Blog: Openness Effort Trumps Partisan Gridlock in Congress
You can probably count on the fingers of one hand the issues on which there is bipartisan agreement in Congress. Fortunately, strengthening Freedom of Information (FOIA) is one of them. Earlier this year, the House unanimously approved a FOIA refor ...
Connecticut Supreme Court ruling restricts release of arrest information
The state Supreme Court issued a ruling Monday that restricts the amount of information police are required to release about arrests, prompting fears among advocates of open government that the public will not have access to important information abo ...
OpEd: How the FOIA Improvement Act of 2014 Would Help Ordinary Requesters
Earlier this year, the U.S. Veterans Affairs Administration denied the Tampa Tribune’s Freedom of Information Act request for the names of VA hospitals where veterans died because of delays in medical screenings. read more ...
Open Data Roundtables Set Out To Make Data Accessible To Benefit Economy
Open Data Roundtable meetings have begun, a step in the partnership of government agencies with industry to ensure that the data sets the government publishes directly benefit the economy. read more ...
Ann Arbor Residents Submitted More Freedom of Information Act Requests Than Local News Media in 2013
According to the City of Ann Arbor’s log of FOIA requests submitted between January 2013 and May 2014 519 FOIA requests were submitted to the Ann Arbor City Clerk’s office. Thirty-three of the 519 requests came from The Ann Arbor News and ...
GitHub: A Swiss Army knife for open government
Every morning, the first waking task most humans perform is checking email or the latest updates on their social media accounts. For developers, that initial daily fix is GitHub, the social coding platform that has captured the hearts of millions of ...
The Ultimate in Open Government: Unlocking the Laws
As part of its regular social media routine, the District of Columbia Council’s official Twitter feed periodically links to obscure or odd provisions of the D.C. Code, like rules governing jostling rights: “Jostle away, but only if a brea ...
KERRY ADAMS: City committees, in effect, limit government
A friend of mine asked me a few weeks ago about my libertarian opinion on these committees that were recently passed by the Rio Rancho Governing Body. It was said that the committees were created in the name of open government between the city and th ...
Open government? Carmel (IN) group blurs the line
When the Carmel City Council voted to fire the director of its redevelopment commission last year, he simply kept on working. Why the longtime consultant, Les Olds, felt he had the authority to do so is unclear. Whatever the reason, months later he s ...
Here’s What Happens When You Challenge the CIA Through “Proper Channels”
One of the standard criticisms of Edward Snowden is that he should have tried harder to air his concerns via proper channels. This is fairly laughable on its face, since even now the NSA insists that all its programs were legal and it continues to fi ...
