A WBEZ analysis of nearly 450 pages of emails found that government lawyers blacked out portions of more than half the documents recently turned over to a legislative panel investigating the state’s inability to contain the waterborne illness. Repeated outbreaks at the home since 2015 have contributed to the deaths of 13 residents and sickened […]
CONCORD — A bill calling for creation of a Citizens Right-to-Know Appeals Board and a Right-to-Know ombudsman will go the full House with an “ought to pass” recommendation from the House Judiciary Committee. The bill, SB 555, is the culmination of a year’s work by a Right-to-Know study commission. It passed the Senate on March […]
Read More… from New Hampshire key House panel backs creation of Right-to- Know ombudsman
Over protests from health insurers, the New Jersey Department of Banking and Insurance has decided that executive compensation at Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield and Independence Health Group, which operates through AmeriHealth New Jersey, is public information and must be disclosed. Insurers’ “assertions of proprietary interests” regarding executive pay “are at times tenuous and ultimately […]
Read More… from N.J. regulators back disclosure of health insurers’ executive pay
A private company that sells surveillance technology to law enforcement is telling police departments that they are being targeted and attacked by transparency groups that request public records. Vigilant Solutions, the country’s largest vendor of automated license plate readers (ALPRs), has accused the non-profit groups Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and Muckrock of running a campaign […]
Read More… from License Plate Surveillance Company Attacks Nonprofits For Filing FOIA Requests
OGIS’ Fiscal Year (FY) 2017 Annual Report was released. This year’s report chronicles the first full year since the passage of the FOIA Improvement Act of 2016, which highlighted OGIS’s crucial role in improving compliance with the statute, and OGIS’ improved ability to share observations about methods to improve the FOIA process. Read more… […]
A proposal (LB902) from Sen. Bruce Bostelman creating an exemption from the state’s public-records laws for records created for the registration, possession or sale of guns was advanced to second-round debate on a 32-0 vote Tuesday. Bostelman, of Brainard, said the bill would keep gun owners from being targeted for fraud, harassment or abuse, and […]
Read More… from Nebraska bill to exempt gun registration from public record moves ahead
The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press secured an important victory last Thursday in Tokar v. Department of Justice currently pending before the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Judge Rudolph Contreras held that the U.S. Department of Justice must provide Dylan Tokar, a reporter with the trade publication Just Anti-Corruption, the […]
In 2015, the Texas Supreme Court ruled in Boeing Co. v. Paxton that records could be kept secret if their release would put the government or businesses at a competitive disadvantage. The Boeing decision blew a gaping hole in the Texas Public Information Act. It’s been used to keep the public in the dark about […]
IOLA – Iola-Scandinavia school leaders want state lawmakers to allow government agencies to charge people more for access to public records, including for lawyers to decide what information to keep hidden. School board members unanimously approved a resolution in March that said the district spent roughly $27,000 on legal and administrative fees for processing records […]
Read More… from WI: school board wants right to charge people tens of thousands for public records
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — The Library of Virginia is years behind in cataloging documents from former governors’ administrations and has declined to make records in that trove of information available under public records requests. The backlog came to light when progressive blogger Jonathan Sokolow filed a Freedom of Information Act request seeking details about agreements […]
Read More… from Backlog hangs up access to former Virginia governors’ records
