National Freedom of Information Coalition
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Tag: New England First Amendment Coalition (NEFAC)

NEFAC announces its 2013 New England First Amendment Institute fellows

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From New England First Amendment Coalition: PROVIDENCE, R.I. – Journalists from a variety of media and all six New England states will gather in Dedham, Mass., Sept. 29-Oct. 1 to learn the latest investigative and database reporting techniques and public records access skills.

The fellows chosen for this, the New England First Amendment Coalition’s third annual Institute, reflect today’s diverse news media and come from daily and weekly newspapers, television and radio stations and online publications.

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Legal dispute over public access to 911 calls reaches Maine’s highest court

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From Bangor Daily News: PORTLAND, Maine — Attorneys on opposite sides of a legal dispute over public access to 911 call transcripts suggested Monday that dangerous precedents could be set if their sides did not prevail.

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Who’s counting? Boston Globe probe raises doubts on public meeting quorums

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From Boston Globe staff reporter Todd Wallack via NEFAC: While writing a story recently about the Massachusetts state pharmacy board, I noticed something odd: Only half the board members showed up for a meeting last summer — too few for a quorum — but the board members went ahead with the meeting anyway and voted on one item after the next.

It turns out it was part of a much wider problem, raising questions about how frequently obscure boards comply with all the rules for public meetings throughout New England.

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NEFAC open government news for July 2013

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From New England First Amendment Coalition:  The NEFAC Report — New England's monthly right-to-know dispatch.

This month:

Electronic Chatter Among Officials at Public Meetings Raises Issues of Transparency:  

NASHUA, N.H. – When officials in Nashua came up with an idea to equip the city's elected leaders with electronic tablets at public meetings to save costs on paper copies of documents, it seemed like a decent idea.

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Read More… from NEFAC open government news for July 2013

Despite 2012 open-records law, less information is made public in R.I.

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From Providence Journal:  PROVIDENCE — Last September, at least on paper, Rhode Island was supposed to become a more transparent state.

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But there seems to be confusion over the interpretation of the law among police departments and state agencies, which in many instances are releasing less rather than more information.

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NEFAC says Holder should push for shield law, train Justice personnel on subpoenas

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Press release from New England First Amendment Coalition:  The New England First Amendment Coalition registered "extreme dismay" at the government seizure of phone records of The Associated Press and urged Attorney General Eric Holder to work for passage of a federal shield law and take other steps to avert a repeat of the intrusion that was part of a probe into a security leak.

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Sandy Hook Massacre the focus of one of two major Conn. FOI cases

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From the New England First Amendment Coalition:

Virtually every news organization in Connecticut has joined a friend of the court action to the state Supreme Court asking it to overturn a lower court restriction on how much information police must release in a criminal investigation.

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Read More… from Sandy Hook Massacre the focus of one of two major Conn. FOI cases