A recent Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for copies of ballots from 2016 originally puzzled Michigan election officials and is causing some concern as the group behind the request explains its motives. A few weeks ago, city and township clerks across Michigan received FOIA requests from someone claiming to be “Emily”, asking clerks […]
Read More… from Unusual request for 2016 ballots worries Michigan election officials
When an orthodontist asked the reporter if he wanted a good story idea, the reporter, of course, said "yes."
Jeff Donn, a national writer with The Associated Press and 2012 Pulitzer finalist, was doubtful, at first, about that tip from his son's orthodontist: There's no solid evidence that flossing actually works. Continue…
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Read More… from Poynter Institute: How an AP reporter took down flossing
Open records requests and lawsuits go hand-in-hand. Agencies obfuscate, stall, perform deliberately inadequate searches and fail to respond in a timely manner. These actions frequently result in lawsuits, which are notably almost always filed by the requester.
The Hamilton Township of New Jersey isn't like other government agencies. It's far more proactive. Continue>>>
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Read More… from New Jersey: Court Tells City: No, You Cannot Sue Someone For Making A FOIA Request
The State Department’s latest defense on why it can’t comply with your ancient Freedom of Information request for documents is: Blame it on Hillary.
State says its document-reviewing personnel are too overwhelmed by reviewing those 55,000 pages of e-mails former secretary Hillary Clinton turned over last year to do much else.
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Officials at several agencies told a Senate panel that Freedom of Information Act requests have become unmanageable because of a dramatic increase in the number of requests over the last few years.
The State Department saw its number of requests jump from fewer than 6,000 in fiscal 2008 to nearly 20,000 in fiscal 2014, said Joyce Barr, assistant secretary of the State Department Bureau of Administration, at a May 6 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing.
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Read More… from Deluge of new FOIA requests increases governmentwide backlog
The House Oversight Committee asked nearly two dozen public interest groups to share their complaints about the federal government’s compliance with requests for government documents.
The committee is gearing up for a June 3 hearing on the government’s Freedom of Information Act process and is preparing an analysis of what is broken and what needs to be fixed.
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Read More… from House panel asking groups for FOIA complaints
The State Department has been dismissing about half of the press requests it receives for information under open government laws – a pattern of rejection that members of the Senate Judiciary Committee described on Wednesday as unacceptable and embarrassing.
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Read More… from Obama’s State Department repeatedly ignores open government laws
For two groups on opposing sides of the political spectrum, requests to the Export-Import Bank for records under the Freedom of Information Act yield different results.
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The Justice Department’s latest summary of all agency Freedom of Information Act activity in fiscal 2014 shows a record number of requests.
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The American Civil Liberties Union is urging the District to postpone its plans to provide body cameras to Metropolitan Police Department officers, challenging the mayor’s plan to keep the videos from public view.
The ACLU of the Nation’s Capital says the city’s plan to spend $5.1 million to purchase 2,800 body-worn cameras for patrol officers should not occur without a mechanism for allowing the videos to be redacted and released to the public.
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Read More… from ACLU slams D.C. police body camera program on disclosure
