Four Fort Smith city directors were dismissed from a lawsuit alleging violations of the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act according to a Thursday (July 31) court filing.
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Read More… from Fort Smith (AR) Board members dismissed from FOIA lawsuit
Over at The Atlantic, Conor Friedersdorf has an excellent piece on Jason Leopold's FOIA lawsuit to obtain former NSA chief Keith Alexander's financial disclosure statements.
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Read More… from Opinion: NSA Chief Keith and the Revolving Door
A non-profit watchdog group in Washington D.C. is criticizing Chattanooga's EPB over the costs associated with a recent open records request. A UTC student, and intern for the group, says he was slapped with a large fee after wanting to know more about how much the publicly-owned provider spends on advertising.
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Read More… from National watchdog group criticizes Chattanooga’s EPB $1,700 charge for open records
Some of our readers came up with a brilliant plan today to launch a coordinated FOIA (Freedom of information act) campaign. You can see how this came about in the comments section of last nights post 7/31/14. I think its a great idea.I believe we have a distinguished guest participating occasionally in our comments section as well. We should come up with the search terms, date’s etcetera. It will be very helpful to coordinate everything from this one post to avoid redundant requests.
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Read More… from Blog: Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac: Light Of Truth FOIA Campaign Set To Launch
From Open the Government: Earlier this year, Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VIT) and Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) introduced S. 2520, the FOIA Improvement Act. The bill has generated a lot of enthusiasm in the open government community because it puts reins on agencies' overuse of the exemption covering "pre-decisional material" by requiring that they weigh the public interest in the release of the record.
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Government units inform Americans about important actions taken or contemplated by placing public notice advertisements, or “legals,” in newspapers. This practice, as old as the United States, is no less valuable in an electronic age than it was when homes were lit by candlelight.
But today, some state and local elected officials argue that public notice advertisements should disappear from newspapers – replaced by postings on their government websites.
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The national governments of the US, the UK, and other G7 nations have been focusing more attention on the economic value of open data, as opposed to broader societal benefits.
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Read More… from More than economics: The social impact of open data
In January 2012, I filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the Environmental Protection Agency asking for copies of correspondence between the EPA and various green groups active in the Marcellus Shale region. The request was filed on behalf of the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity, the parent company of Watchdog.org. The FOIA asked the agency to provide us with “any discussion and correspondence with outside groups that concerns potential regulatory action that would impact the fracking process.”
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The D.C. Superior Court has ruled that city officials engaging in business on personal email accounts to circumvent government transparency must surrender those emails in response to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.
According to The Washington City Paper, D.C. residents suspicious over Commissioner Dianne Barnes’ support for the McMillan Sand Filtration site in Ward 5 wanted a closer look at Barnes’ communications, and filed multiple FOIA requests to do so.
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Read More… from DC Court Rules Officials Must Turn Over Personal Emails In FOIA Requests
