A few open government and FOIA news items selected from many of interest that we might or might not have drawn attention to earlier:
Washington State Supreme Court rules accident reports are public record
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Tag: open government
NHTSA’s FOIA Problem
From Safety Research & Strategies:
Safety Research & Strategies, a Massachusetts safety research firm that advocates for consumers on safety matters, has filed its third Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Transportation alleging that the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has improperly withheld documents – this time related to in the Evenflo infant seat recall of 2008.
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Prince William climate change debate centers on FOIA
From Washington Post:
In advance of next week’s hearing on whether a former University of Virginia climatologist’s e-mails are subject to public release, the Roanoke Times has published an interesting “point-counterpoint” debate on the topic.
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Social Media in Government: What Needs to Be Archived?
From Iron Mountain:
It seems as if every facet of government is reaching out and touching the public via social networks, blogs, email and other so-called Web 2.0 applications. And the public is touching back, making suggestions and submitting information.
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Militia exemptions for state public records
From Sunshine Review:
Only Iowa and Tennessee expressly limit the records that can be released by the military, reserves or guard. Tennessee expands on this exempting only security information while Iowa makes reference to "confidential records". In addition to these two states, a number of states exempt military discharge information, though that is more a question of personal privacy.
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Loudoun judge disbelieves BOE officials, but rules in their favor in costly FOIA case
Lawsuit seeks to force sheriff’s office to turn over surveillance video
From AnnArbor.com:
A retired Ann Arbor pathologist has filed a lawsuit against the Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners, claiming he was not given the full video of an alleged theft from a court employee’s car in 2011.
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Requests for public records surge in Lake Forest
From Lake Forester:
The Illinois Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) has made it possible for anyone to request records of all public entities such as municipalities, schools and park districts to bolster government transparency. How much time and money local entities spend on fulfilling FOIA requests, in some cases, has grown dramatically.
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GUEST VIEWPOINT: Inconvenience the price for open government
From The Register-Guard:
In his March 25 Commentary article, Robert Roth included a partial quotation from me to suggest that I have concerns with the court’s ruling in Dumdi vs. Handy. That is not the case. I always have believed that Oregon’s Open Meetings Law prohibited the conduct that led the court to conclude two Lane County commissioners willfully violated Oregon’s public meeting law.
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Open Meetings Act meant to ensure full disclosure
From MyWestTexas.com:
We have been disappointed in the 15 city leaders who have challenged the Texas Open Meetings Act in court since 2009. We think this is an effort to protect elected officials from doing the public’s business in the open.
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