Editorial: Public has a right to see theater shooting report
The public deserves to know exactly why emergency medical crews had such a slow response to the shooting massacre at the Aurora theater two years ago so it doesn't happen again ...
More than economics: The social impact of open data
The national governments of the US, the UK, and other G7 nations have been focusing more attention on the economic value of open data, as opposed to broader societal benefits. read more ...
How to get information out of the EPA
In January 2012, I filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the Environmental Protection Agency asking for copies of correspondence between the EPA and various green groups active in the Marcellus Shale region. The request was filed on ...
DC Court Rules Officials Must Turn Over Personal Emails In FOIA Requests
The D.C. Superior Court has ruled that city officials engaging in business on personal email accounts to circumvent government transparency must surrender those emails in response to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. According to The Wash ...
Blog: Less Privacy For People, More Privacy For Government
Our state (WI) government should operate in a fully transparent way. We need to know what our elected officials are doing, how their decisions are being made, and how they are spending our money. On the other hand, private citizens should be granted ...
Do you know New York state’s Open Meetings Law?
With the gridlock in Washington, and the latest scandal involving Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s alleged meddling in the work of the commission he created to help root out corruption in Albany, it’s too easy to think that “government” &m ...
4 keys to digitizing federal records
As government records grow in both volume and type, agencies are challenged with managing that information in a manner that combines physical and digital environments. Moreover, by 2019, agencies will be required to manage their permanent electronic ...
Park district votes twice to comply with open meetings law
In its last meeting, the Vashon Park District (WA) voted on a severance agreement for a former employee who had worked for the district for several years. It was the second time the commissioners voted on the agreement because they first voted in a c ...
CIA Tells FOIA Requester That He Needs To Know Everything About The Emails He’s Requesting Before He Can Request Them
More FOIA-related nonsense, this time from the CIA. Michael Morisy, co-founder of MuckRock, sent a request for internal emails discussing (rather ironically) the fact that the CIA's "FOIA Portal" seems to suffer from extended periods of downtime. read more ...
