FOIA request – Page 8 – National Freedom of Information Coalition

Academic freedom of faculty at stake in Koch-related records requests

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A legal dispute involving a former Koch Industries employee has led a prominent academic freedom group to contradict its previous advocacy for the privacy of “scholarly communications.”

A student group at the University of Kansas, Students for a Sustainable Future, filed a state open records request last April for documents pertaining to the hiring of several faculty members within the university’s business school.

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NMU waives FOIA fee for the North Wind

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Northern Michigan University’s student newspaper won’t have to pay a fee to get administration e-mails through the Freedom of Information Act.

North Wind editor-in-chief Emma Finkbeiner said the emails were sought to investigate what she calls intimidation issues from six administrators and general counsel over other stories, including NMU’s exclusive contract with Starbucks Coffee.

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The Register’s Editorial: After 5 years, we keep waiting for federal records

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The Des Moines Register received a call last week from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Freedom of Information Act Office, which processes requests for public documents.

The call was a sobering reminder of the pace at which the federal government handles requests for information:

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Will Private Prisons Finally Be Subject to the Freedom of Information Act?

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AIS FOIA Request Provides Inside Look at OCR Investigative Tactics

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State Dept. stonewalls Hillary Clinton’s files from AP’s FOIA request

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The State Department has failed to turn over government documents covering Hillary Rodham Clinton's tenure as secretary of state that The Associated Press and others requested under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act ahead of her presumptive presidential campaign. They include one request AP made four years ago and others pending for more than one year.

The agency already has missed deadlines it set for itself to turn over the material.

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EFF Demands US Trade Negotiators Publish Their Public Records

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It's no secret that the US Trade Representative (USTR) has approached the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) negotiations with a disappointing lack of transparency. For years now, leaks have been an inadequate substitute to reasonable public policy, and non-corporate groups have resorted to reading between the lines of press statements even as the stated timeline of the agreement has blown by.

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Does the AAUP approve of FOIA-ing professors’ emails?

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Should we cheer or boo when outspoken professors at state universities become the target of public records demands filed by antagonists seeking their emails and correspondence? As we had occasion to note during the Douglas Laycock controversy in May and June, there’s plenty of inconsistency on this question on both left and right. Some who cheer FOIA requests when aimed at scholars supportive of the environmental and labor movements, for example, later deplore them as harassment when the tables are turned, and vice versa.

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Opinion: Taking the Mystery Out of Government Contracting

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Government procurement is a $9.5 trillion industry, and supplying goods and services to the government is a core business function for thousands of companies around the world. In the U.S., contracts signed by both parties are usually not published, and are only released if someone files what is known as a freedom-of-information request with the relevant agency.

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Attorney general looks into FOIA requests about St. E’s hospital plans

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What was said to whom and when about St. Elizabeth’s Hospital’s plans for a replacement hospital in O’Fallon have led to Freedom of Information Act requests by the city of Belleville and the hospital. And now the attorney general is investigating those requests and the responses provided.

Attorney General Lisa Madigan has called for further inquiry into responses to the FOIA requests Belleville made to O’Fallon, and the requests St. Elizabeth’s made to Belleville

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