News

Despite ruling, Rockland clerk refuses to release public gun-permit data

From The Journal News: The Rockland County clerk is refusing to release the names and addresses of non-exempt pistol permit holders, ignoring state law and a letter from the county’s top public records official ordering the records’ release. read more ...

SF law firm weighs in on Sorenson decision

From TheCalifornian.com: A San Francisco law firm is jumping on a local bandwagon asking the California Supreme Court to review an appellate court’s decision that would ultimately close all conservatorship hearings to the public. In a Thursday amici letter to the Supreme Court, Duffy Carolan of Davis Wright Tremaine LLP, argues the Sixth District Court of Appeals relied on a faulty understanding of the law to rule that all Lanterman-Petris-Short Act proceedings ought to be closed. [...] read more ...

NFOIC’s State FOIA Friday for November 8, 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. Brevard corruption case morphs into public records battle read more ...

Editorial: Farm Bill undermines FOIA

From Rapid City Journal: House and Senate conferees are continuing to meet to resolve the differences between the House and Senate versions of the 2013 Farm Bill. We received a copy of a letter to the conferees from the National Freedom of Informa ...

Media organizations ask the California Supreme Court to hear Californians Aware and Voice of OC’s case

From Voice of OC: The Los Angeles Times, the corporate parent of the Orange County Register and the 800-member California Newspaper Publishers Association are urging the state Supreme Court to overturn a gag order obtained by Orange County that ...

Court records reveal terror suspect who escaped UK surveillance was suing UK authorities

From The Washington Post: LONDON — A terror suspect who vanished after switching into women’s clothes at a London mosque is seeking damages from the British government for alleged complicity in torture and mistreatment, the U.K.’s High Court revealed Thursday. Mohammed Ahmed Mohamed, 27, evaded stringent government surveillance when he disappeared Friday wearing a burka. Police are still searching for him. read more ...

iFOIA’s new site features tracking

From Investigative Reporting Workshop: iFOIA, a free online system to create, send and track federal and state records requests, is now up and running. After nearly a year of project development, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (R ...

Judicial Watch forces Clinton Library to release 57,000 pages of records on Hillary Health Care Task Force

From Standard Newswire: WASHINGTON, Nov. 6, 2013 /Standard Newswire/ -- Judicial Watch announced today that on October 17, 2013, thanks to Judicial Watch litigation, the public gained access to more than 57,000 pages of previously withheld documen ...

Anti-war site, upon notifying FBI of cyber-threat, became surveillance target

From RT: The Federal Bureau of Investigation spent years conducting surveillance on a prominent libertarian anti-war web site, in part because the agency mistakenly believed that the activist page had tried to hack the FBI's own site, according to a new report. FBI documents viewed by the The Guardian reveal that an investigation into Antiwar.com was motivated by an examination of a “threat” that planned to “hack the FBI web site.” Yet the site never threatened any such thing. read more ...

United States vows to modernize FOIA, expand open data in updated national action plan

From FierceGovernmentIT: The United States says it will expand open data and modernize the Freedom of Information Act as part of six new transparent government commitments made in an updated national action plan released by the White House Oct. 31 ...