A member of the D.C. Council is questioning plans by the Bowser Administration to keep all footage shot by D.C. police body cameras private.
The plan by Mayor Muriel Bowser's office to keep all body camera footage private first surfaced in language in her Budget Support Act.
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Elliot Engstrom, of the Civitas Institute, writing for the Burlington Times News spotlights a real problem the General Assembly should address before it adjourns this year…that of open government, and more specifically the ineffective enforcement of the Public Records and Open Meetings laws. Elliot writes:
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Read More… from Editorial: Over the long run, government is no better than its openness
More calls are coming in for Commerce Department Inspector General Todd Zinser to be fired, this time coming from the open government advocacy group Project on Government Oversight.
"Through his actions both before his appointment as IG and since, Mr. Zinser has proven that he is not fit for the position," a letter from POGO says.
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Read More… from Open government group calls for firing of U.S. Commerce IG Todd Zinser
The Department of Homeland Security has experienced a 182 percent increase in the number of requests it receives under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) since President Obama first took office in 2009, according to the DHS 2014 Freedom of Information Act Report published Thursday.
The DHS says it received a record 291,242 FOIA requests in fiscal year 2014, spending about $51.5 million to process and fill them. It fully granted only 16,651 of these requests, or about 5.7 percent, partially granted another 128,603, and denied 6,212 requests, the report stated.
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Read More… from DHS: FOIA Requests Up 182 Percent Under Obama – 5.7 Percent Are Fully Granted
Attorney General Peter F. Kilmartin today filed an open government lawsuit in Rhode Island Superior Court against the Western Coventry Fire district alleging the district violated the Open Meetings Act by not timely filing meeting minutes.
The fire district posted the unofficial minutes for its Sept. 18 2014 meeting on Oct. 14 — five days after they should have posted them, the AG said in a release.
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Read More… from Rhode Island AG Files Open Government Lawsuit Against Western Coventry Fire District
No one knows for sure whether Walter Scott was the third 2015 fatality from a police shooting or the 20th. And we should know.
But the United States has no database for police shootings, so we can’t find out .
If Mr. Scott’s shocking death is to spur a much-needed national conversation about policing, racial profiling and the use of deadly force, the big-picture number is a key piece of information. Continue>>>
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Legislation allowing local governments to charge fees for access to public records was pulled from debate this session for summer study designed to prepare a comprehensive open records bill.
State Sen. Jim Tracy, a Bedford County Republican who sponsored the measure, took the bill off notice recently after holding several meetings with interested groups such as Tennessee Coalition for Open Government and Tennessee Press Association.
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Read More… from Tennessee Sen. Jim Tracy sends open records bill to summer study
An improving economy and better resources in the developing world may not equal a more open nation, according to the World Justice Project (WJP) in its report on open governments globally.
The inaugural WJP Open Government Index, which ranks more than a 100 countries based on how open their governments are, found evidence which suggested there is no link between GDP per capita and open government.
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If you use a cellphone and live in one of these 20 states, there’s a decent chance police have spied on you using a secretive mass surveillance tool called a stingray. But good luck finding out. Because if there’s one thing we know for sure about these devices, it’s that the federal government is fighting tooth and nail to stop you from ever learning anything about them.
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Read More… from Opinion: Police want to keep surveillance tech secret
The Florida Constitution warms your heart with these bold and fervent statements right up front in Article I:
“Every person has the right to inspect or copy any public record made or received in connection with the official business of any public body, officer, or employee of the state, or persons acting on their behalf …”
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Read More… from Editorial: Florida Legislators closing open government
