New research by Michael Norton and Ryan Buell looks into whether we like the government more if we could see what it was doing.
Henry David Thoreau once said, “That government is best that governs least.” Easy for him to say. Stuck out by himself at Walden Pond, he never had to deal with potholes on his morning commute or broken streetlights at night.
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Read More… from How Government Transparency Can Restore The Faith Of Citizens
The Unites States Navy inadvertently sent a memo to a local NBC News reporter this week detailing how it intended to try and deter requests he had filed under the Freedom Of Information Act.
Scott MacFarlane, a reporter for NBC 4 in Washington, D.C., tweeted out a screenshot of a portion of the memo on Tuesday morning, where the name of Robin Patterson, the Navy's FOIA Public Liaison is visible. The Navy FOIA office confirmed that MacFarlane had made the FOIA requests mentioned in the memo.
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Read More… from Navy mistakenly sends FOIA plans to reporter its seeking to deter
Two bills submitted for the upcoming session of the General Assembly — one in the House, one in the Senate — are designed to restrict the public’s access to information about wrongdoing by public officials.
These restrictions will make it more difficult for taxpayers to learn about misuse of their money by local governments, school boards, and state-run colleges and universities.
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Read More… from By shrinking FOIA’s scope, (VA) General Assembly aims to cover up misbehavior
Each election year in Wisconsin, about one-third of the local government offices on the ballot will be filled by newcomers — driven to office by a reformer’s zeal or a desire to serve their friends and neighbors. And some of them will know little about the laws that govern the conduct of local government.
That’s where the UW-Extension’s Local Government Center steps in.
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Read More… from Your Right to Know: Wisconsin Local Government Center a valuable resource
Jonathan Reichental is the CIO of the City of Palo Alto, Calif., and one of the world’s leading proponents of open data. Why is he so big the idea of giving citizens access to the data their governments collect? Because even in times of recession and debt, he said on our Structure Show podcast this week, the one thing governments always have in abundance is data. And it belongs to the people.
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Read More… from 5 reasons why good governments should embrace open data
From The Bulletin: Four years ago, the Attorney General’s right-hand man on all issues dealing with government transparency created a comprehensive list of exemptions to the state’s public records laws.
He found more than 400.
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Read More… from Push for transparency idles – Oregon’s public records law still full of exemptions
SEATTLE — Socrata (www.socrata.com), a Seattle-based cloud software company focused exclusively on democratizing access to government data, today announced a partnership with New York City to make it dramatically easier and more cost effective for cities, counties and states to transparently disseminate their spending data.
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Read More… from Socrata and New York City Ring In New Year with Open Checkbook Collaboration
From FreeTimes: The South Carolina Public Interest Foundation has filed a lawsuit with the Richland County Clerk of Court against the State Ethics Commission, alleging that the body charged with enforcing state ethics laws violated the Freedom of Information Act by responding to a reporter’s request for a public record with a falsehood.
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Read More… from Government Watchdog Sues State Ethics Commission
HARRISBURG – In the aftermath of a legal battle over redrawing Pennsylvania’s state House and state Senate district maps, one key player believes the commission charged with redistricting the state every 10 years can do better with more transparency and clearer rules. Continue…
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