News

Major ruling in Knight FOI Fund-supported case

COLUMBIA, Mo. (August 26, 2013) -- In a major ruling in a case supported by the Knight FOI Fund, a Washington DC-based federal district judge has ruled that the Central Intelligence Agency cannot use the CIA Act of 1949 as a catchall rationale for av ...

US seeks to shield emails about emergency network

From Miami Herald: IOWA CITY, Iowa -- The Department of Justice obtained temporary legal relief Tuesday to block the release of emails to and from an Iowa sheriff who serves on a federal board charged with building a high-speed broadband networ ...

CIA closes office that declassifies historical materials

From latimes.com: The budget ax has fallen on a CIA office that focused on declassifying historical materials, a move scholars say will mean fewer public disclosures about long-buried intelligence secrets and scandals. The Historical Collecti ...

NFOIC’s State FOIA Friday for August 23, 2013

From NFOIC: A few state FOIA and local open government news items selected from many of interest that we might or might not have drawn attention to earlier in the week. While you're at it, be sure to check out State FOIA Friday Archives. US seeks to shield emails about emergency network read more ...

How privacy advocates shined light on NSA’s unconstitutional surveillance

From The Switch blog at Washington Post: After a legal battle that went on over a year, the federal government was forced to reveal a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Court (FISC) opinion that showed the National Security Agency (NSA) enga ...

Secret Court opinion finding NSA surveillance unconstitutional released

From Electronic Frontier Foundation: For over a year, EFF has been fighting the government in federal court to force the public release of an 86-page opinion of the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC). Issued in October 2011, the secret court's opinion found that surveillance conducted by the NSA under the FISA Amendments Act was unconstitutional and violated "the spirit of" federal law. read more ...

Michigan ACLU denied request for FBI records on race, ethnic data use

From MLive.com: A federal appeals panel denied a request by the Michigan chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union for information on the FBI's use of data on race and ethnicity in targeting investigations. read more ...

Countries with more established FOI laws have better human development, still perceived as corrupt

From Investigative Reporters and Editors: Freedom of Information Act advocates have consistently claimed that institutionalizing the right to information will benefit countries, particularly in addressing corruption. They are not lying. By ...

Bradley Manning sentenced to 35 years in prison

From The Washington Post: A military judge on Wednesday morning sentenced Army Pfc. Bradley Manning to 35 years in prison for leaking hundreds of thousands of classified documents to the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks. Manning, 25, was convicted last ...

State employees shoot down VA open records access bill

From Watchdog.org: A subcommittee mostly comprised of state employees dropped a bill Tuesday that would have expanded rights to public records to non-Virginians. And local government lobbyists were there to back them up. [...] read more ...