The annual nationwide Sunshine Week is celebrated this year from March 15 – 21. USA newspapers publish stories about public records and the difficulty in obtaining some of them. “Public records” are generally defined as records regardless of their physical form (so email would be included) made or received in connection with the transaction of official business by any government agency.
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Leonard Riley Jr. knows his First Amendment rights, and his rights to public information, and he knows when they’ve been violated.
Dissatisfied with the management policies at the Medical University of South Carolina, Riley and other activists organized a silent protest of the university’s board of trustees meetings last fall. He said they had intended to go to every meeting until their complaints were acknowledged.
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Read More… from S.C. legislators debating changes to strengthen Freedom of Information Act
By The Associated Press
Some recent developments regarding the cost of seeking access to information:
CALIFORNIA
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Read More… from Cost-related access challenges, solutions in 18 states
The Environmental Protection Agency's unacceptable attitude toward public-records requests earned terse words but no sanctions from a federal judge.
Though Landmark Legal Foundation failed to win spoliation sanctions against the EPA, U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth agreed with it that the agency had failed its duty to protect and provide public information.
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With the upcoming Mayoral and Aldermanic elections for the City of Chicago, the city has apparently decided to keep requested public records a secret. The records requested are such that they could point to disqualification for office if revealed.
On January 31, 2015, I requested records relating to nearly every elected official in the City of Chicago government. The records I was seeking pertain to debts owed to the city, which included the time-frame for election petition filing. (read it below)
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Read More… from City of Chicago – Keeping Records Secret for Election Protection?
College environmentalists are using public records laws to investigate the circumstances surrounding the hiring of an economist at the University of Kansas (KU) who has spoken out against wind subsidies, according to his attorney.
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Read More… from Environmentalists Use Records Law to Investigate KU Economist
On Tuesday, Jeb Bush, “in the spirit of transparency,” released a mass of emails sent to him during his time as Florida governor.
Many of the emails are the stuff of public record, and “would have surfaced anyway due to sunshine laws and nosy journalists,” as The Christian Science Monitor put it.
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Denial of public records, excessive fees to find out what the government is doing, violations of open meetings law and long delays in getting information are some of the problems open records advocates find in Tennessee.
News media routinely face hurdles in getting information to report to the public but ordinary citizens have it 10 times worse, said Deborah Fisher, executive director of the Tennessee Coalition for Open Government. She made the comment during the annual Associated Press-Tennessee Press Association legislative preview session.
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Read More… from Open records advocate: Citizens have tougher time than media
A case headed for a Staten Island courtroom on Thursday that seeks to unlock grand jury evidence in the police killing of Eric Garner is part of a national push to pry from law enforcement information long kept secret.
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Read More… from New Challenges to Secrecy That Protects Police Files
