Wisconsin watchdog groups and Democratic lawmakers say there's a better way for the state to rewrite its campaign finance laws than the one Republicans are poised to pass on Monday.
The bill Republicans will likely send to the governor's desk would allow unlimited donations to political parties and let candidates coordinate fundraising and strategy with outside groups that keep their donors secret.
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Open government in Florida is under attack and the Florida First Amendment Foundation (FAF) is taking action.
Gathering in Orlando on Monday, Nov. 16, FAF and other members of the Florida Sunshine Coalition will discuss the issues and open government challenges Florida citizens face today and those the Coalition anticipates for the 2016 legislative session. They will decide on a platform for the Coalition and develop a plan for moving forward.
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If you've ever filed a Freedom of Information request with a public agency in New York, you probably know that it can be way too hard to get the goods.
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Transparency advocates in the U.S. are facing legal obstacles to moving state codes online.
Though the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 200 years ago that government work can’t be copyrighted, a tug of war between private companies with contracts to publish state codes and open government activists has raised questions about the ruling’s scope. Continue…
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Read More… from Open gov advocates face obstacles when publishing state codes
A state agency has rejected a request by several Minnesota police departments to classify body camera footage as private, saying that state law should clarify how the data is handled in the wake of the fast-growing technology.
Law enforcement agencies had argued current state law did not adequately address the issue of addressing both a citizen’s right to privacy and the public’s right to information. Continue…
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Read More… from State agency rejects request by cops to classify body camera footage as private
We live in a time when technology is transforming almost every aspect of our lives, from how we shop and travel, to how we communicate and find entertainment.
But one sector that has been very slow to change is government. Continue…
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Read More… from Editorial: Promoting innovation in government
Governments across the country are striving to meet a call to transparency by upping their data collection and analysis efforts. But with this trend toward big data comes an influx of “bad data” — inaccurate, outdated or misused information that leads to ill-informed policies, misled initiatives and an ensuing lack of citizen trust.
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Read More… from Editorial: Transparency and avoiding the pitfalls of bad data
North Carolina lawmakers have released a state budget compromise that will make more public safety documents off-limits under an expanded "terrorism exemption" to the state's open records law.
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Read More… from N.C. budget compromise includes broader ‘terrorism exemption’ to public records law
An open government advocate said Tuesday that a missing password that has rendered inaccessible part of a compact disc containing documents of a former state agency chief “looks indicative” of a wider records retention problem in Pennsylvania.
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Read More… from Missing password may signal bigger issue at Pennsylvania Department of Education
The city of Louisville's website has achieved a second-place finish in the 2015 Best of the Web Awards conducted by the Center for Digital Government.
The awards are conducted annually and honor city and state websites that try to make it easier for citizens to find services and information online. Continue…
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Read More… from Louisville Metro website wins top recognition
