National Freedom of Information Coalition
Protecting Your Right to Open Government

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Bill would require release of autopsy reports related to cause of death cases

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A bill set for action early next year in the state Senate would require coroners to release autopsy reports related to the cause of death in cases such as that of Tucker Hipps, the Clemson student who died during a fraternity run in September.

State Sen. Larry Martin said he pre-filed the bill in response to a state Supreme Court ruling that came out after the legislative session ended last summer that found that autopsy reports are "medical records" and thus exempt from disclosure under the state's Freedom of Information Act.

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EDITORIAL: City did the right thing in improving citizen access

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We all say we want transparent government, but each legislative session, numerous bills are introduced to limit what you can learn about government operations. Every week, legitimate requests for information are rejected or ignored. Bit by bit, exemption by exemption, governments advocate for less public access, not more.

That’s why it is refreshing to see the Port Townsend City Council (WA) actually making it easier for people to access information and participate in government deliberations.
Jefferson Healthcare Help Wanted

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Open data partnership between city and county of Durham, NC

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Open data has found the most innovation at the local government level. While not taking away from the efforts of data.gov and the state initiatives, local data has more impact on the day to day lives of civil society. A wealth of city and county public data exists, but accessing it can sometimes be time consuming. Now, thanks to a new local government partnership, open data in Durham is just months away from becoming a reality.

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FOIA change targets nuisance requests in Illinois

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Tazewell County Sheriff’s Office Sgt. Hal Harper has spent every workday for the last two months dealing with Freedom of Information Act requests from a convicted murderer.

Harper, who started two months ago as one of the department’s Freedom Of Information Act officers, said that Daniel Cleary recently sent a request for 2,500 pages of documents and a DVD of his police interrogations.

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Richmond officials planning to publish more government data online

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Richmond officials are looking to open up more city data to the public by making information available on government spending, permits, crime and real estate.

Councilman Jonathan T. Baliles, 1st District, introduced an ordinance this month that would require the city to publish its payment register on the city’s website.

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Tallahassee Police Department’s public release of ESPN information highly problematic

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It’s an unusual situation when a governmental agency releasing information to the public is a negative thing from a journalistic perspective, but the manner in which the Tallahassee Police Department did so this week is highly questionable. The department has been under plenty of public fire this year thanks to reports from Fox Sports and The New York Times alleging that they hindered investigations against Florida State football players, and an ESPN freedom of information request was set to bring forth plenty of other documents that portrayed the department in a bad light.

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Seattle Police Held a Hackathon to Figure Out How to Redact Body Cam Video Streams

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Along with police departments in New York City and Los Angeles, Seattle police are preparing to test body cams on officers in the field. In an attempt to find a balance between releasing footage and redacting private details, Seattle police held a hackathon of Friday.

Discussion around whether law enforcement agents should wear body cams has surged in the months since the shooting of Michael Brown. And as funding comes through for pilot programs, it's increasingly important to answer question about how these devices will be implemented.

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Electronic eavesdropping: NSA reports on its privacy violations

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The National Security Agency has a lot to keep track of – all those electronic communications and other signals, mostly innocuous but some of which are critical to national security, collectively known as “signals intelligence” or SIGINT.

In the post-9/11 world of terrorist threats, unconventional war, and rapidly advancing technology, sorting through and making sense of all that SIGINT becomes increasingly critical.

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The AP creates team of statehouse reporting specialists

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The Associated Press announced Thursday it will create “a team of state government specialists” in an effort to bolster coverage of statehouses across America.

The new team will “be a resource to our statehouse reporters looking for help broadening the scope of their reporting,” Brian Carovillano, AP’s managing editor for U.S. news, wrote in a brief Q and A accompanying the announcement. They will also work with a projects team that will turn out “ambitious enterprise” journalism on state government.

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