Bills that would expand two government transparency laws to cover quasi-governmental agencies, like the New Jersey League of Municipalities and New Jersey School Boards Association, were the subject of an hourlong Senate committee hearing Monday.
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Read More… from New Jersey: State legislation to boost open records law gets hearing
Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said the Obama administration refused to provide information more than 550,000 times in response to Freedom of Information Act requests.
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Read More… from Chaffetz: Obama Administration Has Claimed 550,000 FOIA Exemptions
Federal lawmakers are once again considering the first major changes to the Freedom of Information Act since 2007 after similar efforts stalled late last year.
John Gavin, a financial analyst based in Plymouth, is paying close attention to how the debate goes. That's because his business relies in large part on information gleaned from FOIA requests submitted to the SEC.
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Read More… from Freedom of Information Act: Why you should care about potential changes
As Treasurer of Ohio, I believe taxpayers have a right to know how their tax dollars are spent. All too often, we the people aren’t able to follow our money once we write a check to city hall, the state capital or Washington D.C.
The concept is simple. When government is big, the people are small. But when government is small, the people are big. As someone who sees his boss as the 11.5 million people of Ohio, I am all about power to the people.
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Read More… from Ohio State Treasurer: Empowering taxpayers to hold politicians accountable
The Boston Globe sued the police departments in Boston and North Andover as well as several state agencies on Tuesday to obtain copies of police reports, mug shots, and prison booking logs, arguing the records must be made public under the state’s open records law.
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Read More… from Boston Globe sues law enforcement agencies for withholding records
In a scathing critique of the Defense Department's efforts to curb sexual assaults, a U.S. senator warned Monday that the true scope of sex-related violence in the military communities is "vastly underreported" and that victims continue to struggle for justice.
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The debate is underway in D.C. over making footage from police body cameras public.
City officials say a big challenge is blurring out certain images which they view as private.
The proposal by the mayor's office to keep all footage private is meeting resistance with the president of the D.C. Police Union as well as several government watchdog groups. Continue>>>
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The U.S. Bureau of Land Management finally released some records related to last year’s Bundy ranch confrontation in Bunkerville. Considering the limited number and scope of documents provided to Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, one of two scenarios is true: Either the BLM is so incompetent that it put no thought into the overdone cattle roundup and never analyzed the guns-drawn showdown that resulted, or it’s so arrogant and unaccountable that its leaders believe they can ignore the law.
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Congratulations! You were one of the biggest winners of the first big deadline for bill passage at the Nevada Legislature.
How, exactly? By retaining your ability to review government records, which are the work product of your tax dollars.
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Read More… from EDITORIAL: Legislative deadline a win for open government
