The U.S. States Open Data Census took a new approach when rating open data across all 50 states and Puerto Rico.
It allowed states to improve their results as the census looked into their open data initiatives. Instead of a closed assessment process, states watched their scores emerge and made improvements.
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Read More… from Open Data Census provides a to-do list for states
The Obama administration has long called itself the most transparent administration in history. But newly released Department of Justice (DOJ) documents show that the White House has actually worked aggressively behind the scenes to scuttle congressional reforms designed to give the public better access to information possessed by the federal government.
The documents were obtained by the Freedom of the Press Foundation, a nonprofit organization that supports journalism in the public interest, which in turn shared them exclusively with VICE News.
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Read More… from FOIA lawsuit uncovers how the Obama administration killed FOIA reform
Journalists, have you ever spent hours searching through federal court websites or government databases for a story? What if you could use a website that could cut that time down to just mere seconds? That’s what Sqoop promises to do.
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Read More… from ‘Sqoop’ website allows reporters to search government databases faster
The New Jersey Foundation for Open Government (NJFOG) is hosting a free educational seminar during National Sunshine Week (March 13-19), when the dialogue will be all about open government and “your right to know.”
The seminar will be held on Tuesday, March 15 from 7 to 9 p.m. in the cafeteria of the Belleville High School.
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Read More… from Learn about open government, Sunshine laws at New Jersey seminar
Legislation to close portions of the state database of breath-alcohol test results won’t affect information available in law enforcement reports on drunken driving arrests, the bill’s sponsor said.
An individual’s breathalyzer results “will still be in police reports,” said Sen. John Cooke, the Weld County Republican who introduced SB 16-132. “When someone gets arrested, everything will be in there, just as it has been. And it will always be in court documents, obviously.”
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Read More… from Bill to close breathalyzer database won’t affect police DUI records
A renewed effort to give Arkansas information about so-called dark-money groups would be part of a national movement to seek disclosure about those who attempt to influence the outcomes of elections, according to the backer of the proposal and others.
A recent poll of the National Conference of State Legislatures found that 38 states are considering new disclosure laws that would require groups such as the Judicial Crisis Network to share more information about their funding and involvement in state elections.
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Sloppy record keeping. Failure to follow the state’s open meetings and open records laws. Baffling instructions to anyone brave enough to file a complaint.
Those are a few of the charges the state’s auditor lobbed at Colorado’s Independent Ethics Commission, the body that oversees the state’s ethics laws.
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Read More… from Audit: Colorado’s Ethics Commission has questionable ethics
American cities rushed to provide police departments with body cameras, spurred by public outcry over shooting incidents in Ferguson, Mo., and elsewhere.
Having moved fast, however, cities are now running into friction, often from within their own ranks. Opponents of the contract arrangements say officials may have cut corners by signing no-bid deals, by not testing options thoroughly or by becoming too cozy with vendors.
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Read More… from After Ferguson, cities face a body-cam dilemma
Lobbyists could end up reporting far less of their spending on lawmakers under a bill lauded for improving the state’s campaign finance system.
House Bill 105, signed into law by Gov. Susana Martinez on Monday, aims to make it easier for the public to access information about campaign contributions and lobbyists’ reporting. But the bill also ends a requirement that lobbyists report cumulative spending on lawmakers, and it increases the limit for reporting to $100 from $75 per event. The original legislation struck the cumulative total requirement.
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Read More… from New Mexico law meant to increase transparency leaves gray area for lobbyists
It was two snippets of video that ended up costing Melissa Click her job last week.
Click shot from obscurity to infamy in November when, while employed as an assistant professor of communications at the University of Missouri in Columbia, she was caught on tape calling for “some muscle” to remove a student videographer from a public space during a campus protest.
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Read More… from How the Melissa Click case highlights tensions around police body-cam footage
