What’s Sunshine Week, you ask? The journalism associations behind the mid-March event describe Sunshine Week as “a national initiative to promote a dialogue about the importance of open government and freedom of information.” Suns ...

The Saratoga Springs Housing Authority may have hit on a novel way to get back at its critics — a hit in their wallets. John Kaufmann, one of the housing authority’s most persistent critics, was recently hit with a bill for $394.25, aft ...

In recent years, the central government in the UK has been involved in pushing an open data agenda, not only on its home turf, but also globally through the Open Government Partnership of which it was one of the eight founding members. The idea is to ...

More than 3,500 pages of previously secret Clinton White House documents made public Friday showed that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Some of the confidential memos, notes and other papers released by the National Archives referred to technological advances of the times, such as the 1995 memo that suggested then first lady Hillary Clinton use the Internet to speak to young women because it "has become very popular." Others detailed political battles over health care reform that sounded like today's headlines. read more ...

A public policy research and information group has filed a lawsuit against the federal government over claims that it has denied its Freedom of Information Act requests seeking information on incidents involving nuclear weapons, nuclear components or ...

From The Durango Herald:  Go Code Colorado is asking computer coders for help in organizing the state’s vast stores of data. The Colorado Secretary of State’s Business Intelligence Center and the Governor’s Office are sponsoring Go Code Colorado with the goal of making government data more accessible and helpful to businesses. Go Code Colorado is hosting a contest in which winning application developer will get $25,000. Two finalists from each of five regions, including Durango, will advance to a final round in Denver. “The state collects a lot of data … but it’s just sitting there not helping the business ...

From the Lakewood Sentinel: The latest developments in digital communications were discussed at length at the Colorado Press Association annual convention Feb. 21 in Denver. While expanding modes of obtaining news continue in an extended renaissance period, it appears while more and more information is literally at hand, the information so important to the public’s right to know is not flowing so freely. One discussion led by experts in media law focused on current challenges to obtain public records from government entities. Journalists’ heads nodded to comments that the cost of obtaining documents often remains a barrier. Heads nodded that ...

From The Watch (Western San Juan Mountains):  MONTROSE – Other than Montrose County’s response calling the action “groundless,” “vexatious” and “frivolous,” the lawsuit filed under the Colorado Open Records Act by Black Canyon Partners, operator of the Black Canyon Jet Center, has, so far, elicited few details or documents surrounding the recent Request for Proposals process for a second Fixed-Base Operator at Montrose Regional Airport. The lawsuit, in which Jet Center Partners and Black Canyon Jet Center General Manager Ken Watson are named as plaintiffs, seeks to show cause as to why public records that Jet Center Partners requested during ...

From The Week:  The concept of a public trial is at the heart of the Bill of Rights. It's right there in the Sixth Amendment, right next to the part about impartial juries. It's right there in the First Amendment, too, right there in the part about the freedom of the press. And yet, our public trials are often not nearly as public as we think. For instance, in Colorado, there's a remarkable case that is forcing judges to balance in an unprecedented way the constitutional rights of criminal defendants and media organizations with a much more practical right — ...

From the Castle Rock News-Press:  A Castle Rock couple — whose car was damaged by a bullet Feb. 21, 2013, when a police officer was in pursuit of a suspect in a Plum Creek subdivision burglary — won't have access to additional police records that they wanted, for now, anyway. District Court Judge Paul King ruled Feb. 19 that Castle Rock and its police chief acted appropriately when denying the couple, Michael and Susan Cardella, access to various police records in part because two of the three burglary suspects still have trials pending and releasing the records could potentially result ...