Reporters group disappointed in federal appeals court decision over access to Virginia state records

The Reporters Committee  for Freedom of the Press did not like a federal appeals decision upholding a law restricting access to Virginia state records by non-residents. The court ruled that the restriction was not unconstitutional. The Reporters Committee felt the court should have considered the effect of the restriction on smaller journalistic enterprises. -db From [...]

Open access to scientific research under the gun yet again

A new House bill to block public access to publicly-funded research is nothing new. Efforts have been underway since 2008 to roll back the law that requires public access. The book publishing industry backs the bill claiming that the current policy of posting public funded findings online undercuts their business. From The Scientist, January 9, [...]

California state senator introduces covey of open government bills

California Senator Leland Yee of San Francisco intends to introduce a number of bills in 2012 to give the public greater access to the workings of their government. The bills include SB 1000 keeping the California Public Utilities Commission from withholding information about their regulation of PG&E responsible for a recent catastropic fire and SB [...]

Federal appeals court rules records in Apple case open to public

The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that  court documents in case brought by Apple against a maker of Mac computer clones were public. Apple claimed that the documents contained “compelling trade secrets”  about the Mac OS X operating system. -db From The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, January 6, 2012, by [...]

California: Anaheim looking into order to purge records

The Anaheim City Attorney is investigating an e-mail sent by a planning department official ordering employees to purge unnecessary records at the risk of disciplinary action. The order came after the Voice of OC filed a California Public Records Act request for communications to and from city council members. -db From the Voice of OC, [...]

Federal government allows access to Medicare data to rate doctors

Medicare is making its database of claims available to the public to allow assessment of doctors. A court ruling has blocked access to this information for decades. Critics of the release warn that the data could be easily misinterpreted in assessing doctors. -db From KSPR (ABC), December 5, 201, by Joanna Small. Full story  

California: District judge orders state legislators to disclose budget records

In a case brought by the Los Angeles Times, the Pasadena Sun and the Sacramento Bee, a Sacramento Superior Court judge ordered the California Assembly to release budget records under the California Public Records Act. Lawyers for the Assembly did not participate in oral arguments before the judge last week. -db From the Los Angeles [...]

California: Citizen loses suit to gain access to domestic violence registry

A California appeals court ruled that a man who wanted to find out if he were registered in the Domestic Violence Restraining Order System could not have access under the Information Practices Act of 1977. A judge had earlier ruled that the registry was exempt under the California Public Records Act. -db From the Metropolitan [...]

Tennessee judge opens Russian adoption case

The  Tennessee judge presiding over the lawsuit over the return of an adopted 9-year-old boy to Russia ruled that the court documents be unsealed. A court memo indicated that there were no facts presented to justify sealing the case and that the 9-year-old was living in Russia far from the harsh light of publicity about [...]

Call it the Not-so-public Utilities Commission

If you’re worried about natural gas pipelines running near your home or business, prepare for a long battle to get key information from California’s Public Utilities Commission. Under a 60-year-old law, vast numbers of documents — including regulatory reports and safety studies — are secret, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. What’s more, PG&E often has [...]

Immigration advocate group says feds stonewalling records on denying right to legal counsel

The American Immigration Council is charging that Homeland Security is blocking the release of records alleged to show how they interfere with undocumented people’s right to legal counsel. The Council filed a request for the records under the Freedom of Information Act but has only received photocopies of pages from manuals and not the records [...]

California state legislators block disclosure of Assembly spending and budgets

Saying they had already exceeded disclosure requirements on budget records, the California Legislature and Assembly said the records of correspondence about the disbursement of taxpayer money were exempt from disclosure. The Los Angeles Times and Sacramento Bee requested the records to investigate  a legislator’s claim that the Assembly Speaker was cutting his spending allowance because [...]

Commission unveils war fraud, seals records for 20 years

After uncovering $60 billion in contractor waste and fraud in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Commission on Wartime Contracting buried its internal records for 20 years. The Commission did release 8 reports and publish recommendations to avoid waste and fraud, but the decision to block access to the internal records and source material prevents the public [...]

Federal judge dismisses suit to keep secret the donors to proposition to ban same-sex marriage

A federal district judge upheld a state law allowing the release of names of those donating $100 or more to political campaigns. The supporters of Proposition 8 banning same-sex marriage in California wanted to withdraw the information claiming that the donors were at risk. Prop. 8 supporters said they had been harassed, vandalized, and received  [...]

LA Times sues for county child death records

Frustrated by delays  and heavy redactions, the Los Angeles Times is suing for the release of records concerning the deaths of children under the supervision of the L.A. County Department of Children and Family Services. -db From the Los Angeles Times, September 15, 2011, by Garrett Therolf. Full story

Texas Gov. Perry’s penchant for privacy

Texas Gov. Rick Perry, whose campaign for president has faulted Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke for purported failure to open the workings of the Fed to public view, has “adopted policies that shroud his own office in a purposeful opaqueness that confounds prying reporters – or any member of the public questioning his policies,” the [...]

Federal appeals court limits prisoner access to public records

The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a Wisconsin prison rule keeping prisoners from receiving documents under the state’s public records act that do not refer to the prisoner. The prisoner had circumvented the public records act by asking his grandmother to obtain the documents. -db From the First Amendment Center, August 12, 2011, by Douglas [...]

Press sues California Legislature for access to office budgets and spending records

The Los Angeles Times with a number of other newspapers has sued the California Legislature to secure the office budgets and spending records of lawmakers and legislative committees. The Assembly Rules Committee rejected requests for the records last month saying they were exempt under California’s Public Records Act. The press wants to find out how [...]

Associated Press wins First Amendment Award

For its ambitious use of freedom of information laws to generate high impact news stories, the Associated Press has won the 2011 Eugene S. Pulliam First Amendment Award. In a press release, the AP said it filed more than 1,000 public records requests in 2010 and 60 legal appeals of rejections. In 2009, the AP [...]

Should police name officers who use deadly force?

The practice of withholding the names of police officers who use deadly force is coming under scrutiny from the American Civil Liberties Union, which says it might go to court to enforce the state’s public records act. On Monday a San Francisco officer shot and killed a 19-year-old man who allegedly fired at police in [...]

Federal agencies follow no standard in response to Freedom of Information Act requests

A study conducted by The Hill of government responses to the Freedom of Information Act requests revealed no uniform pattern of response. The Hill filed FOIA request for over 70 federal agency FOIA logs and experienced wide variations in compliance. Some agencies sent logs with names but no affiliations. A few agencies complied in days, [...]

California court rules Public Records Act not cover GIS database

A California appeals court ruled that a public agency does not have to provide public access to  a geographic information system or GIS database under the state’s  Public Records Act. The court denied the Sierra Club’s bid to make public the Orange County Landbase, a parcel map showing over 640,000 parcels with street addresses and [...]

FAC and Sac Bee, in major court victory, gain access to pension payments, by name, to county retirees

A California appeals court ruled May 11 in favor of FAC and the Sacramento Bee in a case involving public access to information about government pensions. The third district Court of Appeal ruled that the California Public Records Act requires county governments–in this instance, Sacramento–to disclose, by employee name, pension amounts paid to retired county [...]

California: Sacramento County ordered to turn over pension data

A California appeals court has ordered Sacramento County’s retirement system to release pension data to the Sacramento Bee. The Bee and the First Amendment Coalition had brought a lawsuit to reveal data about the pension benefits ncluding the names and benefits of individual members. Said Joyce Terhaar of The Bee, “It’s part of our mission [...]

Access to records: Court reporters’ ownership of transcripts challenged

The California Legislative Analyst’s Office is recommending phasing out court reporters in favor of electronic transcription. The Office thinks it will save the state $113 million a year but studies have raised doubts that any savings would occur. Some open government advocates are also challenging the status quo by questioning the benefits of allowing court [...]

Loading up costs of public records requests defeats access

In a guest commentary in The Salt Lake Tribune, Brigham Young professor Joel Campbell says that a proposed new public record request law in Utah would hurt public access to records. “[The law]…would not only pay fees to cover the ‘actual cost’ of providing the records, but it also added new charges for overhead and [...]

‘Crowd-sourcing’ FOIA requests – political ploy or quest for openness?

A conservative political group has taken a cue from WikiLeaks and is soliciting supporters to post Freedom of Information Act documents online – as long as they hold the Obama administration up to critical scrutiny. Steven J. Law, president of Crossroads GPS, told the New York Times he hoped the “crowd-sourcing” strategy would reveal the administration’s [...]

Sunlight Foundation resists effort to cut transparency budget

The Sunlight Foundation is fighting moves to reduce the budget for federal transparency programs to $2 million from $34 million. The cutback, contained in the Full Year Continuing Appropriations Act, has passed in the House of Representatives and awaits action in the U.S. Senate. Among other things, the funding underwrites Web sites that allow the [...]

CSU foundations must be more open to public, panel says

More than 90 foundations and private enterprises operate on California State University campuses, but it’s unclear how much of the $1.2 billion under their control should be subject to public scrutiny, an internal audit concludes. The audit panel, consisting of four campus presidents, five finance officers, a vice president and a student, said that accounting [...]

Colleges: Federal student privacy law conflicts with need for transparency

In a review of court cases involving the federal student privacy law or FERPA, the Student Press Law Center found that FERPA does not always sanction withholding student records from the media. Recent court decisions show that under FERPA states may have considerable leeway to set their own conditions for release of information. For instance, [...]

FOIA: Federal appeals court denies acess to mugshots

In a departure from a ruling of another circuit, the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that a mug shot was exempt from the Freedom of Information Act. The court said to release the mug shots would violate the person’s privacy rights. Writing for The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, Christine Beckett [...]

For these seven, open government is a way of life

In recognition of Sunshine Week, the Sacramento Bee’s Marjie Lundstrom has identified seven Californians who doggedly fight for open government. Heroes or kooks, she says, they share a common quality: They don’t take no for an answer in their persistent efforts to pry open government for all to see. Their drive for accountability has prompted [...]

Government data a boon to consumers

Transparency isn’t all about holding government accountable. As more and more information collected by government goes online, consumers are reaping a different benefit. Writing in the New York Times, Richard H. Thaler, a economics and behavioral science professor at the University of Chicago, describes the payoff: potentially life-saving access to product recalls, airline pricing, job-hunting [...]

Restrictive open records law delayed in Utah

A bill that sailed through the Utah legislature in 72 hours and would have restricted access to government documents has been put on hold at the request of the state’s governor. According to the Salt Lake Tribune the bill would “prohibit the disclosure of text messages and instant messages, allow government agencies to charge fees [...]

Oregon newspaper subpoenaed after records request

A reporter for the Bend Bulletin newspaper in central Oregon has been subpoenaed to appear before a grand jury after county employees responded to her public records request, failing in some instances to redact personal information such as telephone and drivers license numbers. The Deschutes County district attorney also is investigating county employees, saying that [...]

Berkeley’s new sunshine rules: a step forward or a detour?

The city of Berkeley has adopted an ordinance that expands access to documents, expands live streaming of meetings and bars confidential legal settlements. But, according to the local Web site Berkeleyside, it also has potential to weaken support for a more far-reaching sunshine ordinance schedule for a public vote in November 2012. The city ordinance, [...]

Government electronic database suffering delays and cost overruns

The Government Accountability Office (GOA) found that the National Archives and Records Administration’s (NARA) initiative to increase transparency in the federal government by establishing a searchable, electronic database is facing delays and cost overruns. The program is expected to be only 65 percent complete  by September. The cost could be $193 million to $433 million [...]

New York Times distances itself from WikiLeaks

The New York Times Magazine Commentary January 26, 2011 By Bill Keller The New York Times’ editor-in-chief writes that while he opposes the U.S. government’s initiatives to prosecute WikiLeak’s founder Julian Assange and pass new laws to punish those disseminating classified information, WikiLeaks was a news source and not a partner or collaborator.

Wall Street Journal sues for access to Medicare fraud database

The Wall Street Journal has filed to overturn a longstanding injunction that blocks access to records of Medicare fraud and the doctors implicated in the fraud. -db Dow Jones Press Release January 25, 2011 NEW YORK – The publisher of The Wall Street Journal filed court papers today to overturn a 31-year-old court injunction that [...]

Electronic Frontier Foundation joins media groups in filing amicus brief to uphold access to GIS maps

EFF is asking a California Court of Appeal to uphold the public’s right to electronic files created by local governments in the case Sierra Club v. Superior Court. -db Electronic Frontier Foundation Commentary By Mark Rumold Last week, EFF joined a coalition of public interest and media groups in filing an amicus brief (pdf) urging [...]

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