Is the nonprofit Northside Hospital Inc. subject to the state’s open records law?
The Georgia Supreme Court on Monday heard arguments on the high-profile case, which involves Northside’s rejection of requests for information about financial documents and other matters.
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Read More… from Georgia high court hears arguments in nonprofit hospital/Open Records case
The education department is among the least responsive agencies in New York City when it comes to public records requests.
Worse than the Mayor’s Office, the Department of Environmental Protection, the Administration for Children’s Services — and far worse than the NYPD. That’s according to an analysis of a year’s worth of open records requests initially gathered by the Village Voice and subsequently provided to Chalkbeat.
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The FOI Foundation of Texas is pleased to announce 2017 guidelines for the Nancy Monson Spirit of FOI Award contest. The contest is open to newspaper, broadcast and online media. The Spirit of FOI Award recognizes outstanding work in promoting open government and the public’s right to know.
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The Vermont chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union filed suit Wednesday seeking documents from U.S. Customs and Border Protection detailing how President Donald Trump’s travel ban was implemented on the northern border.
The suit was joined by five other New England ACLU affiliates. It seeks records from heavily trafficked transportation hubs throughout the region, including airports in Burlington, Boston and Bangor, Maine.
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Read More… from Vermont ACLU sues border agency over secrecy on travel ban
FOIA requesters who relied on lists of classified directives published by both the Defense Department and the Joint Chiefs of Staff to know what documents to file FOIA requests for may now be out of luck. In a transparency backslide, both the DOD and JCS websites no longer publish lists of classified directives and instructions, making it impossible to know what to FOIA.
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Read More… from Classified Directives Listings Disappear from DOD and JCS Websites
Office of Government Ethics Director Walter Shaub Jr. is calling on the chairman of House Oversight Committee to become more engaged in overseeing ethics questions in the Trump administration.
In an interview with NPR on Monday, Shaub said public inquiries and complaints involving Trump administration conflicts of interest and ethics have been inundating his tiny agency, which has only advisory power.
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Read More… from As Trump Inquiries Flood Ethics Office, Director Looks To House For Action
Since public access opened over a year ago, FOIA requests for video from Metropolitan Police body-worn cameras (BWC) have numbered just over sixty and redacting those released so far has cost only $25,000.
Those facts, released by the Open Government Coalition in a Sunshine Week briefing at the National Press Club, are far from the alarming estimates provided by the executive branch to the D.C. Council in the heat of the extended camera debate in 2015.
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The public could soon get a look at confidential reports about errors, mishaps and mix-ups in the nation’s hospitals that put patients’ health and safety at risk, under a groundbreaking proposal from federal health officials.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services wants to require that private health care accreditors publicly detail problems they find during inspections of hospitals and other medical facilities, as well as the steps being taken to fix them. Nearly nine in 10 hospitals are directly overseen by those accreditors, not the government.
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Read More… from ProPublica: Secret Hospital Inspections May Become Public at Last
City Hall wants people to have easier access to things like code violations, pothole locations and other information they're seeking.
Syracuse's innovation office is crafting an open data policy for sharing all sorts of stats on the operation of city government.
Under the new policy, the city would release information on things like outstanding code violations, location of potholes and other data routinely sought by residents. It will also provide analysis of that data and show trends where available.
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Read More… from Syracuse, NY City Hall wants to make it easier for people to look at its data
Legislation that would prohibit politicians from using their campaign finance funds for personal use was signed into law by Gov. Phil Bryant Tuesday in his state Capitol office.
When the 2017 session began in January, the bill was labeled as a priority by both House Speaker Philip Gunn and Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves, who presides over the Senate.
Efforts were made to pass similar legislation during the 2016 session, but it was killed in the House. Mississippi was one of a handful of states where politicians could spend their campaign finance funds on personal items.
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Read More… from Mississippi Outlaws Personal Use of Campaign Funds
