National Freedom of Information Coalition
Protecting Your Right to Open Government

Author: NFOIC

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Posts by NFOIC

Body cameras benefit police and open government

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Wisconsin State Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen says that putting body cameras on police would almost always vindicate police officers accused of using excessive force, but taxpayers' money would be better spent elsewhere. I'm not sure "almost always" would be the case but the evidence suggests that body cameras would result in fewer complaints against officers and less use of excessive force.
 

Opinion: Facebook should stop cooperating with Russian government censorship

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The Washington Post reports that Facebook has complied with a Russian government demand to block access to a page supporting Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny:
 
"In a sign of new limits on Facebook’s ability to serve as a platform for political opposition movements, Russian users appear to have been blocked from accessing a page calling for a protest in support of a prominent dissident.
 

Prime Prep Academy ordered to release documents to The News

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The Texas attorney general’s office has intervened to force Prime Prep Academy to release public documents it has withheld from The Dallas Morning News for months.
 
The troubled charter school had 10 business days to provide all the documents to the attorney general, but it appears Prime Prep will miss that Friday deadline. Edwin Flores, the school’s attorney in this matter, said he forwarded all documents he’s received, but some still haven’t been produced by administrators.
 

Let the transparency commence

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Many state government leaders are vowing to reform the state's contracting practices, particularly to reduce the amount of no-bid deals.
 
They've got a tough job ahead of them, bless their hearts. Every lobbyist and special interest agent worth his or her salt is likely to fight this one. Government contracts are the mother's milk of private profit from taxpayer dollars.
 

FERPA, Virginia’s FOIA at odds when it comes to sex crimes, violence on campus

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Virginia’s Freedom of Information Act prevents universities from disclosing information about students found responsible for sex crimes and violence even though the federal law meant to protect student privacy explicitly tells schools to make that information public.
 
The federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, or FERPA, says the name of a student found responsible for a crime of violence or nonforcible sex offense is a public record along with the violation and the sanction.
 

Tom Schenk takes over as Chicago’s chief data officer without fanfare

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Tom Schenk quietly moved into the role of chief data officer for the City of Chicago in September, more than a year after Brett Goldstein vacated that role, city officials said Monday.

Schenk previously served as the city’s director of analytics and oversaw its open data portal.

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How a popular government-transparency bill suddenly died in Congress

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Nothing comes easy for the current Congress, which has already left its mark as one of the least productive in U.S. history.

The Fighting 113th has agreed in principle on the need to strengthen the Freedom of Information Act, a key government-transparency law that guarantees public access to federal records.

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Editorial: Just a matter of time

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Early this year, the Air Force cracked down on FOIA requests for unfiltered radar records tracking air traffic across the United States. In its decision to withhold data that had been accessible for god knows how long, Air Combat Command implied that the release of certain computerized documents — in this case, known as En Route Intelligence Tool, or ERIT data — would expose vulnerabilities in coverage.

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