to the public. While we appreciate the importance of protecting information in court records when justified by compelling interests and where confidentiality is narrowly tailored to serve those interests, the proposed rules would create a cloud of secrecy around many now-public probate court proceedings and records. They will diminish accountability, public trust, and unduly interfere with the public’s access court records. Some aspects of the rules also conflict with the First Amendment right to access court records.
To Massachusetts Trial Court Re: Search Warrant Documents (Feb. 25, 2025)
Retention practices can vary and the records themselves can be stored in locations or files that differ from court to court. In some cases, court clerks are claiming these documents are not public in the first place. When they do acknowledge that the records are public, court clerks are at times refusing to search for them without a docket number or the date the search warrant was returned. This information is not listed publicly on Mass Courts and there is no index of search warrants to use as reference at courthouses. As a result, members of the public and the newsrooms they rely on are often left without access to records that should be available to them. While public by law, these documents are too often not public in practice.
To Rep. Ron Mariano Re: Guaranteed Hybrid Meetings in Massachusetts (Feb. 19, 2025)
We oppose as inadequate any legislation, including the Municipal Empowerment Act, that seeks only to make the pandemic remote meeting rules permanent. These rules fall short, because they only allow — but do not require — remote and hybrid meeting formats for public bodies under the OML. Enshrining the current pandemic rules would allow bodies to shut people out of public meetings and severely weaken the OML.
Our current law allows agencies to fulfill requests under any timeline they determine reasonable. As a result, hundreds of requests to state agencies in 2023 took more than 30 days to be acknowledged, according to a FOAA Ombudsman report. Despite these delays, it’s also important to note that nearly half of the 2,936 requests to state agencies in 2023 were responded to within five days. For these reasons, we applaud the intent behind LD 152 and agree that a specific deadline should replace the current “reasonable” requirement. But we’re also concerned that any deadline set will become the de facto date of compliance. Thirty days is not the magic number. Providing a month to respond to requests will do little to change the slow pace at which many requests are already being fulfilled and it will likely prolong those requests that would otherwise be completed quickly.
Commonwealth of Massachusetts v. Karen Read (Jan. 30, 2025)
As journalistic organizations dedicated to protecting against threats-both old and new to First Amendment interests, they seek only to explain why the compelled disclosure of a reporter’s notes concerning confidential communications with a source that never were published (either in whole or in part) poses a grave threat to the free flow of information to the public.
To Rhode Island Judiciary Re: Online Court Records System (Jan. 30, 2025)
While we appreciate your assurances that our concerns will be thoroughly addressed, the new system is scheduled to be launched in about two months and there seems to be little if any public feedback solicited by your office. We understand that a public comment period will occur before any issuance of final policies. Still, there is the potential for technological shortcomings beyond court polices that could hinder the public’s access to court records while using the new platform.