Public information indictments thrown out

from Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas:

A state district judge threw out the indictment against Texas State Jail Standards Commission Executive Director Adan Munoz, saying wording in the criminal charge for allegedly releasing confidential information was “too vague.” It is unclear what action, if any, local prosecutors might take in moving forward for a possible new indictment or public apology. Munoz had been accused of improperly releasing information to two Corpus Christi reporters in response to a Texas Public Information Act request.

Read more here.

NFOIC awards Knight FOI Fund litigation grant in New York public records suit

from NFOIC.org:

COLUMBIA, Mo. (September 28, 2010)—A news website publisher in upstate New York and a citizen open government activist have been awarded a litigation grant from the Knight FOI Fund to press a legal action against a volunteer fire company.

According to a complaint filed in the Warren County (NY) Supreme Court, the Chestertown Volunteer Fire Company continues to insist it is not subject to New York state’s Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) and Open Meetings Law (OML), despite repeated requests for records and meeting access by the plaintiffs in the case, and an advisory opinion issued in June by the state’s Freedom of Information Committee.

The $2,000 litigation grant was announced by the National Freedom of Information Coalition (NFOIC), which administers the Fund that was created by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. The grant was the first awarded for a New York case since the Fund was established in January.

Read more here.

SEC secrecy repeal sent to Obama

from Project On Government Oversight:

The House voted Sept. 23 to repeal Section 929I of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, which had provided the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) with sweeping new powers to hide its records from public scrutiny. The House’s passage of S. 3717 comes just one day after the Senate voted unanimously to strike the troubling secrecy measure, and is the first legislative correction to the new financial regulatory overhaul law.

[...]

Section 929I would have given the SEC the blanket authority to block the release of records in response to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, and to withhold records in response to subpoenas filed by third-party civil litigants, even if such records were needed to expose corruption or incompetence at the agency. S. 3717 repeals these overly broad and unnecessary secrecy measures, and clarifies that an existing FOIA exemption, Exemption 8, will protect against the release of confidential information contained in the records of any entity that falls under the SEC’s regulatory authority.

Read more here.

NFOIC, partners, urge House to pass Access to Congressionally Mandated Reports Act

from NFOIC.org:

On behalf of the undersigned organizations concerned with government accountability and transparency, we are writing in support of H.R. 6026, the Access to Congressionally Mandated Reports Act. H.R. 6026 was introduced by a member of the Information Policy, Census and National Archives Subcommittee, Representative Driehaus (D-OH), and is cosponsored by the Chair of the Information Policy, Census and National Archives Subcommittee, Representative Clay (D-MO) and the Committee Chair, Representative Towns (D-NY).

H.R. 6026 requires that any report required by statute to be issued to Congress and releasable under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) be posted on a website managed by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). The reports would be available no later than 30 days after their transmission to Congress, and would be searchable by a number of categories.

Read more here.

Bell (Ca.) arrests illustrate importance of open records

opinion, from Hawaii Reporter:

When Bell city officials started raking in obscene salary amounts, it’s a safe bet that they never considered the California Public Records Act. ... Eight Bell officials were arrested Sept. 21 for the misappropriation of $5.5 million. Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley called the Bell scandal “corruption on steroids.”

[...]

The California Public Records Act, which mirrors the federal Freedom of Information Act, requires public officials to disclose salaries, benefits and expenditures to the public. Political candidates must make similar disclosures. By law, records must be released within 10 working days barring extenuating circumstances.

Read more here.

Cameron County (Tx.) District Attorney’s Office declines to pursue San Benito FOI issue

from The Brownsville Herald:

The Cameron County District Attorney’s Office has refused to prosecute a case filed by the Valley Morning Star accusing San Benito officials of violating the Texas Open Meetings Act, officials said last week.

The Star filed the complaint in April accusing city commissioners of failing to disclose the nature of a discussion they held in a closed meeting on April 12.

The newspaper also accused the city of illegally posting the meeting’s agenda, which failed to state the nature of the discussion commissioners planned to hold in executive session.

“The District Attorney’s Office received this case and reviewed it,” Assistant District Attorney Charles Mattingly said in an e-mail. “After evaluation, it was determined that the case was without merit. Therefore, the DA’s Office declined to prosecute.”

[...]

The decision riled Joel White, an Austin attorney with the Texas Freedom of Information Foundation.

“I saw it as a blatant violation of the Open Meetings Act,” White said in an interview. “I’m not surprised that the DA chose not to prosecute. DAs like to work on violent crimes and they don’t like to prosecute elected officials.”

Read more here.

NFOIC Knight FOI Fund supports victorious transparency case involving California pension fund investments

from NFOIC

COLUMBIA, Mo. – A California judge, as a result of litigation backed by the Knight FOI Fund, has ordered the state’s pension fund to release records about a $100 million real estate investment loss.

Judge Charlotte W. Woolard of the San Franicsco Superior Court, in a six-page writ signed on Tuesday, September 14, ordered the California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS) to release records regarding its investment in Page Mill Properties, a controversial East Palo Alto low-income housing development. (You can read the ruling here (312 KB).

CalPERS, the largest public pension fund in the country, lost all of its $100 million stake in the development, but refused to disclose records regarding its investment or the business arrangement surrounding it.

The First Amendment Coalition (FAC), a California-based member organization of the National Freedom of Information Coalition (NFOIC), sued CalPERS in July and was awarded a $3,200 Knight Fund grant by NFOIC to help with its legal expenses in that suit.

Read the rest here.

EPIC files FOIA suit for documents regarding Google/NSA partnership

from the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC):

EPIC has filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the National Security Agency in the United States District Court in the District of Columbia. The agency failed to respond to EPIC's FOIA request for documents about an "Information Assurance" partnership with Google. EPIC previously appealed to the agency to comply with its legal duty to produce the documents, but he agency failed to respond. EPIC is also seeking the Presidential Directive that grants the NSA authority to conduct electronic surveillance in the United States.

Read the rest here.

Columbia (Mo.) Police Review Board suggests increase in police's audio and visual recording

from the Columbia Missourian:

COLUMBIA — The Citizens Police Review Board decided Wednesday night that Columbia police officers should keep their cameras rolling.

Jennifer Bukowsky, an attorney with the Boone County Public Defender’s office, presented a proposal to the board calling for police officers to use cameras in their squad cars more often and to keep audio and video records longer.

“Taxpayers have already paid for them, and they are already installed,” Bukowsky said of the cameras. “They are with them everywhere they go.”

Read the rest here.

NFOIC announces Fall 2010 grant applications now being accepted

from NFOIC.org:

National Freedom of Information Coalition (NFOIC) member organizations interested in funding for projects in their states must submit applications by Friday Oct. 8 to be considered for a fall grant award.

This application deadline applies only to project and sustainability grants to support and enhance state coalition and member organization work. Applications for Knight FOI Fund grants to defray costs, fees and expenses associated with legal actions are reviewed and screened separately throughout the year, and have no set deadline.

The NFOIC guidelines are intended to give broad discretion and flexibility to state freedom of information groups in defining their needs and pursuing projects that aid their growth and further public access to government records and meetings. Projects that heighten awareness and educate the public regarding access issues are particularly encouraged.

Approval and matching support requirements, however, are at the discretion of the NFOIC Grants Committee and NFOIC Board. State groups should expect that any grant in excess of $5,000 will have a match requirement.

You can find the grant guidelines and a link to the grant application form at http://www.nfoic.org/grants.

2010 Secrecy Report Card Released

from OpenTheGovernment.org:

On Tuesday, September 7, OpenTheGovernment.org released the 2010 Secrecy Report Card 2010 Secrecy Report Card, a quantitative report on indicators of government secrecy. The report chronicles a continued decrease in most indicators of secrecy since the end of the Bush Administration and growing backlogs in the declassification system as old secrets move through the system. The report covers the first 9 months of President Obama's Administration.

According to Patrice McDermott, Director of OpenTheGovernment.org, "The 2008 elections were largely seen as a referendum on the extreme secrecy of the last Administration. On his first full day in office, President Obama pledged his Administration would be the most open, transparent and accountable in history. The Secrecy Report Card helps the public monitor the progress, or lack thereof, the President makes toward that goal."

Visit OpenTheGovernment.org for more.

NFOIC awards Knight FOI Fund litigation grant in New Mexico public records suit

from NFOIC.org:

A weekly newspaper in New Mexico has been awarded a litigation grant from the Knight FOI Fund to press a legal action against a state college for disregarding basic requirements of that state's "sunshine law."

The $11,000 grant to the Rio Grande Sun newspaper was announced by the National Freedom of Information Coalition (NFOIC), which administers the Fund that was created by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. The grant was the first awarded for a New Mexico case since the Fund was established.

The award was made to defray the Rio Grande Sun's legal costs in a lawsuit brought against the Board of Regents and administration of Northern New Mexico College, a four-year, state-supported institution that has campuses in Española, NM, and El Rito, NM.

According to the complaint filed in Rio Arriba County District Court, the college has for more than six months ignored and rebuffed reporter Louis Mattei's requests for records, disregarding the New Mexico Inspection of Public Record Act's disclosure requirement and even its statutory response deadlines.

"The allegations in the complaint are outrageous. This kind of blatant disregard for public disclosure laws cannot be tolerated," said Kenneth F. Bunting, executive director of the NFOIC. "The Knight FOI Fund is there to make certain that, even in tough economic times, challenges of this sort get made, and that public officials who don't understand their obligation to be forthcoming about the public's business do not get to make up their rules."

Read more here.

South Texas sheriff takes on state agency official in felony open records fight

from the AMERICAN-STATESMAN:

A Nueces County skirmish over open records could land an Austin state agency official in prison for up to 10 years.

Or it could leave several Nueces County officials looking foolish.

[...]

Adan Muñoz Jr., executive director of the Texas Commission on Jail Standards, has been charged with two felony counts of misuse of official information — a crime that typically pertains to public servants who use insider government information to benefit themselves, friends or supporters.

Muñoz's alleged crime? In February, after Nueces County Jail inmate Samuel Salazar killed himself, Muñoz released the prisoner's jail screening form, which is designed to identify potentially suicidal prisoners. ...

The release angered Nueces County Sheriff Jim Kaelin, who said the information should have been kept secret while his office and the Texas Rangers investigated the death.

Kaelin complained to Muñoz's bosses — the nine governor-appointed commissioners on the jail standards panel — but after they cleared Muñoz of wrongdoing, the sheriff pursued criminal charges.

Read more here.

National Press Club Board selects press-freedom honorees

from the National Press Club:

The National Press Club Board of Governors voted on Aug. 23 to honor a University of Missouri journalism professor and an Iranian blogger with its 2010 John Aubuchon Freedom of the Press Award.

The award, given each year to one domestic and one international recipient, honors people who have contributed to the cause of press freedom and open government.

This year’s U.S. winner is Charles N. Davis, an associate professor at the Missouri School of Journalism who has done more than most to force light onto parts of national, state and local governments that many in power would like to keep hidden from the press and the public.

From 2005 until this year, Davis led the National Freedom of Information Coalition, an organization headquartered at the Missouri journalism school that funds open-government groups around the country. A former reporter, Davis has also helped the cause through scholarly research and writing on governmental information and media law. He has won the Sunshine Award from the Society of Professional Journalists and the National Journalism Teacher of the Year from the Scripps Howard Foundation.

The board selected as the foreign winner of the award Kouhyar Goudarzi, an Iranian blogger.

Read the rest here.

Washington State Sunshine Committee needs Governor's attention

from the Washington Policy Blog:

The state's Sunshine Committee (Public Records Exemptions Accountability Committee) has survived legislative efforts the past few years to eliminate its existence. Now it appears the Committee is facing a new threat, gubernatorial neglect.

Under the law, the Governor appoints six of the Committee's thirteen members including the Chair. To have a quorum at least seven of the members must be present at a meeting. As of [August 17] four of the Governor's six appointee slots are either vacant or expired, including former Chair Tom Carr. Carr left the state earlier this year to serve as city attorney for Boulder, CO.

Since the Governor has not appointed a new Chair, the Committee voted ... to confirm two vice chairs. Retiring Rep. Lynn Kessler was confirmed as First Vice Chair with Tim Ford of the Attorney General's Office as Second Vice Chair.

Read more here.

Supreme Court cases involve funeral protests, video games, FOIA

from the First Amendment Center:

WASHINGTON — Last term, the First Amendment was front and center on the Supreme Court’s docket, producing a major decision on campaign-finance regulation and an array of other rulings on topics ranging from a Christian cross in the Mojave Desert to animal-cruelty videos.

It’s still early, but the next Supreme Court term is shaping up similarly, with First Amendment disputes comprising some of the most important and provocative cases that are already docketed. The Court has also agreed to consider a Freedom of Information Act case and a privacy case, both of which may affect information-gathering by the government.

Read more here.

New book details history of Freedom of Information laws

from The Bristol Press:

If you want a unique view of how democracy should work, pick up Mitchell W. Pearlman’s new book "Piercing the Veil of Secrecy, Lessons in the Fight for Freedom of Information."

Pearlman, the retired general counsel and executive director of Connecticut’s singular Freedom of Information Commission, is a national treasure — no, international treasure. He is recognized from Hartford to Beijing to Johannesburg to Mexico City as a leading expert on the fault lines of government secrecy and ways to pry it open.

[....]

His book delves into Connecticut’s secrecy and it also takes the reader from Ancient Egypt to the American Constitutional Convention in 1787 to the Nixon White House and to a flight of some fancy into secrecy v. transparency as we explore outer space.

Read more here.

Opinion: U.S. government wrong to keep secret names of marshals in fatal Springfield shooting

from the News-Leader.com (Springfield, MO) --

....

The United States Marshals Service and the U.S. Department of Justice say they do not have to name deputy marshals who shot and killed Lance Anderson.

Which probably means I will never know. Which probably means I will not be able to tell you.

The two deputy marshals, as you might recall, used deadly force against Anderson, 23, in Springfield, during a traffic stop. The marshals, one of whom is also a Greene County deputy sheriff, fired at Anderson after he exited a pickup truck and shot himself twice. Wanted on a probation violation, he was suspected in other crimes and had allegedly shot at a Bolivar officer the night before.

Our paper's attempts to learn and report the names through calls, letters invoking the federal Freedom of Information Act and an appeal of a FOIA request that was denied have now all failed....

Why have these names been kept secret? Why is this so different from what happens when other officers use deadly force?

Read the rest here

Consumer Watchdog asks FBI, DEA to explain use of Google Earth

from Consumer Watchdog:

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The FBI and DEA are now making extensive use of Google Earth, according to federal spending records. Consumer Watchdog is filing Freedom of Information Act requests with the agencies today to determine how the Internet giant’s digital mapping technology is being used for domestic surveillance, including whether it is used for racial profiling or other abuses of civil liberties.

“The public needs to know how law enforcement is using Google’s technologies,” said John M. Simpson, consumer advocate with the nonpartisan, nonprofit group. “We call on the FBI and the DEA to expeditiously respond to our requests for information.”

Congress should also investigate how the U.S. law enforcement and intelligence communities are using technologies that Google provides, Simpson added.

Read the rest here.

IPads saving cities paper costs

from USA Today:

Soon after Hampton, Va., Mayor Molly Ward bought an iPad for her personal use last spring, she started thinking of an application of her own — one that might save her town both paper and money.

Ward decided it would make both environmental and fiscal sense for the Hampton City Council to switch from paper to iPads for conducting official business.

[....]

Hampton joins a growing number of municipalities — from Williamsburg, Va., to Albertville, Ala., to Redwood City, Calif. — that are turning to iPads to conduct government business.

[....]

"In most states, some if not all electronic records are public," [Ken Bunting, executive director of the National Freedom of Information Coalition] says. "Around the country, there has been lots of litigation in the states about the nature of electronic records and whether or not they differ from paper records."

Read the rest here.