COPA and CPD continue to hide details about its investigation in violation of the Freedom of Information Act CHICAGO – The City’s long-running Sgt. Ronald Watts scandal took a new turn today as one of his victims sued the city for its failure to release its own full report on the Chicago police officers who… Read More
SACRAMENTO, CA. – For almost three years, the U.S. Department of Justice, the FBI, and the State Department falsely accused Iraqi refugee Omar Ameen of being an ISIS commander who committed a 2014 murder in Iraq. Mr. Ameen proved his innocence, and a Federal Judge threw out the extradition case on April 21, 2021. Mr.… Read More
City is Defying FOIA Law by Refusing to Release Videos This morning a Cook County judge will hold a hearing to determine if the Chicago Police Department should be forced under the Illinois Freedom Of Information Act to release all videos surrounding the controversial July 14th police killing of South Shore barber Harith “Snoop” Augustus,… Read More
By Josh Burday This article was originally published in Law360 Imagine Chicago wins the bid for Amazon’s second headquarters. Flip a coin. Heads — the second headquarters brings in thousands of jobs benefiting the economy for years with little downside. Tails — Amazon’s new headquarters is the second coming of Chicago’s infamous parking meter deal,[1]… Read More
By Maya Dukmasova, Chicago Reader Photo by Rich Hein, Chicago Sun-Times On Monday, April 23, within hours of Democratic state rep Anthony Deluca filing a bill to amend Illinois’s Freedom of Information law, a crescendo of opposition arose from civil rights lawyers and government transparency advocates. The amendment would’ve made misconduct complaints against police officers… Read More
City Routinely Violates the Law By Destroying Tapes After Only 30 Days, Jeopardizing Defendants’ Ability to Challenge Police & Others’ Accounts of Crimes CHICAGO – Attorneys with the Chicago Civil Rights Project filed suit against the City of Chicago today for the failure of the City’s Office of Emergency Management and Communications to routinely preserve… Read More
Loevy & Loevy client Brandon Smith, an independent journalist from Chicago, recently secured a major victory under the Illinois Freedom of Information Act, requiring the City of Chicago to release video recordings of Chicago Police officer Jason Van Dyke shooting and killing teenager Laquan McDonald. Loevy & Loevy is proud to represent journalists and citizens in… Read More
In January, we wrote about Professor Steven Salaita’s fight for academic freedom. He was fired from a tenured position at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign because of his tweets criticizing the Israeli government’s bombing of Gaza last year. Loevy & Loevy partnered with the Center for Constitutional Rights to file the federal civil rights lawsuit on Salaita’s behalf. Loevy & Loevy… Read More
With this week’s amendment to the Patriot Act limiting the federal government’s surveillance of American phone records, people may believe that their private phone calls are actually more private. While the limits of the new legislation in actually protecting our privacy are a whole other topic, one thing is plain: it does not change the… Read More
While prosecutors are largely shielded from suits, the Supreme Court has ruled they can’t dodge FOIA responsibilities CHICAGO – Against a backdrop of growing scrutiny into police surveillance nationwide, the office of Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez was sued today for refusing to comply with a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request asking for… Read More
