From Investigative Reporters and Editors: Freedom of Information Act advocates have consistently claimed that institutionalizing the right to information will benefit countries, particularly in addressing corruption.
They are not lying.
By comparing indices on corruption, human development, and years of having an FOI law across 168 countries, I found support to the assumption that having an FOI law leads to lower levels of perceived corruption.
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From The Washington Post: A military judge on Wednesday morning sentenced Army Pfc. Bradley Manning to 35 years in prison for leaking hundreds of thousands of classified documents to the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks.
Manning, 25, was convicted last month of multiple charges, including violations of the Espionage Act for copying and disseminating the documents while serving as an intelligence analyst at a forward operating base in Iraq. He faced up to 90 years in prison.
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Read More… from Bradley Manning sentenced to 35 years in prison
From GovExec.com: What Is Crowdsourcing?
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Read More… from Four unique approaches to government crowdsourcing
From the Washington Post: The chief judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court said the court lacks the tools to independently verify how often the government’s surveillance breaks the court’s rules that aim to protect Americans’ privacy. Without taking drastic steps, it also cannot check the veracity of the government’s assertions that the violations its staff members report are unintentional mistakes.
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Read More… from Ability to police U.S. spying program limited, says FISA court chief judge
From Watchdog.org: The most recent congressional threat to the free press in the United States comes from California Democrat U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein.
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Read More… from Sen. Feinstein wants to limit who can be a journalist
From MuckRock.com: It's been almost 50 years since the Freedom of Information Act's enactment and accessing information at the federal, state and local level has almost turned into a document lottery.
Over the past few days we have been breaking down what to expect when sending a response and today we take a better look at the difference between federal and state/local agencies.
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Read More… from Hunting local public records is faster than federal FOIA — but with a catch
Perspective from TechPresident: It is hard for Westerners to realize just how much we take for granted about intellectual property, and in particular, how much the property owner’s perspective–be it a corporation, government or creative artist–is embedded in our view of the world as the natural order of things.
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Read More… from Opinion: Thinking about moral definitions of openness
From Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas: Prominent Texas legislators urged Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas conference attendees Friday to remain vigilant in their open government and free speech advocacy.
Rep. Todd Hunter, R-Corpus Christi, who received the organization’s inaugural Open Government Lawmaker of the Year Award, said he was raised in a family that valued free speech and noted that many elected officials support open government and First Amendment rights.
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Read More… from FOIFT awards inaugural Open Government Lawmaker of the Year Award
The Public Affairs Research Council of Louisiana (PAR), the NFOIC member organization that co-hosted the 2013 FOI Summit in New Orleans, has won a national award for its new "Sunshine Headquarters" Web portal from the Governmental Research Association (GRA).
GRA is a national organization of individuals and groups who study and make recommendations on state and local policy issues. The award was presented during the annual GRA conference held last week in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
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From San Bruno CA Patch: How well do San Mateo County third-graders score on reading assessments? What is the assessed value of real estate in Brisbane? How long does it take to travel across San Mateo County in a car? In a bus? On the train?
San Mateo County is throwing open the doors to a treasure trove of public information with the launch of the San Mateo County Open Data Portal, accessible at https://data.smcgov.org/.
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Read More… from San Mateo County opens access to key public data
