Happy Sunshine Week from the Sunshine State!

“Sunshine Week is a national initiative to open a dialogue about the importance of open government and freedom of information. Participants include print, broadcast and online news media, civic groups, libraries, non-profits, schools and others interested in the public's right to know,” according to the Sunshine Week Web site.

So, here’s a little taste of sunshine while we prepare, like many other publications, some pieces on the importance open government:

• WARNING! Low Visibility Conditions: Reportedly, 200,000 public records requests remain unanswered and some of them are 15-years old!
• Partly Sunny: Meanwhile, a FOIA upgrade has been proposed by Sens. Leahy (D - Vt.) and Cornyn (R - Texas) which targets so-called (b)(3) exemptions.
• Partly Cloudy: And all over the nation, public officials are learning that their text messages from official phones and e-mail from government accounts are a matter of public record.

More news after the jump.

The case concerns a Federal Communications Commission policy that allows for fines against broadcasters for so-called "fleeting expletives," one-time uses of the F-word or its close cousins.

Fox Broadcasting Co., along with ABC, CBS and NBC, challenged the new policy after the commission said broadcasts of entertainment awards shows in 2002 and 2003 were indecent because of profanity uttered by Bono, Cher and Nicole Richie.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals court said the new policy was invalid and could violate the First Amendment.

No fines were issued in the incidents, but the FCC could impose fines for future violations of the policy.

The case before the court technically involves only two airings on Fox of the "Billboard Music Awards" in which celebrities' expletives were broadcast over the airwaves. NBC is separately challenging an FCC decision that rapped the network for airing Bono's use of the F-word during a Golden Globes awards show in 2003.

The case, FCC v. Fox Television Stations, 07-582, will be argued in the fall.

The blocking [in China] added to the Communist government’s efforts to control what the public saw and heard about protests that erupted Friday in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, against Chinese rule.

Access to YouTube.com, usually readily available in China, was blocked after videos appeared on the site Saturday showing foreign news reports about the Lhasa demonstrations, montages of photos and scenes from Tibet-related protests abroad.

[AP, NYTimes, Detroit Free Press]

Parliamentarians form the Council of Europe plan to investigate the free speech rights of athletes participating in the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing.

According to RSF:

Olympic athletes should not be deterred from giving sincere and honest responses to journalists’ questions or from making comments on the situation of human rights in China or other countries out of fear that those statements will affect their sports careers in any way. Athletes and NOCs need to understand this and that Article 51(3) [of the Olympic Charter] in no way justifies restricting athletes’ right to make such statements.

Preventing athletes from talking about human rights abuses, contrary to their right to freedom of expression, violates the fundamental principles at the heart of the Olympic Charter, contradicts the spirit of the Olympic Games and amounts to condoning the human rights abuses committed by too many countries around the world, including China.

In related news, China's oppression in Tibet continues unabated. (See videos below.)

[Council of Europe, RSF]

A federal appeals court Tuesday temporarily blocked a judge's order requiring a former USA TODAY reporter to pay thousands of dollars in fines.

Toni Locy would not identify sources who named former Army scientist Steven Hatfill as a possible suspect in the 2001 anthrax attacks. Lawyers for Locy, now a West Virginia University journalism professor, had requested that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit block the fines while they appeal a contempt order by U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton.

The fines of up to $5,000 a day were set to begin at midnight Tuesday. Walton had ordered that Locy — not her former employer or others — pay the fines as long as she refused to identify her sources who linked Hatfill to the attacks that killed five people.