Yellowing court records from the arrests of Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King Jr. and others at the dawn of the modern civil rights era are being preserved and digitized after being discovered, folded and wrapped in rubber bands, in a courthouse box. Archivists at historically black Alabama State University are cataloguing and flattening dozens of […]
Read More… from Alabama arrest records of Rosa Parks, MLK to be preserved
Government transparency could be getting even worse, according to Citizens United and the American Civil Liberties Union. “I think the state of transparency is getting worse in a lot of respects and it’s not just Freedom of Information Act requests. We’re seeing systemic efforts by the government to withhold information from the public,” Neema Guliani, the […]
Read More… from ACLU, Citizens United join forces for better access to government information
According to a joint status report from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, the State Department has informed Citizens United that they need 45 years to fulfill a FOIA request. The plaintiff, Citizens United, submitted a FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) request seeking: “All emails sent and received by former Assistant Secretary of […]
Read More… from State Department Says It Will Take 45 Years to Fulfill FOIA Request
The Oregon Government Ethics Commission is supposed to be the watchdog for how public officials behave. They slapped big fines on former Gov. John Kitzhaber and his fiancee, Cylvia Hayes, for breaching rules separating public service and private business. Ethics commissioners also review many lower-profile complaints involving teachers and bureaucrats — all with an eye toward protecting taxpayer resources. […]
Read More… from Oregon Ethics Commission Considers Concealing, Destroying Public Recordings
Read the latest newsletter of the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to helping Coloradans understand and use their rights of access to the records and proceedings of government and the judiciary. Continue… […]
News Release: MIDLAND — The Mackinac Center Legal Foundation and Virginia Tech Professor Marc Edwards launched a lawsuit today against Wayne State University for deliberately ignoring multiple Freedom of Information Act requests. The requested documents are related to questions about the qualifications and actions of Wayne State University personnel who were awarded millions of dollars in research […]
WASHINGTON — Three former aides to Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt confirmed to congressional investigators that the EPA delayed producing emails and other government documents sought by members of the public through public records requests by choosing instead to respond to old petitions made during the Obama administration first. The so-called “first in, first […]
NORMAN — The former chief legal counsel at the University of Oklahoma has filed an Open Records Act lawsuit against the OU Foundation. Fred Gipson is seeking records about a proposed project in north Norman regarding a multipurpose arena and entertainment district. He sued last week in Cleveland County District Court after the foundation denied […]
Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley has filed a lawsuit against the city of Bel Ridge alleging Sunshine Law violations. The suit, which was filed in the St. Louis County circuit court, said the north St. Louis County town “repeatedly failed to provide the public with proper notice of closed meetings, repeatedly failed to document in its meeting […]
Read More… from Missouri attorney general files lawsuit against the city of Bel Ridge
Public records obtained under the D.C. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) have again been useful in reporting and advocacy in recent weeks. Police stops. Black Lives Matter and other community groups asked the Metropolitan Police Department for records of officers’ stops of people in the street. Such research has shed light on biased policing in other […]
Read More… from DC FOIA In Action: Record Requests Proving Useful In Reporting and Civic Action
