National Freedom of Information Coalition
Protecting Your Right to Open Government

Author: NFOIC

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Blog: Less Privacy For People, More Privacy For Government

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Our state (WI) government should operate in a fully transparent way. We need to know what our elected officials are doing, how their decisions are being made, and how they are spending our money. On the other hand, private citizens should be granted a good deal of anonymity. We should be able to vote, express our opinions, and communicate with our representatives without our actions being widely publicized.

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4 keys to digitizing federal records

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As government records grow in both volume and type, agencies are challenged with managing that information in a manner that combines physical and digital environments. Moreover, by 2019, agencies will be required to manage their permanent electronic records in a format that meets the guidelines of the presidential directive on managing government records.

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Park district votes twice to comply with open meetings law

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In its last meeting, the Vashon Park District (WA) voted on a severance agreement for a former employee who had worked for the district for several years. It was the second time the commissioners voted on the agreement because they first voted in a closed executive session, which is prohibited by state law.

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CIA Tells FOIA Requester That He Needs To Know Everything About The Emails He’s Requesting Before He Can Request Them

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More FOIA-related nonsense, this time from the CIA. Michael Morisy, co-founder of MuckRock, sent a request for internal emails discussing (rather ironically) the fact that the CIA's "FOIA Portal" seems to suffer from extended periods of downtime.

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Scoppe: The SC Supreme Court and the Freedom of Information Act

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The day after the state Supreme Court issued its second ruling in a month scaling back what our government has to do in public, I got a note from someone close to the chief justice that said, “It seems pretty clear the Court in this case and Lambries is telling the Legislature to revise the FOIA.”

That same day, the head of the S.C. Press Association foreshadowed what lots of critics would say when he complained that the court once again had ruled against openness and “punted important issues back to the Legislature for change.”

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Op-Ed: Delay and deny: Obama’s two-face on Freedom of Information

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Upon entering office in January of 2009, President Obama promised us an era of openness and transparency in the federal government.

He set a policy in place mandating that federal records be released when requested by the public, on the premise that "sun-light is said to be the best of disinfectants." He instructed the executive departments and agencies to operate with a presumption towards disclosure when handling Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. On this point he stated as follows:

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Our view: Freedom of information

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The disappearance of rights is seldom an immediate process. There are too many people willing to stand up and fight against such an undermining of power. The danger is when it comes as a trickle or a tweak. That’s what slowly erodes the soul of transparency.

Gov. Pat Quinn recognized the steep downward slope on which such a tweak would have perched Illinois’ open records law last week when he vetoed a legislative plan to give municipalities more leeway in answering some requests for information. Let’s hope lawmakers leave it alone.

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Hybrid records management can enable open government

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In his first day in office, President Obama signed the memorandum on Transparency and Open Government, calling for a new era of open and accountable government.

“My administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in government. We will work together to ensure the public trust and establish a system of transparency, public participation and collaboration. Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in government.” — President Obama, Jan. 21, 2009

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NM FOG names open government award winners

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The New Mexico Foundation for Open Government announced the winners of its annual awards dedicated to open government. The group announced three recipients of the Dixon First Amendment Award, one lawyer, one journalist and one in government.

Charles “Kip” Purcell will be given the award for lawyers, Colleen Heild of the Albuquerque Journal will be given the award for journalists and State Rep. Jeff Steinborn, D-Las Cruces, for members of government.

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