A small committee going line-by-line through Virginia's open records laws decided to punt Thursday on a months-long effort to rein in one of the laws vaguest sets of rules.
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The Department of Defense (DOD) needs to improve its policies on responding to public-records requests, according to a new inspector general report.
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Read More… from Watchdog: Pentagon needs to update FOIA policies
Transparency advocatees from D.C., Maryland and Virginia jointly urged legislators to ensure the public and news media have access to meetings and documents of the Metrorail Safety Commission proposed to oversee the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (“WMATA”). The D.C. Open Government Coalition; the Maryland, Delaware, D.C. Press Association; and Virginia Coalition for Open Government sent letters Aug. 18 to key lawmakers in the three jurisdictions seeking amendments to a proposed interstate compact to establish the safety commission.
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Read More… from D.C., Md., Va. advocates oppose WMATA safety board secrecy
In a July 21, 2016, opinion, the D.C. Office of Open Government directed the District's Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) to end plans for months of private meetings of a school funding “working group” of officials and the public called for by law.
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The Tennessee Coalition for Open Government (TCOG) says more than 9 in 10 Tennesseans (92%) support public access to police body camera video when it records use of force that results in a citizen’s serious injury or death. That's according to a new poll by icitizen in collaboration with the Tennessee Coalition for Open Government. The support crosses partisan, age and regional lines.
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Middle Township Police plan to join with 53 police departments around the country in sharing information about interactions between citizens and law enforcement to a national database, an official said Monday.
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Read More… from Middle Township Police plan to share data with national system
Not long after taking over as editor of the Des Moines Register in 2014, Amalie Nash told CJR that she was determined to uphold the paper’s “longstanding tradition of standing up for public records.”
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Read More… from Des Moines Register gets a win in an uphill fight for transparency
Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan has issued a binding opinion under the state's Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) that email messages sent or received through public employees' personal email accounts may be public records subject to disclosure under FOIA if the messages pertain to public business.
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Read More… from Illinois AG Rules That Public Employees’ Personal Emails Are Public Records
The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), passed by Congress and signed into law in 1966, “established a policy of openness toward information within the control of the Executive Branch, and a presumption that such records should be accessible to the American public.” Since its enactment, FOIA has been frequently utilized by journalists, historians, attorneys, and members of the American public to track the inner workings of the federal government, as well as to hold it accountable.
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