From Smoky Mountain News:
In this day of Twitter and the blogospere, an increasing number of everyday citizens are turning into reporters who shine a light on the inner workings of our government. We welcome them to join us as watchdogs of local government. We're all fighting for the same cause. And every one of those citizens has the same rights to information as members of the traditional media.
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Read More… from Celebrating a society built on open government
Opinion from Palo Alto Patch:
Something is wrong.
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Read More… from In the era of shrinking newspapers, public needs to assert rights
Washington, D.C. (March 12, 2012) – Kenneth F. Bunting, executive director of the National Freedom of Information Coalition (NFOIC), is scheduled to appear before the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary on the morning of Tuesday, March 13.
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Read More… from NFOIC executive director testifies before Senate Judiciary Committee
From Sunlight Foundation:
After a long wait, the White House is today launching Ethics.gov (at Explore.data.gov/ethics ), fulfilling the President's campaign promise to create a single website for searches related to executive branch ethics and influence data.
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From Social Science Research Network:
“Open government” used to carry a hard political edge: it referred to politically sensitive disclosures of government information. The phrase was first used in the 1950s, in the debates leading up to passage of the Freedom of Information Act. But over the last few years, that traditional meaning has blurred, and has shifted toward technology.
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From NextGov:
A new research paper by Harlan Yu and David Robinson does an excellent job of tracing the history of the open government and open data movements and the way the two have been conflated, especially since the beginning of the Obama administration.
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Here are several interesting items of note in the last couple days regarding costs associated with fulfilling public records requests—and the fighting thereof.
Granted, if not these then at least some agencies likely have used or will use costs—actual or estimated, reasonable or outlandish—as a way of deflecting criticism when requested records are not searched for adequately or are ultimately not located, and that is unacceptable.
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A few open government and FOIA news items selected from many of interest that we might or might not have drawn attention to earlier:
CIA's Covert Operation Against Declassification Review
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From OMBWatch:
An interagency project underway could revolutionize implementation of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and significantly improve transparency and efficiency. The project to develop a government-wide portal for FOIA requests, a goal long supported by the open government community, could deliver as soon as this fall.
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Read More… from FOIA Portal Would Boost Responsiveness and Improve Efficiency
From Nyack-Piermont Patch:
Rhea Vogel of New City filed complaints about three Clarkstown Board of Education meetings with the New York State Committee on Open Government on December 8. Vogel said she felt the action was necessary.
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Read More… from Community Member files complaint regarding Open Meetings in New York.
