Locally elected officials are expected to conduct public business in the open, and not behind closed doors. And any abuse of closed-door executive sessions represents a serious breach of trust between an elected official and those constituents he or she is charged with serving.
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Read More… from Open government: Closed doors problematic in Tazewell (WV)
The people's right to know is, like "the spirit of scientific inquiry," a "search for the truth," wrote Herbert Brucker in his 1949 groundbreaking book "Freedom of Information."
The highly regarded Hartford Courant editor and journalism educator has been credited with coining the phrase "freedom of information." Every state now has freedom of information statutes.
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Read More… from Op-Ed: More Government Power To Keep Truth Under Wraps
The Michigan House will soon consider bills that exempt firearm records from the Freedom of Information Act.
The bills also set up a method for law enforcement to obtain the records if it's needed for investigation purposes, although the bill says they would have to detail "reasonable suspicion" before they could gain access.
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Read More… from Bills in Michigan State House Would Exempt Firearm Records from FOIA
Some state employees will soon have to move to another building — but there’s one thing they won’t be allowed to bring with them: paper.
“We’re being pretty strict that paper should not move,” Gov. Dannel P. Malloy said Monday at an open data conference hosted by the CT Data Collaborative at Hartford Public Library.
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Read More… from Connecticut moves openly toward more data transparency
Cities and their photo enforcement contractors are often reluctant to respond to freedom of information act requests. Odessa, Texas did its best to suppress a request for emails between city employees and American Traffic Solutions (ATS) by allowing the vendor to argue it was exempt from handing over the documents.
"Information is excepted from the requirements of [the public disclosure law] if it is information that, if released, would give advantage to a competitor or bidder," states Section 552.104 of the Texas Government Code, which ATS cited.
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Read More… from Texas Attorney General Orders Camera Company To Produce Documents
The First Amendment Foundation’s James C. Adkins/Sunshine Litigation Award goes to The Florida Times-Union and Editor Frank Denton for recent success protecting and defending open government laws through litigation in three recent cases.
The award was created to recognize the importance and continuing value of the late Florida Supreme Court Judge James Calhoun Adkins Jr. The award has been presented only twice since 2009 and is normally given to a Florida attorney who made a significant contribution to the cause of furthering open government through litigation.
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Read More… from Florida Times-Union wins First Amendment Foundation award
The University of Connecticut Foundation, which has raised hundreds of millions of dollars from private donors, should be considered a public agency under the state’s Freedom of Information Act, advocates argued at a legislative hearing, according to the Hartford Courant.
The Courant story reports on a bill in the state house that would make the UConn Foundation subject to the same disclosure requirements as regular government agencies and require that its books be inspected by Connecticut’s Auditors of Public Accounts.
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Read More… from UConn Foundation Butts Up against Freedom of Information Act
The Tribune used state records and trial transcripts to show how an undercover FBI agent, using the alias Carlos Vargas, formed a political committee while posing as a strip club manager in the Chicago suburb of Harvey.
The records list Vargas as providing about $140,000 to the committee, named The Harvey Good Government Group 2007. Fliers tied to the committee promoted the re-election of the suburb's controversial mayor.Continue>>>
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Attorneys for the city of Nitro will argue Monday before the West Virginia Supreme Court that a circuit judge erred by not allowing the city to charge $25 an hour to look up information to fulfill Freedom of Information Act requests.
In 2009, the Nitro City Council approved an ordinance charging citizens $25 an hour if it took city officials more than 10 minutes to look up information to comply with FOIA requests. The fee was supposed to compensate the city for the time it took to collect the requested information.
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