National Freedom of Information Coalition
Protecting Your Right to Open Government

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Fla.: Judges look at Sunshine Law in workers’ comp case

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An appeals court weighed arguments Wednesday about whether Florida's Sunshine Law was violated before regulators last year approved a 14.5 percent increase in workers' compensation insurance rates.

A three-judge panel of the 1st District Court of Appeal did not issue a ruling Wednesday. But its decision will have high stakes: A Leon County circuit judge said in November that the rate increase should be rejected because of Sunshine Law violations.

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‘It does not feel like transparency’: Atlanta dumps 1.47 million pages of public records

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The City of Atlanta decided to release 1.47 million pages of documents to the press and public—on paper. Mayor Kasim Reed announced the release in a February 9 press conference, after weeks of dithering over open records requests by local media regarding a federal investigation into more than $1 million in bribes for city contracts.

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NM: Doña Ana County loses $90K open records lawsuit

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A state judge has ordered Doña Ana County government to pay more than $90,000 to an Alamogordo-based pet advocacy group for failing to hand over public records in a timely way.

Alamogordo nonprofit Animal Village NM sued the county in late 2015, alleging officials had not provided public records in response to a request made under the New Mexico Inspection of Public Records Act, one of the state's key government-transparency laws. The lawsuit sought compliance with the state law.

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Va.: Lawmakers vote for four ways to increase government secrecy

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bill that would make deliberately ignoring citizens' Freedom of Information Act requests a firing offense died in a state Senate committee Monday.

The Senate General Laws committee also voted to shield records related to bingo and other charitable gambling supplies, as well as making confidential engineering and construction plans for single-family houses filed with local building officials to ensure compliance with state building codes.

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TX: Public access to records opposed by Webb County Commissioners

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The Webb County Commissioners Court has joined over 90 counties across the state in opposing a state proposal that would provide public access to court documents online through a statewide database.

Concerns include sensitive information being released to the public and a loss of revenue to the county. The Webb County Clerk’s Office currently charges $1 per page for copies.

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NM State Sen. wants parents to have access to investigations into school police

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Laura Gutierrez has been trying to get public records from Albuquerque Public Schools for more than a year. In 2014 a school law enforcement officer allegedly used force against her autistic son.

APS opened an investigation and soon cleared the officer of any wrongdoing. Gutierrez wants to see all the documents from this investigation.

In the fall and winter of 2015, Gutierrez filed four public records requests with APS for the district’s internal investigation of the officer, an employee of the school district.

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Sen. Baxley’s bill takes aim at Florida’s Sunshine Law

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The First Amendment Foundation is warning against dangerous implications of a bill filed by state Sen. Dennis Baxley, R-Lady Lake.

“Here’s the bill we’ve been warned about,” said Barbara Petersen, president of the foundation in based in Tallahassee.

She said the bill would poke holes in the Sunshine Law which forbids elected leaders from secretly communicating outside of a public meeting.

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What’s New in Civic Tech: White House Removes Open Data Info, Internet Archive Offers to Host PACER Data

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The White House has removed all of the information that was previously available through its open data portal, posting a message that encourages visitors to “check back soon for new data.” The old data, however, is still available through President Obama’s archive page, albeit in a format where some of the links are not functioning properly.

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Plan to change Nevada open records law met with resistance

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A bill proposed by the Nevada attorney general’s office to categorize and make it easier to identify exemptions to public records disclosure was met with confusion and suspicion Thursday by members of the Assembly Government Affairs Committee.

Assembly Bill 42 was the product of an interim public records working group to clarify what types of records are not subject to disclosure, said Brett Kandt with the attorney general’s office.

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