Colorado AG asks judge to keep complaints against business secret
From 7News: DENVER — The Colorado Attorney General's Office is asking a Denver County Court to affirm its desire to keep complaints against a business secret. The legal action follows CALL7 Investigator Keli Rabon's requests for complaints against a company called First American Monetary Consultants. She was researching a tip about complaints regarding that company and wanted to see consumer complaints filed with the Attorney General's Office. Rabon's request for the documents was denied, citing Colorado's Consumer Protection Act. That law gives the Attorney General discretion to release - or not release - consumer complaint information. The same complaints, however, ...
Ability to police U.S. spying program limited, says FISA court chief judge
From the Washington Post: The chief judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court said the court lacks the tools to independently verify how often the government’s surveillance breaks the court’s rules that aim to protect Ame ...
Sen. Feinstein wants to limit who can be a journalist
From Watchdog.org: The most recent congressional threat to the free press in the United States comes from California Democrat U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein. read more ...
State FOIA Friday for August 16, 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. Indy district seeks records on takeover of schools read more ...
CIA acknowledges existence of Area 51 in newly declassified docs
From USA Today: After years of government denials, the CIA is acknowledging in newly declassified documents the existence of Area 51, the mysterious site in central Nevada that has spawned top-secret tools, weapons and not a few UFO conspiracies. George Washington University's National Security Archive obtained a CIA history of the U-2 spy plane program through a [FOIA] request and released it Thursday. read more ...
NMFOG announces 2013 Dixon Freedom Award winners
From New Mexico Foundation for Open Government: Five recipients were selected by FOG Board members to receive the organization’s top award for open government. The award, which has been given since 2002, honors NM FOG co-founder and ...
Appallicious CEO receives national open data leadership award
From IT News Online: Appallicious co-founder and CEO Yo Yoshida accepted the Exemplary Leadership Award from the Center for Digital Government last week at the Center's seventh annual Industry Summit, for his work with open data in San Francisco and across the country. read more ...
Hunting local public records is faster than federal FOIA — but with a catch
From MuckRock.com: It's been almost 50 years since the Freedom of Information Act's enactment and accessing information at the federal, state and local level has almost turned into a document lottery. Over the past few days we have been breaking down what to expect when sending a response and today we take a better look at the difference between federal and state/local agencies. read more ...
Opinion: Thinking about moral definitions of openness
Perspective from TechPresident: It is hard for Westerners to realize just how much we take for granted about intellectual property, and in particular, how much the property owner’s perspective--be it a corporation, government or creative a ...
