The Fort Collins City Council on Tuesday unanimously voted to release some records related to the city’s police chief recruitment process after a lawsuit from conservative group Judicial Watch. The group “uses the open records or freedom of information laws and other tools to investigate and uncover misconduct by government officials and litigation to hold to […]
News Release May 30, 2018 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Daniel Bevarly (239) 823-1811 · dbevarly@nfoic.org State/Local government FOI audits reveal administrative shortcomings Charging different fees for the same public record. Refusing to allow residents to use their cell phones to copy records and save money. The absence of online content to provide necessary information […]
Read More… from News Release – State/Local government FOI audits reveal administrative shortcomings
The State Department has quietly ended the controversial “FOIA surge” launched last October under the since-fired Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Capitol Hill and State Department sources tell TPM. The effort involved pulling hundreds of people from offices across the agency — including former ambassadors, former high-level leaders of bureaus and former National Security Council staff — and reassigning […]
Read More… from US State Dept’s ‘FOIA Surge’ Ends Amid Accusations Of Political Retaliation
Lawmakers are eyeing changes to public records law after a national group dedicated to government transparency flooded 800 Wyoming agencies with records requests last spring. Openthebooks.com, a project of Illinois-based 501(c)(3) organization American Transparency, filed the requests to collect Wyoming data for an online repository of spending by state, local and federal governments. Its requests […]
Read More… from Records quest for 800 Wyo. agencies drives open records review
TALLAHASSEE — A long-running clash between state water managers and a celebrated environmental activist is heightening tension over aggressive tactics used by Florida governments pushing back against citizens seeking public records. The battle also is putting Florida at the forefront of a rising trend. Instead of turning over requests for records, a growing number of […]
Read More… from Florida: Governments resist citizens on public records
Following the money has gotten a little harder in South Carolina. A state Supreme Court ruling on Wednesday scaled back a 27-year-old legal norm that any private entity receiving public money must disclose its organization’s records under the Freedom of Information Act. In Domains versus Hilton Head Island-Bluffton Chamber of Commerce, a 4-to-1 majority of the high […]
The ACLU and a Kitty Hawk resident have asked a Wake County judge to order a North Carolina lawmaker to release correspondence to and from her office about a plastic bag ban. Kitty Hawk resident Craig Merrill and the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina sued state Rep. Beverly Boswell, a Dare County […]
“NO TAKE-BACKS” is a common rule on the elementary school playground. It is not the rule when it comes to public records in the state of California, where public agencies can and do try to claw back documents after they’ve released them, and where one school district recently asked a court to award it $450,000 from […]
Read More… from The ‘really dangerous’ precedent for reclaiming public records
In an effort to prevent or expose conflicts of interest in the executive branch, House and Senate Democrats are pushing legislation that would force senior members of the Trump administration to reveal more about their business interests. The legislation, which was introduced this week, would empower the Office of Government Ethics to request subpoenas from […]
Read More… from Democrats seek legislation to force more transparency from Trump administration
The spending activities of a South Carolina tourism marketer that receives tax dollars are not subject to the state’s Freedom of Information Act, the state Supreme Court ruled Wednesday. The decision reversed a lower court’s ruling that found the Hilton Head-Bluffton Chamber of Commerce was was a public body that falls under the open records […]
