National Freedom of Information Coalition
Protecting Your Right to Open Government

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Oil, gas pipeline information could become secret under Michigan bill

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A bill introduced in the Michigan legislature seeks to keep information secret about oil and gas pipelines, high-powered electrical lines and other key energy infrastructure.

The bill from Republican state Rep. Kurt Heise of Plymouth would exempt from disclosure under the state's Freedom of Information Act any information about existing and proposed energy infrastructure that "could be useful to a person in planning an attack," the Detroit Free Press reported.

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In Mass., public financial disclosure reports are not so public

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At least 29 states post financial disclosure reports for lawmakers and other public officials on the Web, making it easy to see their investments and potential sources of conflicts with a few clicks. Most other states make the filings readily available for free to those who show up in person.

But not Massachusetts, which has set up a virtual gantlet to see the filings, even though the whole point of collecting the financial information is to inform the public.

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Michigan Legislature: Bills focus on roads, transparency

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Limits on transparency in government and the germs of plans to fund road improvements began emerging in bills introduced by members of the state House of Representatives and Senate last week.

One bill would exempt information about pipeline and energy infrastructure from Freedom of Information laws, while another would exempt certain state boards from Open Meetings Act requirements.

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As federal workforce shrinks, FOIA backlog grows

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A new report shows a dramatic increase in the federal government's backlog of unanswered Freedom of Information Act requests — and blames it in part on a shrinking federal workforce.

Amid record demand last year for information from federal agencies, the Justice Department's Office of Information Policy found, the backlog grew by 67 percent.

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House panel asking groups for FOIA complaints

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The House Oversight Committee asked nearly two dozen public interest groups to share their complaints about the federal government’s compliance with requests for government documents.

The committee is gearing up for a June 3 hearing on the government’s Freedom of Information Act process and is preparing an analysis of what is broken and what needs to be fixed.

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Opinion: Strengthen federal FOIA

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When his first term began in 2009, President Barack Obama issued a directive to federal agencies to treat requests for information under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) with “a presumption of openness.” But his White House counsel followed with a memorandum to agencies saying they should consult the White House anytime a request involved what he called executive-branch “equities.”

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Opinion: The Dark Side of Government in the Sunshine

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Like motherhood, ice cream and the all-expenses-paid vacation, seemingly everybody should like transparency in government. The specter of elected or unelected officials making decisions behind closed doors conjures up visions of corruption and would seem to signify government on behalf of private interests. For this reason, most democratic governments, to varying degrees, now operate under various laws and rules intended to promote openness.

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Obama’s State Department repeatedly ignores open government laws

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The State Department has been dismissing about half of the press requests it receives for information under open government laws – a pattern of rejection that members of the Senate Judiciary Committee described on Wednesday as unacceptable and embarrassing.

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