The Florida Supreme Court stood unanimously on the side of good government Thursday when it ruled that the public has a right to see documents a Republican consultant created in connection with the Legislature's once-a-decade redistricting process. Now, barring an ill-advised rehearing request by the document owner, Floridians will be able to judge for themselves what role outsiders played in the controversial 2012 redistricting process. The court has reaffirmed its commitment and the state Constitution's requirement to open government. read more ...

In another action brought by John Paff, a “self-proclaimed open government activist” who has pursued litigation to secure government documents pursuant to the Open Public Record Acts (“OPRA”) in several instances, a Superior C ...

Seventy-eight thousand, six hundred and fifty dollars may not be a huge sum in the budget of a town like Wallingford, but why should the town be granting that amount of taxpayer money annually to a “private, nonprofit organization” that d ...

I've written multiple times over the years about the importance of freedom of information laws, and the need to help the public understand that access to information about government is a right for all citizens, not just journalists. Too often, people think (or they're erroneously told by government officials) that they can't obtain certain information unless they're a reporter. read more ...

In an attempt to find out who made a land-use complaint about construction that was occurring on her property in 2012, an Aspen woman is taking her quest to the Colorado Court of Appeals ...

Residents hailing from the more far-flung areas of the state can be underrepresented at state legislative hearings. To address this inequity, there may soon be an alternative to the requirement to appear in-person in order to give testimony ...

The task of fulfilling Freedom of Information Act requests has dogged requestors and the government workers who respond to them since the law was passed in 1966. But a new site under construction could help make the process easier for requesters and ...

An advocate for open records and open meetings in Tennessee said Tuesday that state and local agencies often broaden protections that don’t apply to them, and citizens and the media should keep them accountable. Deborah Fisher, executive dire ...

Open government advocates are blasting a move by the Walker administration to withhold the names of some 40 parties who toured the Hill Farms site last month in advance of a sale and redevelopment of the 21-acre property. “Is the state conten ...

NASA has been an open data operation since the passage of the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958, in the very earliest days of the Space Race after Sputnik. The agency has always published untold volumes of scientific data. Yet the kind of standardized, machine-readable data demanded by the Obama Administration's Open Government Initiative remains a challenge. read more ...