Those e-mails? The ones about you? Can't have 'em. But we'll send the to reporters...

When an attorney fired by Gov. Matt Blunt tried to get records from the governor’s office about his termination, he was told those documents were closed for personnel reasons.

The refusal to provide the records came the same day Blunt’s office released hundreds of pages of e-mails and documents to reporters that included intimate personal details about Scott Eckersley, the administration lawyer who was fired Sept. 28.

In a letter to reporters the day the documents were released, administration officials insinuated Eckersley may have liked “group sex” and illegal drugs.

Eckersley, the former deputy chief counsel for Blunt’s office, has said he was fired after challenging the administration’s position that it did not have to save e-mails and could routinely delete them. He said he is now the victim of character assassination in retaliation for speaking out.

At a news conference in Springfield on Tuesday, Blunt denied Eckersley’s claim and said the firing had been “handled appropriately.” He said that Eckersley was fired for working for another company on state time.

More here.

Want A Job Fighting Secrecy?

JOB ANNOUNCEMENT Oct. 30, 2007

PROGRAM ASSISTANT or ASSOCIATE

OpenTheGovernment.org is searching for either a Program Assistant or an Associate to help run a coalition addressing government transparency issues.

OpenTheGovernment.org is a coalition of consumer and good government groups, environmentalists, library groups, journalists, labor and others united to make the federal government a more open place in order to make us safer, strengthen public trust in government, and support our democratic principles. It was founded in 2003 as a result of increased government secrecy. OpenTheGovernment.org has a small two-person staff serving a steering committee of 15 people representing members of coalition. The coalition operates with assistance of coalition members and paid consultants.

The coalition’s goals are to:
• Broaden the base of national, state and local organizations active on right to know and anti-secrecy issues. The current constituency base of nonprofit organizations, media allies, prominent citizens and others willing to respond to crises and advocate for the right to know is inadequate to meet today=s trend against openness.
• Advance right-to-know at the federal and state levels through legislative and other vehicles. These vehicles may be useful as a tool or set of tools to organize around or as policy objectives in and of themselves.
• Better publicize secrecy efforts through the media using messages that resonate with the public and are framed in a way that is supportive of improving hometown safety.

OpenTheGovernment.org is searching for the best fit for its small office. Depending upon a candidate’s qualifications, s/he may be considered for either the position of Associate or Program Assistant. The coalition has two full-time staff located in Washington, D.C. One position is available and will report to the Director. The Associate would have greater responsibility for developing and carrying out policy positions, including lobbying, and for coalition-building and strengthening activities.

The position involves working with the Director to

• Involve interested parties (organizations and individuals) in openness and anti-secrecy activities;
• Coordinate and participate in meetings with Congressional offices;
• Coordinate coalition work on issues related to openness and secrecy;
• Represent organization at coalition meetings, and cultivate relationships with coalition partners;
• Research, track, and analyze legislation on government openness and secrecy, and co-author the annual Secrecy Report Card, a report that uses quantifiable measures to examine the growth of government secrecy;
• Plan and organize annual national teleconference during "Sunshine Week," and work with experts to engage online audiences with games and flash animation; and
• Identify potential funders, write proposals, organize funders’ briefings and report on existing grants.

Other responsibilities include

• Assisting in creating action alerts and frequently updating the coalition's website;
• Producing a bi-weekly e-newsletter sent to more than sixty-five partner organizations and over 2,000 individual subscribers; and
• Managing membership database, answering the phone, and performing other tasks when needed.

Qualifications for Program Assistant
• Applicants should have a demonstrated interest in issues of government openness and accountability
• One year advocacy experience, including policy analysis and research, strongly preferred
• Bachelor’s Degree in political science or related field
• Excellent oral and written communications skills
• High level of initiative and ability to work independently in a fast paced, changing environment
• Skills in using online technologies creatively a plus
• Experience working with coalitions a plus

Qualifications for Associate
• Applicants must have a demonstrated interest in issues of government openness and accountability
• 3-5 years advocacy experience, including advocacy-oriented policy analysis and research, required
• Bachelor’s Degree in political science or related field
• Experience working with coalitions strongly preferred
• Excellent oral and written communications skills
• High level of initiative and ability to work independently in a fast paced, changing environment
• Skills in using online technologies creatively a plus
• Experience with fundraising a plus

The salary range for the Program Assistant is $27,000 to $31,000. The salary for the Associate position would be based on experience. Benefits include employer-paid health and dental coverage and retirement plan.

How to Apply

This position is open immediately. Please indicate if you only want to be considered for one of these positions. OpenTheGovernment.org is an equal opportunity employer, and encourages minorities and women to apply.
Send cover letter, resume and salary requirements by email (with the words “Associate” or “Program Assistant” in the subject line) to pmcdermott@openthegovernment.org, or mail/fax to:

OpenTheGovernment.org
Associate or Program Assistant Search
1742 Connecticut Avenue, N.W., 3rd Floor
Washington, D.C. 20009
Fax: 202 234 8494

Website: www.openthegovernment.org

Key Ruling in Dallas E-Mail DIspute...

E-mail continues to create FOI issues across the country, and this ruling in Dallas sends a strong signal...

State District Judge Gena Slaughter has ruled that the city of Dallas must release e-mails requested more than 22 months ago by The Dallas Morning News, including messages from city officials' personal accounts or hand-held devices used to conduct city business.

In late 2005, two News reporters submitted separate Texas Public Information Act requests for access to e-mails from several Dallas officials, including City Manager Mary Suhm, former Mayor Laura Miller and housing director Jerry Killingsworth.

The News filed the lawsuit in July 2006 after exhausting other efforts to obtain the information, said David Starr, vice president and deputy general counsel of Belo Corp. Belo is the parent company of The News.

More here.

Upping the Ante in Georgia

From the Associated Press:

A Georgia lawmaker says she wants to make it a felony to deliberately violate the state's Open Records Act.

State Rep. Jill Chambers, R-Atlanta, said she plans to introduce a bill to make the law easier to understand and possibly eliminate some exemptions.

Chambers said she would make "willfully and knowingly violating" the Open Records Act a felony, with a fine of up to $5,000. Under current law violations are a misdemeanor, subject to a $100 fine.

The law requires public officials to allow citizens to view and photocopy most government documents. Exceptions include medical or veterinary records, confidential police and prosecution investigative files, individuals' Social Security numbers, and others.

Chambers said she believes the law is confusingly written and that many violations result from misunderstanding it.

"Just trying to read it and understand it would be a major accomplishment," she said. "It's so hard to find what you need in the law, and then once you do find it, it's so hard to understand.

"There will always be people who flagrantly violate the Open Records Act. But there are also people who violate it because they don't understand it."

Hollie G. Manheimer, executive director of the Georgia First Amendment Foundation, said there is "room for improvement" in the Open Records Act, but her main concern is not that the law confusingly written.

More here.

Another Day, Another Secret Hold in Congress...

I'm not sure what, exactly, it is about secret holds that so offends me....oh yeah! It's the SECRECY, and the lack of accountability, and the breathtaking arrogance....

Great story on a new hold....

A Kentucky senator is blocking legislation that would overturn President Bush's 2001 executive order giving presidents and former presidents more power to halt indefinitely the release of their White House records.

While Republican Sen. Jim Bunning acknowledges using a parliamentary maneuver known as a "secret hold" to stall the measure, he has not made it clear why he opposes bipartisan legislation praised by some scholars for providing access to the inner workings of presidential administrations.

Bush has promised to veto the measure if the Senate passes it because it would "improperly impinge on the president's constitutional authority."

The House cleared the same bill, sponsored by Rep. Henry A. Waxman, D-Calif., by a wide, veto-proof margin last April. Open government groups are pressing the Senate to follow suit, hoping to override a veto.

Bunning's hold on the bill comes as the White House faces a possible temporary restraining order to bar its administrative office from destroying back-up copies of some 5 million missing e-mails documenting the inner thinking of top presidential aides. Federal law dictates that the e-mails be preserved as part of the public record.

"It's all part of the same continuum: a complete lack of respect for the public and the public's right to know what this president did and why," said Anne L. Weismann, chief counsel for the watchdog group Citizens For Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

Wow. Read on and you'll be quivering with outrage, unless you are a fan of the secret presidency...

Take FOI for Granted?

Not after you read this heroic tale:

THE men who attacked Ivan Y. Pavlov waited beside his car outside his home.

They knocked him over from behind, stomped him and kicked him in the head. None of them spoke. They stole nothing. As Mr. Pavlov lay curled defensively on the street, they trotted away. Then they tried to run him over with their car.

Mr. Pavlov rolled clear, he said. The car sped off. “It was my good luck that there were four of them,” he said recently, recalling the attack in 2006 with a mix of drollness and lawyerly precision. “They were pushing each other out of the way to kick me and got in each other’s way.”

Mr. Pavlov was hospitalized for a week. The police later told him the attack appeared to be related to his work — a mission to pry open stores of government information that he says are essential to Russian public life and that by law should be in the public domain, but are kept from view by corruption and apathy.

The battle for personal and political freedom in Russia is often framed as a contest between the Kremlin and its critics over the rights of assembly, speech and suffrage, and for an independent judiciary, legislature and media.

Mr. Pavlov leads a quieter but still dangerous campaign: legal battles for what he calls, simply, “the right to know.”

As the director of the Institute for Information Freedom Development, a private organization he founded in 2004, he strives to teach government agencies that stores of information in their possession — manufacturing and sanitary standards, court records, licenses, fire codes, public tenders, administrative decrees, agency phone directories, registries of public and private organizations — should be made available for all to view.

HIS work is necessary, he and his supporters say, because much of the basic information of governance in Russia has never been made public, even after the Constitution codified the public’s right to nonsecret information in 1993.

My favorite quote:

“Nobody defended the basic right — the right to know, to have access to information,” he said. “People cannot have their freedom, and realize all their other rights, without this right.”

More here.

In Ohio, FOI panel eyes e-mail...

State and local government officials should no longer be allowed to skirt Ohio public-records laws by using private e-mail accounts to conduct official government business.

That is the view of a 22-member committee created by the legislature to examine public-records issues. The panel approved its final recommendations yesterday, including one that says electronic communication "in the course of public business should be treated consistently under existing public records laws and court decisions."

"We want to make sure nobody is gaming the process by doing public work on private devices," said Sen. David Goodman, R-New Albany, a co-chairman of the Privacy/Public Records Access Study Committee.

"It's a very sensitive area because technology is changing every day. But the general idea is if you're doing public work, it's a public record no matter what device you use."

More here...

New Study from BGA and NFOIC...

States failing FOI responsiveness

Better Government Association (BGA) and National Freedom of Information Coalition (NFOIC) give 38 out of 50 states "F" grade in overall responses to FOI requests.

If citizens can't take action to enforce their right of access shy of filing suit, what good are FOI laws?

When it comes to responsiveness measures, not much good at all.

BGA and the NFOIC have united to review the recourse afforded citizens in the public records laws of all 50 states, and the conclusions make for some relentlessly depressing reading.

Some findings include:

Citizens often have their requests denied and the only way they can gain access to records is by appealing the agency's denial.

When it comes time to appeal, in the vast majority of states a citizen has little or no recourse, save for the courts. Receiving even a low score of 66% puts a state in the top ten of the rankings.

Take a look at the numbers for your state, and then for other states, and you'll come to one inescapable conclusion: state FOI laws are in desperate need of reform.

The BGA report might simply confirm what you already knew about FOI in your state, but it should serve as a catalyst for change.

The overview—as as well as criteria and results—are online and linked from here.

AP Sexual Misconduct Story Raises Issues in Maine...

Gov. John Baldacci admitted Tuesday that a state statute aimed at protecting the confidentiality of educators who are stripped of, or denied, teaching certificates ultimately fails to protect the public.

As part of an in-depth probe into sexual misconduct in schools, The Associated Press recently tried to obtain teacher decertification records from Maine’s Department of Education.

The AP, which uncovered countless cases of abuse across the country during its seven-month investigation, even submitted a Freedom of Access request to gain access to Maine records.

The state DOE, however, denied that request, citing a law that prohibits the release of any information related to why teacher certificates have been suspended, revoked or denied.

Baldacci said the law clearly needs to be revisited.

"We have one of the most thorough systems in the country when it comes to background checks and fingerprinting teachers to protect the safety and well-being of our students in Maine," the governor said in a statement Tuesday. "The way it stands right now, a teacher in Maine can commit a noncriminal inappropriate act and have their license revoked without having that information released to other states. We need to change that policy to protect not only the children of Maine, but children in other states as well."

More here.

A Great new federal FOIA site...

When you are feeling a bit blue, check out GovernmentAttic -- a new web operation dedicated to, in their words, “rummaging in the government’s attic.”

Peruse an eclectic collection of files on a wide variety of subjects on line -- and new content is being posted frequently.

Heck, their logo alone makes me giggle:

HUGE AP series on school sexual misconduct

The Associated Press used scores of public records in its massive, national investigation of sexual crime in America's schools. Here is one of many, many stories running across the country this week.

A total of 2,570 educators nationwide were punished for sexual misconduct from 2001-05, representing about a quarter of all educator misconduct cases in that time period. The total number of times an action was taken against a teacher's license for sexual misconduct was 2,625 (more than 50 teachers lost licenses in more than one state).

Licenses were revoked in 1,636 of the cases; surrendered in 440 cases; suspended in 376
cases; and denied in 108 cases. Other punishments were handed out in the remainder of the cases. Students were clearly identified as victims in at least 1,467 of the sexual misconduct cases. The victim was a young person, a category including students, unidentified youths, family members and neighbors, in at least 1,801 of the cases. Educators made physical contact in at least 1,297, or 72 percent, of the cases in which the victims were youths. The remainder
were cases that did not involve physical contact, including verbal sexual harassment and other offenses.

Among the findings:

-- There were criminal convictions in at least 1,390, or 53 percent, of the cases.

-- Nearly nine out of 10 of the educators punished for sexual misconduct were male.

-- At least 446 of the cases that the AP found involved educators who had multiple victims.

The seven-month investigation found 2,570 educators whose teaching credentials were
revoked, denied, voluntarily surrendered or limited from 2001 through 2005 following allegations of sexual misconduct.

Young people were the victims in at least 1,801 of the cases, and more than 80 percent of those were students. More than half the educators who were punished by their states also were convicted of crimes related to the misconduct.

Much, much more here.

A Load of Bull...

From an agricultural critic friend of mine comes word of an under-the-radar federal FOIA exemption in the making:

Today the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee released its preliminary drafts of the Chairman's mark for all titles of the Senate's 2007 Farm Bill; the Committee markup of the bill is set for tomorrow, October 24, 2007, at 9:30 A.M.

The draft of the livestock title contains a FOIA exemption for information in the National Animal Identification System (NAIS). This proposed exemption flies in the face of all
reasonable standards of open access to government. Since 2005, the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service of the USDA has been collecting what the USDA itself calls "phone book" information on farms and other premises that hold livestock in the United States. USDA/APHIS is presently maintaining this information in a database called the National Premises Information Repository in Fort Collins, Colorado. For each livestock location, the
information consists of nothing more than basic contact information, i.e., the name of a contact person, an address, a telephone number, and in some cases an email address, and the species of livestock kept at that location.

Yet at the behest of industrial farming interests, the Senate Agriculture Committee sees fit to propose that this "phone book" information should receive a new exemption from the Freedom of Information Act. Even more alarming, the proposed exemption purports to override all state freedom of information laws that might pertain to similar records.

The pertinent section of the draft bill is set forth below in its entirety:

Sec. 10305. Protection of Information in the Animal Identification System.

The Animal Health Protection Act (7 U.S.C. 8301 et seq.) is amended --

(1) by redesignating sections 10416 through 10418 as sections 10417 through
10419, respectively; and
(2) by inserting after section 10415 the following:

Sec. 10416. Disclosure of Information Under a National Animal
Identification System.

(a) Definition of National Animal Identification System. -- In this
section, the term 'national animal identification system' means a system for
identifying or tracing animals that is established by the Secretary.

(b) Protection from Disclosure. --

(1) In general.--Information obtained through a national animal
identification system shall not be disclosed except as provided in this
section.

(2) Use. -- Use of information described in paragraph (1) by any individual
or entity except as otherwise provided in this section shall be considered a
violation of this Act.

(3) Waiver of Privilege of Protection. -- The provision of information to a
national animal identification system under this section or the disclosure
of information pursuant to this section shall not constitute a waiver of any
applicable privilege or protection under Federal law, including protection
of trade secrets.

(c) Limited Release of Information. -- The Secretary may disclose
information obtained through a national animal identification system if --

(1) the Secretary determines that livestock may be threatened by a disease
or pest;

(2) the release of the information is related to an action the Secretary
may take under this subtitle; and

(3) the Secretary determines that the disclosure of the information to a
government entity or person is necessary to assist the Secretary in carrying
out this subtitle or a national animal identification system.

(d) Required Disclosure of Information. -- The Secretary shall disclose
information obtained through a national animal identification system
regarding particular animals to --

(1) the person that owns or controls the animals, if the person requests
the information in writing;

(2) the State Department of Agriculture for the purpose of the protection
of animal health;

(3) the Attorney General for the purpose of law enforcement;

(4) the Secretary of Homeland Security for the purpose of homeland security;

(5) the Secretary of Health and Human Services for the purpose of protecting public health;

(6) an entity pursuant to an order of a court of competent jurisdiction; and

(7) the government of a foreign country if disclosure of the information is necessary to trace animals that pose a disease or pest threat to livestock or a danger to human health, as determined by the Secretary.

(e) Disclosure under State or Local Law. -- Any information relating to animal identification that a State or local government obtains from the Secretary shall not be made available by the State or local government pursuant to any State or local law requiring disclosure of information or records to the public.

(f) Reporting requirement. -- To disclose information under this section, the Secretary shall --

(1) certify that the disclosure was necessary under this section; and

(2) submit to the Committee on Agriculture of the House of Representatives
and the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry of the Senate a
copy of the certification.

In Pennsylvania, Secrecy Prevails...Again?

In a sharp turnaround, two public access advocacy groups are calling for the defeat of an open records bill headed for a House floor vote.

Officials with Pennsylvania Common Cause and the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association withdrew their support for the bill after the House State Government Committee substantially rewrote it during a three-hour meeting Wednesday night. They say the bill should either be sent back to the committee for a cleanup or voted down on the floor.

“This bill is a mess,” said Common Cause Director Barry Kauffman. He said the measure’s preamble declaring the importance of a free flow of information between government and its citizens is undermined by other provisions spelling out exemptions and procedures designed to keep documents ranging from letters to e-mails under wraps.

The exemptions in the measure are so broadly defined that an exchange of letters between a lawmaker and cabinet secretary on a policy issue could be kept off-limits to public eyes, said PNA lobbyist Deborah Musselman.

Their sour assessment of the bill is at odds with a hopeful note struck by a coalition of public access groups early in the week. At their press conference, ranking lawmakers outlined progress on the issue of making government records more accessible to the public. Faced with a wealth of proposals to reform state government in the wake of the controversial 2005 pay raise, House and Senate leaders have said strengthening the existing open records law is their top priority this fall.

The House bill still includes a widely agreed-on presumption that records should be considered public unless stipulated otherwise and puts the burden of proof on an agency or government as to why a record shouldn’t be made public. The dispute is over a 20-page “omnibus” amendment to the bill introduced by Rep. Babette Josephs, D-Philadelphia, the House panel chairwoman.

More here.

Bad News From PA...

HARRISBURG, Pa., Oct. 19, 2007 -- The Pennsylvania House of
Representatives is poised to vote on legislation that would reform
Pennsylvania's open records law. Unfortunately, the legislation, as
amended, would actually result in less access to Pennsylvania
government.

"Although legislators and other state leaders have voiced their
commitment to open records reform, House Bill 443, as amended, would be
a significant step in the wrong direction," said Tim Williams, PNA
president. "The PNA opposes this legislation, but remains hopeful that
Senate Bill 1, the open records reform bill in the Senate, will lead to
meaningful reform and will make Pennsylvania government more open and
accountable to its citizens."

It is widely recognized that Pennsylvania has one of the worst open
records laws in the country. A 2002 survey by the Better Government
Association ranked Pennsylvania's open records environment 48th out of
the 50 states. The Commonwealth tied with Alaska, and only Alabama and
South Dakota were considered worse.

Since last year, however, there has been a growing chorus in support of
reform. Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi (R-Delaware) has made
open records reform a priority, as have Sen. Jim Ferlo (D-Allegheny),
Rep. Tim Mahoney (D-Fayette) and Gov. Ed Rendell.

To that end, three lawmakers have introduced bills to change the open
records law. In the Senate, Majority Leader Pileggi is the sponsor of
Senate Bill 1 and Sen. Ferlo has offered Senate Bill 765. Rep. Mahoney
is sponsoring House Bill 443.

"As originally introduced, House Bill 443 contained a number of
provisions that the PNA supported," explained Williams. "As amended,
however, it would mean a real step backward for Pennsylvania citizens.
The amendment contains numerous, unprecedented exemptions, including
broad exemptions for 'correspondence' and all 'e-mail.' As written, the
proposal would provide for less access than we have today."

"Just as problematic is the process used by the House to rush this bill
to a vote. The amendment was presented at the last minute, and the
stakeholders were not given a chance to participate," Williams
continued. "If this is reform, we don't want it."

PNA believes Pennsylvania's open records law must be amended to create a
presumption of access to agency records. The burden must be on the
government agency seeking to deny access. Just as importantly, any
exemptions to access must be clearly and narrowly written to protect
only those records that need to be protected. These would include
individual medical records, records that would disclose ongoing police
investigations, and homeland security related documents.

The PNA urges citizens to contact their legislators and tell them to
vote "no" on House Bill 443. The public has a right to access its
government. This bill closes more records than it opens and is not in
the best interest of Pennsylvania citizens.

The PNA, founded in 1925, is a nonprofit, trade association. Its mission
is to advance the interests of Pennsylvania newspapers, promote the
importance of a free and independent press and provide a forum for
critical and innovative thinking about the future of journalism and the
newspaper industry.

In Atlanta, Unrest Over Secret School Deals

This is an issue that resurfaces frequency, in which school districts and school board make multi-million land deals behind closed doors. In fact, the folks right here in Columbia, Mo., recently raised sufficient cain to get the school district to reverse a land deal and re-open the proceedings...

Gwinnett school board members have authorized spending about $40 million on land for six new schools in closed door meetings over the last year.

Discussion and votes — since July 2006 — took place during multiple executive sessions, meetings that are closed to the public. A move that some watchdog groups consider unfair to parents and others who want to be involved in the process.

But the practice is nothing new. Board members have voted on land purchases in secret for more than 30 years. They defend their actions as necessary to protect their negotiations so they can get the lowest price.

"We feel we are being extremely good stewards of the public's money," said Carole Boyce, board vice chairwoman. "Why do we need to change it if it works?"

Advocates for open government say the board makes it impossible for the public to know about the land until the deal is complete. That means Gwinnett parents have no say in where their children's schools should be built.

More here.

A Rarity: Judge Tosses Officials From Office for Sunhine Violations

A judge threw a dozen elected officials out of their jobs because they were hand-picked behind closed doors, dealing a severe blow to secrecy that open-government advocates hope serves as a warning to other cities and counties.

The Knoxville News Sentinel and a citizens group sued the Knox County Commission, alleging it violated the state's Open Meetings Act in January, when it filled vacancies for eight commissioners and four countywide officers, including the sheriff.

"This is a spark that could catch fire in Knox County and spread throughout the nation," said attorney Herb Moncier, who represented the citizens group. "The people took back their government."

The vacancies arose because of a Jan. 12 ruling by the state Supreme Court, which upheld term limits prohibiting county officeholders from serving more than two consecutive four-year terms. All 12 of the officials had exceeded that, including some re-elected only a few months before.

County commissioners met on Jan. 31 to fill the positions, but the jury found that commissioners deliberated and voted in secret. Secret deliberations continued during recesses in the meeting, and the vacancies were filled with what Moncier described as "relatives, cronies and supporters."

More here.

Federal Employee Salaries and Locations: You Can't Have It...

In a simply stunning federal FOIA decision, a U.S. District Court judge has sided with the government, buying wholesale the "a terrorist somewhere, in some cave, is doing voluminous research on the location of federal employees..." argument...

A judge says the federal government can legally withhold the names, salaries and positions of more than 900,000 federal employees from a Syracuse University agency that for years has made the information public.

Chief U.S. District Judge Norman Mordue determined the privacy rights of the employees could be compromised by release of the information to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, or TRAC. The judge also agreed with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management that the release of certain information could compromise national security.

"It's a bad decision. It flies in the face of 220 years of federal history," said Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. "Who is employed by the federal government and what they make has never been kept a secret in this country, unless you're a covert operative. This is an example of privacy interests running amok."

People, you have NO idea how revolutionary an idea this is. The story also contained this little nugget:

The federal government began publicly naming its employees and releasing the related information in 1816.

Where does the secrecy end if the courts buy arguments like this?

More here.

Well, this about sums it up....

Leave it to The Onion to find real-life examples this good...as a fine member of the U.S. House proposes that his colleagues vote on a bill that none of them could possibly have read without laughing out loud...

Watch the
Proposed (Classified) Bill Will Defend Against Flesh-Eating (Classified)video.

I'd tell you what I think...but it's classified.

HUGE news from PA....

A newly created FOI coalition and a great press association are teaming to make a huge difference in Pennsylvania...

Pennsylvanians who have lobbied long and hard for a law ensuring broad access to state records should expect such a proposal to make it to Gov. Ed Rendell's desk this fall, the Senate majority leader says.

"It's been my objective to have that bill passed in the Senate before we leave this fall," Republican Sen. Dominic Pileggi said in an interview with the New Era's editorial board on Thursday.

"I was hoping to get it passed in the month of October. It might bleed into early November. I'm optimistic that once we get the bill through the Senate that the House — I've been in touch with members of the House — will take the bill up quickly so we can get it onto the governor's desk," Pileggi said.

Rendell, who met with the New Era last October before his re-election, said he would support an open-records law that presumes all records held by agencies — including the Legislature — are available to the public. "I agree with that," he said.

Members of both parties in the Republican-controlled Senate say the meaningful reform of the open-records law is at the top of the agenda when they return.

More here.

Interesting Wikipedia-Related FOI Lawsuit in Arkansas

Two Associated Press journalists sued Arkansas officials Friday for allegedly violating the state's Freedom of Information Act by withholding information about which government computers were used to edit entries on Wikipedia.

AP Arkansas News Editor Kelly P. Kissel and reporter Jon Gambrell filed the lawsuit in Pulaski County Circuit Court against Gov. Mike Beebe, Attorney General Dustin McDaniel and officials with the state's Department of Information Systems.

The lawsuit asks the court to order state officials to reveal the physical locations of five computers that were used while editing information about politicians on the popular online encyclopedia that allows anyone to submit or make changes to articles.

In August, Gambrell reported that state computers were used to edit information about Republican presidential candidate and former Gov. Mike Huckabee, Beebe and others. Using a Web site called WikiScanner that tracks changes to Wikipedia, Gambrell could see that the edits were made by computers with numeric Internet addresses assigned to the state.

Huckabee's entry was changed to delete information about a controversial pardon and his frequent use of a state-owned airplane while Beebe's was changed to eliminate an inaccurate reference to his having a male "life partner" rather than his wife Ginger.

Officials, however, refused to say which agencies or offices are assigned to the numbers and have said hackers could use the information to attack the state's computer system.

More here.

The Guvenator Vetoes Open Meetings Bill

Ahhhhnold ran on an openness platform, then became a big fan of cherry-picking meetings...

California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has vetoed legislation sponsored by the California Newspaper Publishers Association (CNPA) that it says would close a loophole opened up by a state appellate court decision that allows members of public bodies to make an end-run around the state's open meeting law.

In its latest legislative bulletin to members, CNPA reported that Schwarzenegger, who made government transparency a prominent campaign issue, vetoed the bill, SB 964, that would have restored the open meeting law's prohibition against public body members using a series of private communications to determine what action to take on a public issue.

That prohibition in the law known as the Ralph M. Brown Act was "gutted" by a 2006 appellate court decision, CNPA told members.

The bill passed in the Assembly 70-2, but was opposed by many state colleges, school administrators, and the California School Districts Association, CNPA said.

In his veto message, Schwarzenegger said "it is of the utmost importance to ensure openness and transparency of local government decision making." But he said the bill's solution to the "perceived defect in the Brown Act" revealed by the appellate court's decision was the wrong solution.

"In its attempt to solve the issue, this bill imposes an impractical standard for compliance on local officials and could potentially prohibit communication among officials and agency staff outside of a public meeting," he wrote. "I urge the Legislature to consider legislation next year that more judiciously addresses the problem of serial meetings that result in public policy decisions."

More here.

Foster Kill Foster Child, So Let's Make Foster Parent Information Secret?

Am I missing something here, folks, or did the Ohio legislature just react to the killing of a foster child by making it impossible for us to scrutinize foster parents?

The Ohio House on Wednesday narrowly voted to exempt all personal information of state approved foster parents and prospective foster parents from the state's public records law.

The 52-44 vote to shield the information, including names, came after legislators debated the best way to ensure the safety of foster children and foster parents.

Although the foster parent information is not now exempt from the public records law, the state's policy has been not to release the information. A lawsuit filed over that policy by a newspaper is before the Ohio Supreme Court.

Making the records public would give unhappy birth parents information needed to find the children taken from them, said Rep. Jeff Wagner, R-Sycamore, sponsor of the exemption.

Sometimes birth parents used "violent means" to get their children back, said Wagner, a former foster parent. His proposal would make the information public if foster parents lost their state certification or were convicted or charged with a crime,

The legislation was drafted in response to the 2006 death of 3-year-old Marcus Fiesel of Middletown, whose foster parents, Liz and David Carroll Jr. of Union Township in Clermont County, were convicted of killing him and are serving life prison sentences. Marcus was left tied up in a closet while the Carrolls spent a weekend in Kentucky.

The legislation - with the amendment - passed 87-9.

More here.

FOI At Work...Online Credits

Sixteen Sacramento city firefighters were paid an extra $50,000 cumulatively for higher education credits they earned from online schools that often grant degrees with little or no course work or classroom study, a newspaper reported.

Their 5 percent raises were stopped after fire officials began investigating when a dozen more firefighters applied for the pay hikes, according to city payroll records and other documents obtained by The Sacramento Bee under the California Public Records Act.

More here.

Uh Oh...Concealed Permits Secrecy Again...

Back in March, in an effort to demonstrate access to public records, the Roanoke Times printed the names and addresses of every concealed weapons permit holder in Virginia. Now a new proposal would keep the public from using the Freedom of Information Act to access identifying information about permit holders.

"A lot of the folks who were upset had gotten the permit to protect themselves from a stalker, from an ex-boyfriend, or girlfriend that was violent towards them," says Delegate Morgan Griffith. The last thing they wanted was their gun carry status and address printed for everyone to see. But even if the Roanoke Times had not printed the list, it was still available to any citizen who submitted a FOIA request to get it.

A subcommittee of the Freedom of Information Advisory Council is recommending personal identifiable information of concealed carry holders be kept private. Under their proposal, folks could request statistical information, like what percentage of the population in the Roanoke Valley has a concealed gun permit.

More here.

Safer, Or Just in the Dark?

In Washington, data that was made public after a horrific pipeline explosion is now secret, thanks to the threat of terror...

A three-judge panel ruled Tuesday in favor of a coalition of pipeline companies that sought to keep certain pipeline data out of the hands of the public and the media.

Citing potential terrorist threats and improper procedure by a lower-court judge, the Washington state District of Appeals Division II panel sent the public records requests back to a lower court for a potential trial.

The ruling was disappointing to media organizations, which sought location information on oil and natural gas pipelines.

“I am terribly disappointed,” said Ken Bunting, associate publisher of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. The P-I, along with several media organizations including The Bellingham Herald, sought the pipeline data. “I understand that people are concerned about the threat of terrorism, but the threat of terrorism has led to some irrational interpretations of law.”

At issue were detailed pipeline data called shapefiles. The data include specific parts of the pipeline, such as compression stations and valves. The information can be placed over other maps to see where those parts are located in conjunction with businesses or homes or perhaps environmentally sensitive areas such as wetlands.

The data were made public by the Pipeline Safety Act of 2000, which was passed after a 1999 pipeline leak explosion that killed three people in Bellingham.

The oil and natural gas companies, with the help of state Rep. Jeff Morris, D-Mount Vernon, and Rep. Kelli Linville, D-Bellingham, nearly closed the data to the public during the 2006 legislative session, but were unsuccessful.

A GREAT idea in Pennsylvania...

As support for providing greater access to public records grows, the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association is providing in-depth interviews with sponsors of open records legislation on its blog, www.passopenrecords.org.

Jamie Blaine, a former newspaper publisher who edits the blog, sat down with Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi, R-Delaware, sponsor of Senate Bill 1, and Rep. Tim Mahoney, D-Fayette, a freshman lawmaker who is sponsoring House Bill 443. Sen. Jim Ferlo, D-Allegheny, who also has sponsored open records legislation, Senate Bill 765, is expected to provide an interview in the near future.

Blaine asked the sponsors about their motivation for strengthening the state’s Right To Know Law and questioned them on specifics of their bills, including how they would treat lawmakers’ records, whether Penn State’s records should be subject to the law, and which exemptions to access they believe are necessary.

“Lawmakers are saying this is a priority issue for the General Assembly so we asked the sponsors of the legislation exactly what they are expecting and what they are hoping to accomplish through their measures,” said Blaine. “We will post their responses on the blog.”

PNA has been calling for more government openness for years but had been met in the past with significant opposition from legislators and others. Tim Williams, PNA President, said that last year taxpayers across Pennsylvania rediscovered their collective voice in demanding government accountability. People want better and easier access to government information, and lawmakers are listening, he added.

Pennsylvania has a reputation for having one of the worst open records laws in the country, and a 2002 survey by the government watchdog group Better Government Association ranked Pennsylvania’s open records environment 48th out of the 50 states. The commonwealth tied with Alaska. Only Alabama and South Dakota were considered worse. On the final report card, Pennsylvania received a grade of F.

As part of its reform effort, PNA also is sponsoring the Open Records Challenge, which asks citizens to obtain open records from their communities and share their experiences on the blog. The deadline for the Challenge is Oct. 5 and information is available at www.passopenrecords.org. Winners will be announced at an event on Oct. 15.

PNA believes Pennsylvania's open records law must be amended to include the following:

1. Acknowledgment that records belong to the public

The public is entitled to know and be informed fully about the conduct and activities of government.

2. Improved definition of "public record" and a presumption of access

Records in the possession or control of a public agency must be presumed to be accessible to the public. The law should include specific exemptions for records that are not public.

3. Burden of proof on agency

In Pennsylvania, the person seeking access must prove a right to that access. In most states, however, the burden is on the agency to show that specific information is not public under the law.

4. Broader definition of "agency"

The definition of "agency" must include the General Assembly, state-related universities and any organization or entity that relies substantially on taxpayers' money.

5. Administrative appeal/Office of Access

Pennsylvania must create an Office of Access to hear appeals and furnish advisory guidelines, opinions and other appropriate information about the laws to both agencies and citizens.

6. Meaningful penalties

Penalties for open records law violations need to be enforced and the fines increased to make them meaningful.

A Victory In Tennessee, But...

If you want evidence of how important FOI reform in Tennessee is, just review the facts of this one case:

In a sweeping verdict Tuesday, a jury found that the Knox County Commission violated the state's Open Meetings Act when members privately discussed how to fill a dozen appointments for term-limited offices before casting a public vote in January.

The verdict nullifies the appointments, which included several relatives of retiring or sitting commissioners and deputies of former officeholders.

More here.

Sooo....the county commission essentially goes off the whole democracy grid, choosing to "privately" interview "candidates" for public offices? Amazing. Simply amazing.

Important Ruling on Presidential Records Act...

A federal judge on Monday tossed out part of a 2001 order by President George W. Bush that lets former presidents keep some of their presidential papers secret indefinitely.

U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly ruled that the U.S. Archivist's reliance on the executive order to delay release of the papers of former presidents is "arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion and not in accordance with law."

Criticized by historians, the November 2001 order allowed the White House or a former president to block release of a former president's papers and put the onus on researchers to show a "specific need" for many types of records.

"The Bush Order effectively eliminated the archivist's discretion to release a former president's documents while such documents are pending a former president's review, which can be extended -- presumably indefinitely," Kollar-Kotelly wrote in a 38-page ruling.

More here.

Mississippi Coalition to Push Back...

A great update on Mississippi, where an NFOIC coalition is working with FOI advocates to renew efforts to reform the state's FOI laws:

Newspaper executives and open-government advocates across the state are planning a campaign to roll back what they believe is increased secrecy in Mississippi government.

In a meeting in Jackson recently, some of the state's leading voices for government transparency discussed plans to push the Mississippi Legislature to reform the state's decades-old open-meetings and open-records acts. Among the group's goals are increased access to records involving police investigations, political contributions and quasi-governmental agencies such as university foundations.

Over the years, legislators have peppered the state code with exemptions to the open records law, reducing access to the machinery of state government for everyone from reporters to regular citizens, said Stan Tiner, vice president and executive editor of The Sun-Herald in Biloxi.

"We have killed freedom with exemptions in this state," he said.

Organizers envisioned a public awareness campaign to inform residents in the state on how exemptions in the state law allows government business to be conducted in secret.

Participants in the strategy session said it is important to emphasize that open records is more than a newspaper issue and that it affects how state and local government serves residents...

Representatives from papers around the state participated in the meeting, as well as The Associated Press and the Mississippi Center for Freedom of Information at the University of Mississippi.

The push for open government reform is expected to coincide with the beginning of the next term of the Mississippi Legislature in January.

More here.

Helpful HIPAA Opinion By Wisconsin AG

Fire departments in Wisconsin cannot use the federal HIPAA law as a reason to withhold basic public information about ambulance calls, such as names and addresses of those who required medical help, the attorney general said in an opinion issued Thursday. The opinion by Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen will have an effect around the state, where some fire departments routinely refuse to release information about those treated by emergency personnel.

Such was the case earlier this year in Waukesha, where the Fire Department cited HIPAA privacy provisions in refusing a Journal Sentinel request to release information resulting from its call to treat a suspected drunken mail carrier who crashed his government vehicle into a sign.

In blacking out virtually every word of its report on the incident, the department relied on advice from Waukesha City Attorney Curt Meitz's office about the use of the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, known as HIPAA, a directive that his office later rescinded.

The initial refusal to release the information under the Wisconsin Public Records Law prompted a letter from Journal Sentinel Managing Editor George Stanley to the attorney general, requesting a legal opinion.

Van Hollen said he wrote the opinion because HIPAA was being misinterpreted statewide with regularity.

"Although the particular incident giving rise to your inquiry has now been resolved, I have concluded that your question merits a full answer because it continues to recur with regularity," Van Hollen said. "Consequently, record custodians and the public alike are in need of guidance."

Fire departments in West Bend and Cedarburg this year cited HIPAA to initially deny access to ambulance records. But both departments later released the information after being told of the state law pertaining to ambulance records.

More here.

FOI At Work: School Bus Drivers in Cincy

Nearly one in four Cincinnati Public Schools bus drivers has been arrested since 1991 - at least 50 of them on violent charges, Hamilton County Clerk of Courts Greg Hartmann has found.

Of the 458 drivers, who are not named in the data given to The Enquirer, 111 have been arrested on 242 charges, records from the clerk's office show. The charges include six drunken driving charges, 12 drug charges and 25 domestic violence charges. In many cases, the charges were dismissed or amended to lesser crimes, the records show.

No driver has been arrested on felony or sex charges, Hartmann said.

Records show:

One driver was arrested in 2003 on a charge of domestic violence after allegedly punching a person in the head. The driver was convicted of a lesser disorderly conduct charge, fined and put on probation.

Another driver was convicted of DUI in 2003 - which by state law should make him ineligible to drive a school bus. The driver was sentenced to six days in jail, three of them in a driver's intervention program. The driver also was fined $250 and ordered to spend a year on probation and to get alcohol treatment.

Last year, a driver was convicted of resisting arrest.

Cincinnati Public Schools is the first district to take Hartmann up on his offer to check driver's names against Hamilton County criminal records.

"The DUIs are significant and the drug charges, too," Hartmann said. "We want to know if somebody driving a school bus has a drug problem."

Besides a DUI or OVI conviction in the last six years, some of the many disqualifying charges include drug abuse, domestic violence, trafficking in drugs and child endangering.

More here.

FOI At Work: School District In Denial

The Tacoma News-Tribune tells a critical story, thanks to records showing that school apparatchiks knew more than they said they knew:

Tacoma Schools officials could have fired teacher Jennifer Leigh Rice last fall when they learned about her history of socializing with students, two attorneys say.

And officials knew of issues in Rice’s past earlier than they’ve previously acknowledged, personnel records appear to show.

Rice, 31, is in Pierce County jail, charged with the August kidnap and rape of a 10-year-old boy who was in her fourth-grade class at McKinley Elementary School during the 2006-07 school year. Prosecutors charge that sexual abuse began as early as December and continued into the summer.

She also faces charges of raping a second boy, who was not one of her students, during July and August.

Rice told police she had sexual intercourse with the 10-year-old several times, including once in his bedroom on Aug. 2, according to court documents. She pleaded not guilty to all 13 counts, which include rape, kidnapping and child molestation.

The case raises questions about when Tacoma Schools officials learned of concerns raised when Rice taught at Spanaway Lake High School during the 1998-99 school year, and once they knew, whether they could and should have let her go.

District spokeswoman Leanna Albrecht responded to a list of questions from The News Tribune by directing a reporter to human resources policies posted on the district’s Web site.

“Many of your other questions deal with issues that would be addressed in what we anticipate to be litigation; therefore, we are not in a position to respond to those based upon the advice of counsel,” she wrote in a statement e-mailed to the newspaper. Among the questions she did not answer was whether any legal claims have been filed against the district in the case.

After Rice’s arrest last month, Albrecht told The News Tribune that the decision to hire Rice was made before district officials had a clear view of her past.

Her comments seem to suggest there wasn’t much the district could have done.

But records show that then-Tacoma human resources director Bonnie McGuire knew within days of Rice’s Oct. 9 hire that Rice once worked for the Bethel School District, where she was investigated for inappropriate and unprofessional relationships with students.

McGuire was an assistant principal at Spanaway Lake High School when Rice came under investigation in the fall of 1998 and the winter of 1999. Allegations included that Rice drove students around, made verbal advances to a male student and attended a student party that included drinking and marijuana use.

McGuire admonished Rice then that “it was not OK for a teacher to be hanging out with students on a social basis,” records of the investigation show.

“I told her that it is not appropriate for a teacher to have students in her car, and that she could not continue this practice,” McGuire wrote in a statement for the investigatory record.

McGuire was not the only administrator to talk to Rice about her behavior, and Rice was placed on administrative leave for three weeks during the investigation. She was brought back as a substitute teacher to complete the year. She resigned that June.

New Jersey Report: We Need FOI Reform

From Newsday:

New Jersey needs to do more to make government records available to the public, a report released on Wednesday found.

The report by the New Jersey Foundation for Open Government says state open public records laws need to be strengthened and the state needs to become more committed to releasing information and providing more money and staffing to a state council that decides open records disputes.

"People throughout this state feel the system is broken," said NJFOG President Beth Mason. "They are either unable to access critical public records or the costs are so expensive as to make them inaccessible."

NJFOG includes organizations such as the American Civil Liberties Union, Common Cause and the League of Women Voters.

Mitchell Pearlman, a Connecticut lawyer and former executive director of Connecticut's Freedom of Information Commission who was commissioned to write the report, said New Jersey historically has lagged behind other states when it comes to releasing government records.

"The governor must make clear to his agency heads that they are expected to ensure that a culture of maximum openness and transparency is maintained within their respective agencies and that each agency held is held accountable for effective implementation," Pearlman said.

The NJFOG report is here. It's a good read...nice work, NFOIC Board Member Pearlman!

Ohio Ushers In Some Improvements...

A house bill amending the Ohio Public Records Act is to take effect Saturday with some nice fixes to that state's public records law.

For example, the bill requires the state attorney general to develop and provide to all public offices a model public records policy in order to provide guidance to public offices in developing their own policies for handling public records requests. The public offices are required to adopt their own public records policy; use of the model policy is voluntary.

Also, the attorney general is required to develop, provide and certify training programs and seminars for elected officials to enhance the officials’ knowledge of the duty to provide access to public records.

House Bill 9 also clarifies a few things. For example, as of Saturday, the public records act will note that:

-- A request is not required to be in writing.

-- No public office can require disclosure of the identity of the person requesting the records.

One setback: concealed-carry records.

According to the new law, a journalist may submit to a sheriff a signed, written request to view the name, county of residence and date of birth of each person to whom the sheriff has issued, renewed, suspended or revoked a license or temporary license to carry a concealed handgun.

What does that accomplish, beyond intimidating the requester who has a lawful right to that information?

The full text of House Bill 9 or the bill analysis is available from the Ohio Legislative Services Commission Web site.

While Some Governments Debate Online Records...

Others, like the forward-looking folks in Raleigh, North Carolina, who embrace the future by doing things like providing GIS-driven maps online, that citizens can use to take a look at crime in their communities. This is technology enabling democracy.

This is EXTREMELY cool....

This is a great new idea: create a state-based site to aggregate public records online.

The Salt Lake Tribune's Utah’s Right To Know has collected statewide and local databases at a dedicated Web site. Some of the data comes from other sites, but the newspaper is also collecting government salaries in one database. This is a GREAT idea! It's presented in a fun, user-friendly format that has this non-Utahan up late plunking around....

FOI At Work...

The Seattle Post-Intelligener tells a riveting tale thanks to mountains of FOI-driven records, finding that police officers arrested for drunken driving fare better than the average citizen...

See "Undue Influence" here. It's a wonderful example of FOI at work.

Those Pesky Norfolk Pols...

A nice column quoting yours truly...

Uh-oh. Looks like Norfolk City Council's undemocratic instincts are on display.

Again.

Maybe it's time to remind these elected officials that city councils are not exclusive clubs with secret signs and handshakes.

Council members aren't supposed to hide from the people. Or shield the citizens from unpleasant news.

Yet that's exactly what Norfolk's honchos did last week when they reviewed a report - prepared at taxpayer s' expense, of course - on the financial antics of a now-defunct nonprofit development corporation. These shenanigans could eventually cost taxpayers a whopping $245,000.

And a bit later on....

That's unlikely to happen today, however, because the politicians have decamped to Smithfield for a retreat.

Determined citizens would have to travel more than 50 miles round trip to attend. Technically, the retreat is open to the public.

This urge to flee is "used all too frequently" by public bodies, says Charles Davis, executive director of the National Freedom of Information Coalition at the Missouri School of Journalism. He called out-of-town meetings "thinly veiled" attempts by elected officials to meet out of the public eye.

"They've got nice meetings rooms in Norfolk," Davis noted. "I've been there."

Jennifer Perkins, executive director of the Virginia Coalition for Open Government, wasn't surprised that Norfolk City Council was assembling outside city limits.

"We have this come up fairly often," she sighed. "They forget, as a public entity, they not only need to obey the letter of the law but also... the spirit of the law.

"They should be close to home during convenient hours."

Now there's a thought.

Read the whole thing here.

A Woeful Access Policy at the Coast Guard...

This is an interesting piece from the Freedom Forum First Amendment Center on the Coast Guard's access policies...reminds me a of similar position that the National Parks Service took, briefly, a couple of years ago out West. That one bit the dust, if memory serves, because families of victims trying to put together the puzzle of what happened to their loved ones kept running into secrecy...

The U.S. Coast Guard has announced it will withhold the names of people saved in rescue cases unless they are part of an “open and active” search-and-rescue operation.

Once a rescue case is closed, queries for names must be made through a Freedom of Information Act request. The new nationwide policy was revealed in a memo released Aug. 24 by Rear Adm. David Pekoske, assistant commandant for operations. The policy went into effect immediately.

The directive acknowledges that “the release of information to the public concerning individuals being sought or having been rescued by the Coast Guard often supports the [search-and-rescue] mission.”

The Coast Guard says the new rule protects the privacy of those rescued.

“We wanted to balance the privacy right of individuals with the public’s need to know when search-and-rescue cases are active,” said Coast Guard spokeswoman Angela Hirsch. “When a boat is missing, we put out the names of people who are missing. There are many cases where people are reported missing, and they turn up or are not missing. Obviously, there is a need for names to be released in these cases. But once a case is resolved, it is no longer open, and names are then not releasable without an FOI request.”

Loren Cochran, an attorney for the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said the Coast Guard’s new policy was troubling.

“Any time you have a government agency that refuses to turn over information that the public is legally entitled to, it causes real concern,” Cochran said. “In this case, it looks like the Coast Guard has developed a practice in which they are controlling when to disclose the names of those rescued. That selective disclosure makes the public wonder, ‘Why?’ Is it because the Coast Guard only wants to disclose positive information?”

More here. The directive is here.

A Wonderful Tale of FOI Woe...

An interesting tale of FOI nightmares...

This is the saga of the struggle to get police records and the kind of bureaucratic resistance you can find there. I'm still trying to decipher the records I did get in order to get some sense of the accuracy of Zach Friend's comments about the City Hall Sleep Out in early August.

On August 19th, the Sentinel came out with its Sunday smear job justifying the unconstitutional police sleepcrime ticketing of Homies for the Homeless at City Hall. SCPD PR propagandist Zach Friend returned one call then declined any further information.

On August 20th, I filed a Public Records Act requesting the "detailed incident summaries" of August 12-18 to determine just how many tickets and citations were issued for the alleged vandalism, bathroom littering, drug use, public sex, etc. etc. alleged by Friend in the Sentinel story.

Indymedia covered the story somewhat differently.

For some criticism of the Sentinel coverage see "Sleep Ban Fighters Regroup after Saturday Morning Police Raid."

The preliminary answer Trisha provided was that NO TICKETS were issued at City Hall during that week for anything other than sleeping, 2 on Monday August 13, 4 on Saturday August 18.

I wanted to go further to find out what the nature of the complaints were and who made them. To uncover this, I requested the detailed incident recall traffic (between the 911 dispatch and the cops responding) for that period of time.

I just wanted to view it, not buy copies. Records supervisor Trisha Husome refused.

I requested electronic copies. Records supervisor Trish Husome insisted they were not available.

I requested to know how much it would cost. Husome said there was no way of knowing. I'd have to deposit $35 and then pay overage, depending on what was printed up.

I then asked her to print out half the request, so that I could get a sense of how many pages were coming out and what I was getting. She insisted that a new Public Records Act request be made.

I did this under protest.

This time, somehow, she told me it would be $1. But she insisted I make another trip down to the police station to make the $1 deposit, and refused to take it out of the $35 deposit.

She also noted that they'd printed out the first half of the August 20th request for the Cithy Hall homeless "crime wave" and it was $6.75. I again requested she subtract $1 from the $28.25 cash of mine they still had. She refused, saying it was a "different request."

On the two occasions I visited the SCPD, she wasn't there nor was anyone there to cover for her department.

When I went in to pick up the records she'd printed out (Aug 12-14, the $t6.75 bundle) and attempted to put down $1, the SCPD workers at the desk refused to take the money and retreated to a backroom because I was making an audio recording to document what was going on. I waited 10-15 minutes with Andrew, a witness, and then left.

I've filed a complaint with Husome's superior about her behavior as well as my concern about the behavior of the clerks at the SCPD window (going on strike when I pulled out a tape recorder). No response.

But then, perhaps that's understandable. Husome's supervisor is none other than Deputy Chief Kevin Vogel, the cost-conscious police official who saved the department money by investigating himself and giving himself a clean bill of health in the political infiltration and spying case of 1 1/2 years ago. [See "Investigation Reveals More SCPD Spying"

I was aware that the courts were calling sheriffs, delaying the presentation of records, requiring a special viewing room, etc in order to slow down our access to Sleeping Ban court cases [See "Public Records, even just one? Only if you agree to pay!" at http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2007/06/30/18431926.php] But courts are exempted from the Public Records Act (though they are required to follow the California Rules of Court, and the SCPD is not.

An FOI Exemption for Big Pork?

Passing along this troubling item from the Society of Environmental Journalists:

BILLS PROPOSE FOIA EXEMPTIONS FOR BASIC FEEDLOT "PHONE BOOK" LISTINGS

Since 2005 the US Department of Agriculture has been compiling a database called the National Premises Information Repository, containing what the agency characterizes as bare-bones "phone book" information on commercial livestock farms: name, address, telephone number, and type of animals raised.

Some agency officials and federal lawmakers would like to make this routine information exempt from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act. There are two examples of such FOIA exemptions in legislation introduced in the 110th Congress:

• HR 2301, Sections 4 and 6, sponsored by Rep. Steve King,(R-IA).
• HR 1018, Section 2, sponsored by Rep. Jo Ann Emerson (R-MO).

These bills' proposed extension of secrecy to routine farm contact information would hamper the future creation of such valuable research tools as the map of concentrated animal feeding operations released earlier this year by Food & Water Watch.

In addition, both H.R. 2301 and H.R. 1018 could adversely impact state open-government laws because the bills purport to pre-empt any state laws that would permit disclosure of the farm names and addresses. Thus, while neither of these bills is presently under active consideration, they bear watching due to their potential to damage the public availability of information.

(This article was written by Christine Heinrichs, with Mary Zanoni. Both are SEJ members.)

Missouri AG to Guv: E-mails are public records

Quite a lively flap in the Show-Me State, where the governor rather cavalierly declared that he deletes his e-mail. The whole thing blew up after a column from my buddy Tony Messenger at the Springfield News-Leader questioned use of government e-mail use in a state Republican Party offensive over Planned Parenthood's lawsuit against the state.

The Missouri attorney general's office sent a message to media outlets Monday emphasizing that e-mails on the state system are public records and often should be preserved.

The office was reacting to reports that Gov. Matt Blunt's staff routinely purges e-mails and does not consider them public records.

James Klahr, the attorney general's lead lawyer on Missouri's open-records "Sunshine Law," sent the message to dismiss the "unnecessary debate" over the issue.

The message does not mention Blunt but declares, "There should be no debate — e-mail communications are public records."

And how about this amazing line?

Topics that are not typically hot-button election talk — the Sunshine Law and the protection of records — may emerge as key issues in the governor's race.

Klahr's message to newspapers and TV and radio stations says "we will be redoubling our education efforts to ensure members of the public and government officials" understand how the Sunshine Law applies to e-mails.

A spokesman for Nixon said the office will send media outlets copies of the law, which details the public's access to government documents and meetings.

State law gives the attorney general, local prosecutors and the public the power to sue over Sunshine Law violations. "Enforcement of violations of the record retention law depend on the nature and content of the e-mails or documents and the circumstances surrounding their destruction," said the spokesman, John Fougere.

Blunt's office on Monday declined to comment.

Terrorism or Radioactive Drinking Water? What's the greater risk?

Here is a startling lead:

The risk of a terrorist attack was wrongly used by the Scottish Executive as an excuse to keep information about radioactive contamination of drinking water secret.

The story continues:

The Scottish information commissioner, Kevin Dunion, has found the Executive guilty of breaching freedom of information legislation by failing to provide documents from a file entitled "Release of radionuclides in drinking water systems."

TheSundayHeraldoriginally requested the documents in December 2005, and appealed to Dunion after they werewithheldbytheExecutive.The verdict of his investigation, received on Friday,isadamningindictmentof the official secrecy that persists in the Scottish civil service.

This, dear readers, is why access is soooooooooo important.

California legislation on Ahnold's desk...

From the Visalia Times-Delta:

State agencies would have to post information on their Web homepages about requesting public records if the governor signs a bill sent to him by the legislature.

Assembly Bill 1393 also would require agencies to include a form to use in requesting public records.

The bill was stripped of enforcement provisions that would have allowed anyone whose record request was turned down by a local government to request an attorney general review.

Cities and counties also could have faced fines for deliberate violations of public records' rules under the original bill.

Finally, the bill creates a task force to consider what records should be routinely posted on state Web sites and how the existing law is working.

Schwarzenegger, who previously vetoed a different version of this bill, has until Oct. 12 to act on this bill.

S.Dakota Court: Yes, The Guv Can Have a Secret Pheasant Hunt

Think we need a little FOI reform? Here's a court declaring that unless a record is commanded by law, it's not public. Oh, the chicanery this will usher in...

The state's largest newspaper has failed in its legal quest to gain access to the list of people invited to the annual governor's pheasant hunt in 2005.

The South Dakota Supreme Court ruled unanimously Thursday against The Argus Leader of Sioux Falls, which had argued that the list is a public record that must be released. People are entitled to know what government officials are doing, the newspaper said.

The high court said no state law requires release of the information, upholding an earlier ruling by a circuit judge who said the list is not a record that is required by state law to be kept.

Generally, records that must be kept by law are public documents unless otherwise specified.

Circuit Judge Max Gors ruled against the newspaper in April 2006.

The invitation list for the hunt, which state officials use to attract businesses to locate in South Dakota, should be made public because it is an official work product of the state economic development office, an Argus Leader lawyer had also argued.

Setting that claim aside, too, the high court said state law gives discretion to the economic development secretary to withhold most of the information the agency receives.

"The right to public inspection is conditional," wrote Circuit Judge John Bastian, in the high court ruling.

Bastian and four other circuit judges were appointed as acting justices to consider the case after all five Supreme Court justices disqualified themselves.

State officials have argued that release of the list of those invited to the exclusive pheasant hunt could jeopardize future business prospects. They also feared that identifying invitees could cause them to become targets for unwanted solicitations.

More here.

FOIA At Work: The Coretta Scott King Files

KHOU's Davis Raziq & Mark Greenblatt (a Mizzou J-School alum!) have a great story looking at the FOIA files of Coretta Scott King:

She had an unforgettable face: serene, beautiful and yet with a trace of sadness that few would say she did not earn. Indeed, Coretta Scott King’s life was filled with trouble and adversity caused by those opposed to her cause.

And among those opponents? J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI.

Now, after more than a year’s work, KHOU-TV in Houston and its investigative unit, 11 News Defenders, have obtained a world-exclusive first look at the FBI’s file on Coretta Scott King.

Comprised of nearly 500 pages, with some of those documents partially or totally censored, the intelligence file paints a disturbing picture.

For example: The FBI very closely spied and did surveillance on Scott King for years, keeping close track of her public appearances, speeches and especially anytime she traveled.

More here.

FOI At Work...

Here is a great series looking at school suspension data, thanks to FOI, in three Florida counties. Love the database you can search!

From the Northwest Florida Daily News...

Come into my office.

Roughly every eight minutes, an Emerald Coast principal says that to a student facing suspension.

Schools in Walton, Santa Rosa and Okaloosa counties have suspended or expelled students nearly 8,000 times this year, out of a total student population of about 60,000.

The Daily News gathered suspension data from all three school districts for the past two school years through February of this year.

An analysis of the information revealed some significant disparities.

Black students are suspended at twice the rate of white students.

Boys of any race are suspended about three times as often as girls.

And some schools suspend students frequently, while others suspend rarely - sometimes never.

FOI At Work...

From the AP, e-mails showing NASA hard at work avoiding astronaut meltdowns:

NASA e-mails released Wednesday indicate the space agency was looking for ways to prevent astronaut meltdowns just three months before one-time shuttle flier Lisa Nowak was arrested in a scandalous love triangle.

The e-mails from late last year show that space program employees interviewed the former colleagues and the "common-law wife" of ex-astronaut Charles Brady Jr. after he committed suicide in July 2006. It seemed to be an effort to find behavioral clues that could be a tip-off in future cases.

Brady, who had flown in space once 10 years earlier, was a Navy captain and flight surgeon who left NASA in 2002.

The e-mails, which included no medical details and were heavily blacked out, were obtained by The Associated Press under the Freedom of Information Act.

In one dated Nov. 8, 2006, a NASA or contractor employee whose name is blacked out wrote about being instructed to look into Brady's death "in order to take from it any lessons learned in the hope that such an event might be prevented from ever occurring again."

The e-mail writer went on to suggest an hourlong meeting with officials to discuss the matter. "There is no rush, of course," the e-mail stated. "This can wait until early JAN if needed as I know you are very busy with STS 116."

"STS-116" was the shuttle mission that flew in December 2006. Its pilot was William Oefelein, who was part of the love triangle that brought down fellow astronaut Lisa Nowak in February.

A FOIA Database...

You’ve heard a lot about new legislation recently approved by Congress that promises to improve the much-beleaguered Freedom of Information Act.

Now comes the Sunshine In Government Initiative to show you why the 41-year-old law is so important.

The coalition of media groups concerned about the growing level of government secrecy has created a new searchable database of news stories that used FOIA.

So far there are 233 stories posted on the group’s Web site. If you know about a story that used FOIA submit the story at this address: FOIAstories@sunshineingovernment.org.

An Update from Pennsylvania...

Both the House and Senate are studying new legislation designed to strengthen the state Open Records Law.

A major obstacle standing between proposed reform and passage is the reformers themselves. They all appear to agree on the need for more access to public records, but they don't all agree on how it should be accomplished...

More here.

Indiana FOI Czar: No ID Needed

Indiana's public access counselor has determined the South Bend Police Department violated the state's Access to Public Records law in denying Roseland resident Dorothy Snyder access to information she requested.

On July 10, Snyder telephoned the police records department to ask for a case number of a police report from September 2006.

Snyder said the clerk asked her name and then asked with whom Snyder was affiliated. The clerk indicated she could not provide information unless she knew how Snyder was "connected."An officer then told Snyder he would not provide the information unless she came to the police department, according to Snyder's complaint.

After Snyder filed the complaint with the state public access counselor, the police department responded, saying information is not available over the telephone and must be obtained in person during the records department's business hours.

Public access counselor Heather Willis Neal said in her opinion that a police department may require a records request to be in writing and may refuse to provide information over the phone.

More here.

A Wonderful Tribute to Our Very Own Frosty!

Here is a wonderful editorial about NFOIC Board Member Frosty Landon:

Virginians can see what their government is up to thanks in no small part to one man: Forrest "Frosty" Landon.

A modern Prometheus, he brought light to the people and taught them how to turn it on the gods, without all the messy vulture business that followed. He taught the gods, too, that sunshine is something to embrace as the foundation of good government.

Now, as he begins his second retirement, his hard work has garnered much-deserved recognition. The National Freedom of Information Coalition and the Society of Professional Journalists recently named him one of the "Heroes of the 50 States" in The Open Government Hall of Fame.

Frosty has been a Roanoke institution for decades, first with WDBJ and then at The Roanoke Times where he rose to executive editor before retiring.

Retirement did not sit well with him, though. In 1996, at Frosty's instigation, the Virginia Coalition for Open Government formed, and he became the executive director. He led a crusade against government secrecy on behalf of all Virginians for a decade, stepping down from the post this summer to begin a second retirement.

His tireless insistence that government performs best under public scrutiny motivated many improvements. Virginia created its Freedom of Information Advisory Council at his urging...

And here is my favorite part:

For a decade and more, Frosty has been Virginia's conscience on questions of open government. He defended the public's need and right to monitor government.

Without his work, our democracy would be all the weaker, and most people wouldn't even realize it because the truth would be hidden away in secret meetings and shrouded in unreleased documents.