Federal Government – Page 6 – National Freedom of Information Coalition

Ebola in America: Government Can Lock Us Up for Weeks at a Time

Posted on

Thomas Duncan, a 42-year-old Liberian citizen, is in serious condition with Ebola in a Dallas hospital. His partner Louise is confined to the Dallas apartment where Duncan became very sick from the virus. Texas health officials have placed her, one of her children, and two nephews in their 20s, under quarantine. This means they have been ordered, under threat of prosecution, by the county not to leave their home or have any contact with outsiders for 21 days. Any exception requires the approval of the local or Texas state health department.

[…]

Transparency critics are peddling public ignorance to ‘fix’ government

Posted on

Hang around the nation's capital long enough and inevitably even the most grizzled newsroom veteran reads something so utterly wrong that he is left speechless.

Such a moment arrived for this ink-stained wretch Thursday while reading a Washington Post op-ed by Bipartisan Policy Center President Jason Grumet. His piece included this declaration about post-Watergate reforms designed to bring government out from behind closed doors:

[…]

Tangled up in FOIA requests, agencies turn to technology

Posted on

Complying with the 1966 Freedom of Information Act these days is a hugely complex technological feat that goes far beyond filing cabinets, good judgment and black markers.

One trick to organizing and handling mind-boggling numbers of documents is keeping in mind the requesters' needs, according to experts looking to make this government service more effective.

[…]

Groups call on Obama to undo his administration’s damage to Freedom of Information laws

Posted on

A group of government transparency advocates delivered a letter to the White House Monday calling on the Obama administration to do away with its policy of reviewing Freedom of Information Act requests determined by the executive to contain "White House equities." The policy has "caused significant confusion and delay among agencies in their compliance with the Freedom of Information Act."

[…]

About that State Dept. $52,000 luxury hotel tab

Posted on

The State Department has taken more than two years to turn over documents WND sought through a Freedom of Information Act request regarding mysterious transactions at an expensive European luxury hotel funded by U.S. taxpayers.

Despite President Obama's continued proclamations and executive orders heralding a new era of open government, the State Department only partly satisfied this FOIA request. WND received mostly redacted, unreadable and even German-language documents.

[…]

The White House Wants to Reveal Where Government Drones Fly

Posted on

Soon you'll be able to find out where the federal government flies drones and what it does with the data according to a report fromThe Washington Post.The White House is getting ready to send out an order to make agencies open up data on where they fly drones and what happens to all of the data they collect.

[…]

Editorial: Nothing to crow about

Posted on

President Obama made some commendable speeches at the United Nations last week, but his self-serving remarks to a panel on open government wonít win any plaudits from supporters of an independent news media. They were an astonishing example of saying one thing while doing just the opposite.

[…]

Institutional Rules and Freedom of Choice: Who is the true architect of freedom?

Posted on

The Legal Studies Institute (LSI) at the College of Staten Island (CSI) presents 'Choosing Not to Choose: Autonomy, Paternalism, and Public Policy,' its inaugural annual lecture that covers Law, Philosophy, and Public Policy on Monday, September 29th at the College of Staten Island Center for the Arts, 2800 Victory Boulevard, Staten Island.

[…]

Going behind the scenes at Data.gov

Posted on

Data.gov wants to be the fuel that helps power the organizations and people that will change the world.

Data by itself is just the tinder for the spark of imagination and innovation. Without it many of the kinds of innovations we see like iTriage, Bright Scope, and Patients Like Me would not be possible. The Data.gov project is how the United States government, under the Obama administration, is striving to empower citizens to create the change they envision; not just by fixing a temporary problem, but by helping to let citizens solve the problem themselves.

[…]

10 Fascinating Articles From the CIA’s Secret Employee Magazine

Posted on

In 2007, Jeffrey Scudder, a veteran information technology specialist at the Central Intelligence Agency, came across the archives of the agency's in-house magazine, Studies in Intelligence. The catch: They were classified. So Scudder filed a Freedom of Information Act request. And then things got messy. "I submitted a FOIA and it basically destroyed my entire career," he told the Washington Post.

[…]