NFOIC Summit: Civics education

Katherine Garner, president of KLGarner Consulting and NFOIC treasurer; Mary Jo McGuire, Master of Arts in Organizational Leadership faculty at College of St. Catherine; and Barbara Peterson, president of Florida First Amendment Foundation, spoke about the crisis of civics education. Tom O'Hara, adviser of The Latern at Ohio State University moderated. Here are the notes from their NFOIC Summit session:

• Schools are not teaching civics or not teaching it as properly or fun as it could be taught. This crisis is real. Check out Richard Dreyfuss' initiative on bringing civics back into schools here.
• Children are not understanding the importance of Americans' freedoms. Democracy must be reborn in each generation.
• The original reason for schools in this country was to teach people how to be good citizens.
• For a democracy, citizens need knowledge, skills and inspiration. These skills include critical thinking, civil conversations, problem-solving, knowing how to vote, etc.
• Some education models dismiss government. Therefore, young people don't understand how the political system works, McGuire explained. The people most likely to be affected by the government -- with the Iraq war, housing and health care -- are the least likely to be prepared to speak out.
  
• No Child Left Behind focuses on language arts and math. If the subject isn't tested, it isn't taught.
• Garner discussed how difficult it was to get K-12 teachers in Texas to teach a First Amendment curriculum. When she asked why they didn't teach it, one said it was too controversial. If you teach students they have a freedom of speech and press, they use it.
• Garner spoke about the Light of Day project which connects Texas university students. They pick an investigatory topic and make FOIA requests across the state. The students use the data to write localized stories that are published by area newspapers. The first year, the students investigated how the Cleary Act was being used on college campuses. They found that most campuses were under reporting crime and not classifying date rapes as a crime. After their stories, Southern Methodist University changed the way it reports campus date rape and decided to start sending out campus alerts after date rapes. Students uncovered University of Texas at Dallas had private off-campus apartments for international students that had toxic mold and was ripe with crime. A week after the story, the administration created a committee to study the problem. Within a month, the apartment managing company had been fired and 16 new police officers were hired.
  
• Light of Day students have also studied taser reviews, which led to legislative bills to put a moratorium on them until more research could be done, and academic evaluations of university presidents, provosts and deans.
• Texas also struggled to explain what would happen if there were no FOIA laws. The blackout book was created by taking front pages of metro sections around the state and removing all stories, photos, infographics, etc. that were based on open meetings or open records laws.
• Peterson said the lack of civics education frightens her. A Florida first-term legislator introduced a bill that would make names of elected school board members anonymous.
• Peterson worked with a group of Florida young adults who had grown up in the foster care system. They testified at public hearings because they didn't have access to their own records, including their own SSN and previous home addresses. They helped get legislation passed that allowed children who had aged out of foster care access to their own records. Their involvement energized them and politicized them.
• Florida First Amendment Foundation created a training video for middle and high school students. The group is currently working on a corresponding curriculum for teachers. View the video here.
  

Resources:

• Campaign for the Civic Mission of Schools
  
• CIRCLE: The Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement
• Minnesota Civic Education Matters
• Center for Civic Education
• Center on Congress -- For Kids
• National Conference of State Legislatures
• U.S. Courts Educational Outreach
  

NFOIC Summit: Fiscal transparency

Charles Glasser, global media counsel for Bloomberg News; James Nobles, legislative auditor for the State of Minnesota; and Rebecca Otto, auditor for the State of Minnesota spoke about the secrecy surrounding the bank bailout and other fiscal transparency issues. Jane Kirtley, Silha professor of media ethics and law at the University of Minnesota School of Journalism & Mass Communication moderated. Here are the notes from this NFOIC Summit session:

Charles Glasser on the Bloomberg lawsuit:

• Glasser explains the "great freak-out of 2008" as follows. A network of banks borrow money from the Federal Reserve each night. The money's distributed through a discount window. Bank X says we need $200,000 until tomorrow so our checks clear. That discount window number is public. It's released every morning by the Treasury. The number usually hovers between $1 and $4 million a night. For the federal government, that’s not big money.
• Mark Pittman saw this number climbing. He noticed that the overnight window ballooned to $400 million inside two weeks. He called the Federal Reserve, which said that information is proprietary and can't be released. The Federal Reserve is lending public money to private banks but saying it doesn't have to disclose the criteria for collateral. What did the federal government take in return as a promise for your money? And on what terms was your money given and to whom?
• Bloomberg filed the lawsuit in November, and it's still under advisement. The suit's been assigned to a friend-of-the-press judge in the southern district, so Bloomberg is hopeful.
• Glasser said the fact that Bloomberg had to file this suit is something in and of itself that should raise your ire.
• Great credit goes to Matt Winkler and Mike Bloomberg, who from day one told reporters and editors to do the right thing and they'd deal with the cost later. So far the cost is estimated at $125,000.
• Two weeks after Bloomberg filed the lawsuit, FOX News announced that it was suing the federal government without any mention of Bloomberg. "The boat is always big enough," Glasser said. The more people involved, the better.
• The best federal agency to comply with FOIA requests was the Department of Defense, and this was under the Bush administration. The Securities and Exchange Commission rated the worst. It's the one federal agency that was created to promote transparency and fairness in the market.
• Bloomberg filed a FOIA letter to the Board of Governors for records on how much money was lent in a certain time period and under what terms. It resulted in a de facto denial. The board didn't respond. Bloomberg kept at them and received a response 30 days late. It said the material is considered proprietary trade secret and would cause harm to the parties involved. The Fed was basically saying if the public knew which banks were in trouble, the banks would get in trouble because of a run. In the meantime, the Troubled Asset Relief Program was announced. Bloomberg noticed that when a company announced that it was applying for TARP, its stock would jump. Investors felt better with a company that had the backing of the federal government. Therefore, this argument that knowing what banks were bailed out would cause competitive harm makes no sense.
• Bloomberg is now hoping to at least prove that the Board of Governors is FOIA-able.
  
• Bloomberg has launched a new iniative that has tasked all investigative reporters to use FOIA aggressively. In the Bloomberg terminals are built-in internal functions called FOIA Go, which provides guidelines and templates for FOI requests in most states and some nations.

Minnesota auditing:

• Rebecca Otto oversees local government spending. She helped revamp reports by telling her staff that if no one understands them, we're not doing our job. She aimed to make them understandable and nonpartisan. Her office did that by creating easy-to-read executive summaries with the report's most important information and references to page numbers of the report.
• Her office as overhauled the Web site so that audits and special investigations were easy to find online. She asked the media to sign up the her office's weekly newsletter, and she works closely with reporters to help them ensure their stories are accurate.
• When her office audits local governments, the audits are public. It's not as transparent when private CPAs audit local government. Their papers are sometimes proprietary. The same thing with special investigations done by her office versus by private investigators.
• James Nobles audits state government and outline four things needed for good government.

1. Strong laws that require records to be open. Minnesota has a presumption that all government data is public unless specifically classified by law as otherwise. Nobles would like to get to the point where citizens would have access to raw data related to the state's accounting system. The problem is how to also protect for privacy.
   
2. Active, vigorous citizen participation in government.
3. A vigorous media. Nobles worries about the diminished resources of media and whether investigative work will continue.
4. Paid agents of accountability. It's important in every state that there are independent agents to dig out data about how the government is spending money.
   

Great resources:

• States for a Transparent and Accountable Recovery
• Bailout Watch

NFOIC Summit: Texts, Lies and Video Tape

Paul Anger, editor and publisher of the Detroit Free Press spoke of the controversy surrounding former Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and how the newspaper used FOI to tell the story. The Detroit Free Press won the Pulitzer Prize in the local reporting category for its coverage of the scandal. Here are the notes from his session at the NFOIC Summit:

Background on the issue:

• Detroit lived with this nightmare for almost a year. Public records were hidden away literally under lock and key. In the end, $14 million of public money had gone down the drain. The paper's FOI lawsuit generated as much drama as Boston Legal. And there was a human tragedy. Kilpatrick was a dynamic man, father of three and rising star. Now he's a convicted felon who spent more than three months in jail and still doesn't get what he did wrong.
• The scandal began six years ago when Kilpatrick started having an affair with Christine Beatty, who later became his chief of staff. But he didn't just have an affair. He and Betty fired three police officers in 2003. The officers then filed a whistle-blower suit accusing Kilpatrick of retaliation because of their actions in an internal affairs investigation of the mayor's security team.
  
• Four years went by before the trial started. He and Beatty lied about their affair under oath. The jury didn't buy the mayor's story and awarded each of the two officers more than $2.5 million. The mayor vowed to appeal.
  
• The attorney for the police officers obtained text message records through a subpoena.
  
• The mayor agreed to a secret deal to settle the lawsuit in exchange for keeping the text messages private. They were to be locked in a safety deposit box and destroyed. Then suddenly, he announced that after searching his soul he had decided to settle the case for $8.4 million.
• The Detroit Free Press filed an FOI request for all records related to the settlement. The paper filed a second request for confidential records.
  
• The newspaper sued the city for all documents that had not been made public after the settlement.
• The city released the public agreement signed but didn't disclose the secret agreement.
  
• Through anonymous sources, the newspaper obtained 14,000 text messages. The messages disclosed the affair and the pair's intention to fire Gary Brown, one of the police officers in the whistle blower case.
• Courts began unsealing documents.
  
• Kilpatrick pleaded guilty in September to two felonies. Betty pleaded guilty to two felonies in December.
• Kilpatrick faced charges of conspiracy to obstruct justice, obstruction of justice, misconduct in office and perjury.
  

Lessons from the Detroit Free Press coverage:

• The Detroit Free Press realized it was sitting on a story that could tear apart the community.
• Once it received the messages from anonymous sources, it had to ensure they were authentic. They used dates and other data to confirm that the electronic footprint was authentic.
• Several of the messages contained sexually explicit information the newspaper didn't publish. Anger said the newspaper knew the story wasn't about sex. It didn't want the public to miss the point of the story. The newspaper also didn't want to add to the embarrassment of the families involved. Anger said some staffers and community members felt that the paper should release all the text messages. He said the paper wanted to make sure it didn't become the story, which would have been a danger if it had posted all the messages online. As the courts released more text messages, the paper did post some of those.
  
• Journalism is alive and well on the Web. Journalism isn't dying, but it might be the demise if we cut reporters to the level where no investigative reporting is being done. Anger suggests cutting back on the expense of printing and physical delivery.
  
• The Free Press included streaming of live events, photo galleries and video to its Web site. The Web traffic increased over 75 percent. The site received 4 million page views the day the mayor pleaded guilty.
• Anger is in support of a federal shield law. He said sources never would have come forward without confidentiality. However, journalists should use anonymity rarely and always verify the information.
• Technology provides powerful tools to put public documents online. The documents, videos and live streaming allowed people to decide for themselves if they believed the mayor.
  
• The Free Press staff knew it would be accused of invading privacy. It tried to bullet-proof itself by organizing a group to "prosecute" each story on the issue and how the story was presented.
  
• The Free Press has spent about 10 times per month what its legal budget really is. Gannett supported the paper's efforts.
• When Detroit set up its contract with its third-party vendor to store text messages, the mayor drafted a memo warning city employees that their messages were public documents. The city no longer has an arrangement with this third party vendor. So messages are no longer being stored in this manner.
  
• Anger says the real heroes in this situation were: Wayne County Prosecutor Kim Worthy, who considered the text messages public records; judges who ruled that the records should be released and ruled in favor of open records; Herschel Fink, the newspaper's attorney; and Barbara Wall, Gannett vice president and associate general counsel.
• The newspaper took a financial risk in this project, especially because no advertisers wanted to be anywhere near these stories.
• Anger did write some columns about the decisions being made regarding the coverage of this issue. The Web site included Q&As and live chats with the paper's investigative editor and the two main reporters, Jim Schaefer and M.L. Elrick.

Epilogue:

• Kilpatrick owes the city $1 million in restitution. He's currently living in a Dallas suburb and working at Covisint, a subsidiary of Compuware. He makes $120,000 a year and can earn up to $300,000. Initially he said he could only afford to pay $6 a month toward restitution. He was ordered to repay $6,000 a month. He has been late with payments.
• The state is investigating whether Kilpatrick illegally used political campaign funds to pay $1 million to lawyers. He maintains that he didn't break any rules in doing so.
• Kilpatrick also sued SkyTel, the city's former communications provider, for releasing the records.
• For all current and former coverage, go here.
  
• Beatty completed her three months in jail and remains without a job.
  
• The Free Press' FOI lawsuit is still active. The newspaper has asked for more text messages. Kilpatrick has vowed to run for office again, and the reporters want to ensure they get all the facts about this scandal.
  

Mitchell Pearlman honored at NFOIC Summit

Congratulations to Mitchell W. Pearlman, who was selected by the National Freedom of Information Coalition and the Society of Professional Journalists for their joint "Heroes of the 50 States: The Open Government Hall of Fame" award for 2009.

Pearlman is a lecturer in journalism at the University of Connecticut and long-time director of that state's FOI body. He served as the executive director of and general counsel for the Connecticut Freedom of Information Commission from 1975-2005, and he currently serves on the Board of Directors of both NFOIC and the Connecticut Foundation for Open Government. He was designated as FOIC's Executive Director Emertius in 2005.

The State Open Government Hall of Fame is open to anyone who has made a substantial, sustained and lasting contribution to open government or freedom of information within one particular state. Nominees may come from government, the media, the non-profit sector, the legal profesion or any other area of endeavor that involves citizen access to government records, meetings and procedures.

NFOIC Summit: Infrastructure coverage tips

James Shiffer, reporter and editor at the Minneapolis Star Tribune; Tisha Thompson, investigative reporter at WTTG Fox 5 in Washington, D.C.; and Jaimi Dowdell, IRE training director and former computer-assisted reporting editor at St. Louis Post-Dispatch, discussed how to use FOI to inform the public about infrastructure issues. Patrice McDermott, director of OpenTheGovernment.org, moderated. Here's part two of the notes from their session at the 2009 NFOIC Summit:

Tips for infrastructure coverage:

• Look at the annual report card put out by the American Society for Civil Engineers each year.
• Keep the National Bridge Inventory and National Inventory of Dams database handy.
  
• Use electronic databases to lead you to paper documents.
• When looking at infrastructure records, contact state inspectors and civil engineers. They can help you analyze data so you don't make mistakes. If possible, first contact other reporters who have done similar stories in other cities.
• The smaller the town or jurisdiction, the better chance you'll have of getting data. Bigger cities become savvier.
  
• Ask for five years of inspection reports to notice problems that haven't been fixed.
• Start with bridges and dams stories. River communities should look into levees.
• Keep a list of those you request records from. Divide them into a naughty and nice list. Send Christmas cards to both. Be creative.
• Go to your local transportation department and goggle what it has posted.
• Look at the infrastructure in urban sprawl areas.
• For a breaking news story, immediately go to the web and take screen shots of everything you can find about the bridge, dam, etc. Chances are that someone will take that info down.
• When googling something, click on the Google cached link, which Tisha Thompson refers to as the "sexiest thing in the world." It shows you what a Web page looked like on a certain day.
• You can also use Wayback Machine to find older versions of Web pages. Thompson used this to access the Web site of Eliot Spitzer's call girl after her site was removed. She was able to obtain information about her and her picture. Warning: This site doesn't delve deeply into federal and state government Web sites.
• Use your stories to highlight the ridiculous excuses given for why information isn't made public.
• Find the human element. Remind agencies that people have a right to this information. This is the people's money and safety at stake.
• Find an inspector who cares and convince him/her to provide you with data or the records.
• Get data any way you can, even if it's in a PDF file. Then, find someone who can figure out how to turn it into something usable.
• Trick from Jaimi Dowdell: If a government agency says it can't export data because of the system it's using, just say "Well, that's terrible. But I have to give my editor a report back on why I couldn't get this data. What's the name of your software?" Then call that software company and tell them that their client says it can't export the data. Chances are, the software company will say its software can do back flips. It usually contacts the clients and essentially helps you get the data.
• Conduct advanced searches in Google and search by file type.
• Fish for data and know what's out there. Agencies can't claim records don't exist that way.
• Consider looking into highway construction as well as asphalt and concrete contracts.
• Look into data on electricity grids, fire hydrants, street light outages, pot holes, population growth, water main breaks, road construction, etc. Who's getting stimulus funding?
• Request videos and photos in your FOI requests.
• Find more tips here.

NFOIC Summit: FOI & Infrastructure

James Shiffer, reporter and editor at the Minneapolis Star Tribune; Tisha Thompson, investigative reporter at WTTG Fox 5 in Washington, D.C.; and Jaimi Dowdell, IRE training director and former computer-assisted reporting editor at St. Louis Post-Dispatch, discussed how to use FOI to inform the public about infrastructure issues. Patrice McDermott, director of OpenTheGovernment.org, moderated. Here are some notes from their session at the 2009 NFOIC Summit:

Lessons from the Minneapolis I-35W Bridge collapse:

• The Minneapolis I-35W Bridge collapsed at 6:05 p.m. a couple blocks from the Star Tribune office. James Shiffer said the Star Tribune had a suspicion that there was something in the bridge's history that would explain why the collapse occurred. Reporters used the National Bridge Inventory database as the basis for a front-page story. The bridge had been declared structurally deficient as recently as 2005.
  
• On Aug. 2, the paper filed its two first formal requests related to inspection and maintenance records. Reporters followed up with four additional requests that month about contractors who worked on the bridge. Minnesota Government Data Practices Act requires that relevant corporate records of government contractors are public.
• The conclusion was that the bridge had a design defect dated back 40 years. However, the paper did get Missouri Department of Transportation to acknowledge that part of it was bent. This was visible in photos, and at least one inspection noted the bending. You didn't have to be an engineer to notice.
• This was the most studied bridge in Minnesota. A Star Tribune columnist pointed out that when it was announced that a bridge had collapsed, a lot of people probably didn't have to ask which one.
• The Minnesota Department of Transportation was bombarded with records requests from journalists, lawyers, construction companies and victims. The organization did a good job early on in putting the inspection reports online. They couldn't argue that the information was protected because of homeland security. The bridge was gone.
• Shiffer said MDOT was not good at providing notes, photos and internal documents. The newspaper gave MDOT a draft lawsuit, which got them going. The excuse was that the inspectors were too busy making sure other bridges were safe to answer questions or find records. You want us to do our jobs, right? they asked. Four months later, MDOT dumped data online, but the system was difficult to use. The newspaper reporters were not allowed into the office to view the files.
• The National Transportation Safety Board completed its report, which included citations of documents and memos that MDOT hadn't turned over to the Star Tribune via FOIA and hadn't released on its database.
  
• Jaimi Dowdell said the St. Louis Post-Dispatch used bridge databases to conduct its own analysis the first day after the collapse. Then, reporters began analyzing similar St. Louis bridges by requesting audit and inspection records.
• Tisha Thompson noted that agencies shut down records after the Minnesota bridge collapse. They realized that the records tattled on them.

Lessons from bridges and dams coverage:

• From FOIA documents, Tisha Thompson reported on a Kentucky bridge with rusted bolts and rotten pillars and rails, a Baltimore bridge with loose timber beginning to decay and a D.C. bridge with a tree growing out of its side. (The tree was slowly pulling the bridge apart.)
• Thompson says stories on bridges and dams are the easiest to do because there are federal inspection requirements.
  
• When a dam broke in St. Louis, Jaimi Dowdell's team did an immediate story based on the National Inventory of Dams database. They then requested reports from state studies. In doing so, they found a state clause that sets up an agricultural exemption for dams to be inspected. So many dams were not being inspected because they were under a certain height. It turned into a watchdog story. You never know where FOI paths can take you.
• The dam database has been shut down to the public. It doesn't have data after 2002 because of homeland security concerns.
• Access to records often depends on the agency and who's in charge. Thompson recalled that Virginia shut down records on all 13,000 of its bridges because of homeland security. She had no problems getting dam inspection reports from dams. It was the opposite in Maryland.
• Thompson couldn't get data on a small bridge in the middle of nowhere because of homeland security concerns. Only 72 people passed over the bridge in a day. She explained the ridiculousness of this excuse. The furthest she got was being allowed to view documents in the office. She was not allowed to photocopy them.
• Thompson said that although agencies fought her on the data on the bridges, they replaced every bridge she covered.
• James Shiffer described one of his reporters who talked to the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers concern a dam that the Minnesota hoped to get stimulus money to rebuild. The reporter got full access to inspection reports because the state wanted it fixed. However, the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers refused to speak with the reporter regarding another dam next to the Ford Plant that might have water seeping underneath it. The corp used the homeland security excuse. Eventually an interview was reluctantly arranged.
  

NFOIC Summit: Technologies you should be using

Lisa Skube, principal of Creaturekind Communications; Jeff Lennan, chief operating officer of Winning Mark; and Karl Pearson-Cater with MinnPost.com spoke about the technologies that can be used to strengthen state FOI coalitions. Here are the notes from their session at the 2009 NFOIC Summit:

Blogging:

• The most fundamental technology to get higher visibility is syndication. RSS feeds will allow your content to be rebroadcast. Most free blogging tools already have these built in.
  
• Make your RSS feed link visible on your Web site.
• Free blogging tools include: WordPress, TypePad ($5 per month), LiveJournal, Blogger.
• The key is getting people to link to your content. In that way, those people become your sales force.
• Set up your feeds so that they are automatically posted on Facebook and Twitter.
• When creating blogs, re-package information. If it's a story with a lot of jargon, simplify it. Localize it. Mention the location in the headline or first sentence. People are searching for information relevant to their area. Tag your location as well.
• Headline writing is crucial. Sometimes Google News will pick up your headline, exclude the summary you wrote and use a picture from another site. Therefore, our headlines should be clear and straightforward. Avoid cute heads that refer to the first paragraph or the photo.
• Post consistently.
  

Other technologies:

• Sign up on Alltop.com. This is an aggregator of RSS feeds. Freedom of Information has a channel: http://freedom-of-information.alltop.com/
  
• Create a presence for your coalition on LinkedIn. It's a site that's easy to use but often overlooked.
• Choose one or two technologies to get your feet wet.
  
• Using these technologies no longer requires a Webmaster. However, try to get a Web services person on your board or heavily involved. That person will know about all the latest, free tools and can point you in the right direction.
• Get a Twitter account in your coalition's name.
• Drive content back to your main site or blog. You want to inform using different technologies, but you don't want to lose visibility that this is your organization.
• Sign up for Google analytics to find out what people are looking at online. Do more of what works.
  

NFOIC Summit: Coalition Sustainability

Barbara Peterson, president of the Florida First Amendment Foundation and NFOIC president; Hyde Post, president of the Georgia First Amendment Foundation; and Kathleen Richardson, executive secretary of the Iowa Freedom of Information Coalition discussed how to sustain state FOI coalitions at the 2009 NFOIC Summit. Here are the notes from their session.

Barbara Peterson
Lessons from the Florida First Amendment Foundation:

• The Florida First Amendment Foundation started in 1985. For first 10 years, it was housed in Florida Press Association. The foundation started publishing Government-In-The-Sunshine manual. The AG's office complies it. The coalition publishes it and distributees it. It was the main source of income.
  
• Peterson onvinced the board that the group should focus only on open-government issues. Nobody else in Florida did that. The group started a toll-free hotline for questions. Someone can call and get a quick question answered and a great quote. In the first year, 203 calls were placed. Now the line averages about 150 calls a month. Half of those come from citizens.
  
• Initially membership was mainly from newspapers. Now private investigators, broadcasters (not many), lawyers, anyone can be a member. Membership is as low as $25 and high as $5000.
  
• Because of the 501-c(3) status, there is a federal limitation on the amount of lobbying. So Peterson doesn’t lobby. She educates. An average of 100-150 exemptions bills are filed in Florida Legislature each year.
  
• The coalition is in the position of responding to all proposals for new exemptions. When a bill comes up on House floor, someone will say what is the position of Florida First Amendation Foundation on this bill. The foundation is sked to review 95 percent of bills. If the coalition doesn’t like it, chances are it won’t go anywhere.
  
• The coalition increased its profile dramatically by establishing a legislative alert list. The coalition can send out an e-mail alert about a bill to more than 300 newspaper editors and reporters in Florida. It makes the e-mails as outrageous as possible to get their attention.
  
• The coalition also conducts about 50 seminars and trainings a year. Those who attend automatically become a member for one year. In turn, the coalition gets their contact information, and many pay for the $25 membership the following year.
  
• The coalition has been talking to professional fundraisers after seeing a significant drop in every level of membership, even $25 members. One told Peterson that you should have three diverse, distinct sources of income.
• The foundation is about to launch a direct-mail fundraising campaign with advice from a professional fundraiser who volunteered her services. It would have cost $10,000 at minimum to hire her. A 2 percent return is expected. The second step will be getting everyone in the foundation to identify those who have been important in the history of the organization and send them a personal letter pleading for money ($1000-$5000 or more).
  

Tips:

• Raise your profile.
  
• Make sure reporters know you're a free resource.
  
• Track your calls. Know who's calling you and where from? That way if you got 15 calls from one newspaper, use that data to convince the newspaper to donate to your coalition. Those free calls were a lot cheaper than placing a call to the newspaper's attorney.
• Create a bullet list of talking points for board members when they're calling to ask others to donate.
• Develop champions. Identify those in the state who really support the cause. Honor them with an award. The Friend of the First Amendment Award has now become somewhat of a competition.
  
• Develop database of those who will continue to support organization.

Hyde Post
Lessons from the Georgia First Amendment Foundation:

• The Georgia First Amendment Foundation started in 1994. There was no consistent voice for FOI or access issues in Georgia. This issue was number 6 on the state press association's list. The Atlanta Journal Constitutaion was arguing a case before the state supreme court. The justice said journalists are always saying access to information is for the people but where are these other people? It's always just the Atlanta Journal Consititution fighting for documents. That's when the newspaper realized it would be helpful to have an organization of not just journalists.
  
• The first question: Who should be in the coalition? The group started with $5,000. To get diversity, it recruited some journalists (print and broadcast), journalism professors, law professors, media lawyers, librarians, intellectural freedom groups, like-minded public service groups (such as the ACLU, Common Cause) and JPF (just plain folks).
  
• A lot of the funding from newspapers. Obviously, that's not so much the case for those starting off today. Law firms are a good source of funding. Grants both through NFOIC and local organizations (such as state bar associations) are also something to look into. Don’t become dependent on any single source of funding.
  
• Pick a board of directors that includes a diversity of people with diverse skills. It's nice crucial to have a certain number of people who have money or can attract money.
  
• The coalition's most successful programs in Georgia have been workshops programs and booklets. It's an educational organization. Its most important constitutency is people just being elected to public office or newly appointed deputies, newly elected school board members, etc.
• The coalition produces a general citizen guide, one on school board records and is working on one on court access. Its board went to the attorney general and state sheriff association and asked them to coauthor the booklets. They didn't have to write it, just review it. However, the coaliton essentially had them approve the documents this way, which made it easier to get that material inserted into their training materials.

Tips:

• Get on regular list of newly elected magistrate judges. Show up during their training.
• Focus and consistency is key.
  
• Narrow the focus to what you can do well.
  
• FOI people who FOI stuff. Find out who's requesting records. That's your target for membership.
• Tell board members ahead of time that donating to the annual fund drive is a condition of being on the board.
  
• Aim to be nonpartisan.
  

Kathleen Richardson Lessons from Iowa Freedom of Information Coalition:

• The Iowa coalition began in 1976. Since early on, it had a strong alliance between print and broadcast journalists. One of its strengths is that it's had a broad base of support. This includes the state Associated Press bureau, state university journalism schools, Iowa Public Television, the League of Women Voters, Mediacom, the state high school press association, the state trial lawyers association, Iowa State Association of School Boards, attorneys interested in open records and meetings issues, etc.
• The coalition has focused on institution memberships, not individual membership. The group have stayed small. Its dues are a couple hundreds dollars for institution members. In current economic situation, that’s turned out to be a good thing. The coalition hasn’t lost any members.
  
• The group's mission is really educational. It publishing a handbook on open meetings and records laws that also includes FAQs about the laws. The publication is very popular and established the coalition as a neutral resource for information.
• The coalition is the statewide coordinator for cameras in courtrooms. It has done informal trainings. In the past couple years, it started partnering with Association of Counties, League of Cities, the Attorney General's office, etc. to conduct training around state.
  
• The key to success is that Richardson a professor at Drake Journalism School, which provided the coalition with office and Richardson's employment. This keeps the overhead low.
  
• The coalition has been successful in the legislature in terms of heading off some bad things. It's a voice of wisdom in hearings.

Tips:

• Establish credibility by trying to project a neutral, nonadversarial image.
• Look around state for successful models, such as state good government groups.
• Look around creatively for allies. Media is just another economic interest in many ways. Legislators are looking for voices of real people. Seek business groups that might be potential allies. Rely more heavily on the library or League of Women Voters, for example.

NFOIC Summit: Arizona FOI roundup

State-by-state updates at the 2009 NFOIC Summit: David Cuillier of the Society of Professional Journalists provided a summary of Arizona's FOI news.

• Police agencies are redacting names in police reports. Some just leave in the first name. They're redacting addresses. They use the excuse that they're protecting suspected criminals from identity theft.
• The legislature proposed a policy whereby if someone requested records and didn't pick them up, that person would be banned for life for requesting records.
• There is also a proposal to limit access to online court records to Arizona citizens.
  

NFOIC Summit: Delaware FOI roundup

State-by-state updates at the 2009 NFOIC Summit: Coralie Pryde of Delaware Coalition for Open Government provided a summary of her state's FOI news.

• Delaware is deeply in need of a better FOI. There are access problems with the family courts and attorney general.
• The agenda for the Sustainable Energy Utility Oversight Board is usually sparse. One can never tell when the board will go into executive session.
• Delaware now has one foot in the door When the state FOI policy was developed, the legislature totally exempted itself. Sen. Karen Peterson helped get a stronger open government bill passed. It's now on the governor's desk, and we expect him to sign it. E-mails of legislators are off limits and some caucuses are off limits, but it's a real victory.
  

NFOIC Summit: Kentucky FOIA roundup

State-by-state updates at the 2009 NFOIC Summit: Terry Anderson of the University of Kentucky provided a summary of his state's FOI news.

• The state trying to revive the Kentucky Citizens for Open Government.
• The governor and attorney general are committed to open government. The chief justice just started a review of court rules on openness with the intention of opening them up more. Kentucky has a bigger problem with the legislature. The lawmakers don't seem committed.
• One legislator is determined to prevent the use of 911 calls in broadcasting.
• There is a legislative attempt to extend First Amendment rights to high school journalists.
• There also was a proposal to create a legislative investigative agency that would investigate other branches of government; however, its operations would have been exempted from public records.
  

NFOIC Summit: Missouri FOI roundup

State-by-state updates at the 2009 NFOIC Summit: Mike Sherry of the Missouri Sunshine Coalition provided a summary of his state's FOI news.

• The Missouri Sunshine Coalition is trying to figure out the best way to go about advocating and how to be more than an extension of the Missouri Press Association which already advocates for open records changes.
  

NFOIC Summit: Oklahoma FOI roundup

State-by-state updates at the 2009 NFOIC Summit: Joey Senat with Oklahoma State University School of Journalism and Broadcasting provided a summary of his state's FOI news.

• The attorney general issued a binding decision regarding private technologies. The public access to it depends on the nature of the document not the technology. If it has to do with public business, it's public. The Oklahoma Department of Libraries helped make that request. The state also has a statute related to records retention, which is what the library was interested in. There's still an need to talk to state agencies on what to do with the records they are now keeping.
• Enforcement of open-government laws falls to local district attorneys, which is a problem. The Court of Civil Appeals says said if you violate the open meetings law based on advice from your attorney, it's still a violation. You're supposed to know what the law is.
  

NFOIC Summit: Wisconsin FOIA roundup

State-by-state updates at the 2009 NFOIC Summit: Christa Westerberg of Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council provided a summary of her state's FOI news.

• Wisconsin has seen good legal developments because of court cases that clarifies what constitutes good notice and when quasi-government organizations are subject to open meetings and records laws.
• The state has no consistent retention policy on any records. The attorney general says agencies must have a policy, but it doesn't matter what's in it.
• Legislators are working on a shield law for reporters' notebooks and sources.
• We're trying to model Minnesota's policy for police records.
• The state could use a better fees policy. Fees are now issued at the discretion of the custodian so there's a lot of arbitrariness.
• The state legislature is allowed to hammer out the budget in some private committees. Two provisions in the proposed budget include: the expungement of certain felon records and the elimination of designating official state newspapers so that required government notices could just go online without being published in print publications.
  

NFOIC Summit: Florida FOIA roundup

State-by-state updates at the 2009 NFOIC Summit: Barbara Petersen of Florida First Amendment Foundation provided a summary of her state's FOI news.

• Florida is celebrating its 100th anniversary of its public records law and the 30th anniversary of allowing cameras in the courtroom.
• Peterson chaired Florida's Commission on Open Government Reform. The final report, "Reforming Florida's Open Government Laws in the 21st Century," was submitted, and she will now be assisting in drafting legislation on the report's recommendations.
  

NFOIC Summit: Minnesota FOIA roundup

State-by-state updates at the 2009 NFOIC Summit: Helen Burke of the Minnesota Coalition on Government Information provided a summary of her state's FOI news.

• The governor's approach toward retention of e-mails is that they be kept up to 90 days, preferably 30 days.
• Minnesota took a step in the right direction with the Transparency and Accountability Project which includes vendor reports.
• Minnesota doesn't allow cameras in the courtroom, but the Supreme Court has said there can be a commission set up to explore this issue. It's moving at a glacial pace but in a good direction.
• The Uptake streamed the hearings regarding the Franken/Coleman senatorial election.
• Public access suffered a setback when the governor signed into law a bill that defines the Department of Natural Resources database as not a public database.
  

NFOIC Summit: Public access values

Richard J. H. Varn, director of the Coalition for Sensible Public Records Access and the chief information officer for the City of San Antonio, spoke on the threats to and values of public access. Here's part two of the notes on his NFOIC 2009 Summit Session:

Values of public access:

• Identify verification and fraud prevention: Being able to verify facts such as birth date, address, etc. ensures that you don't wrongly identify someone. Secondary verifications rely on public records to prevent someone from representing themselves as you.
• Risk management and background screening.
• Public policy enforcement (Red Flag Rules): Before you're granted a bank account, the bank needs to verify that you are who you say you are. They largely draw from public records to find out multiple uses of the same address, multiple uses of a social security number and misuse of multiple birth records. Without access, banks are limited in preventing money laundering and theft.
• Life events: Owing a home, renting an apartment, buying a car, getting a job, dating, getting married, day care and senior care depend on access to records. You want to make sure the person watching your children or parents don't have issues, right?
• Person and business locations: Facebook doesn't always work in locating people.
• Workplace safety and vulnerable populations: Public records are used to perform background and credit checks on employees.
• Administration of justice: You can't find out facts without proper access to public records.
• Helping residents exercise their right to know.
• Targeted communications and marketing.
• Economic growth and democratization of opportunity: Small businesses rely on public records, which provide a cheap way to obtain market data, an analysis of the community or economy and list of potential customers.
• Market efficiency: Public records are used to forecast economic conditions and inventory systems.
• Public safety and law enforcement: Public records are investigative tools used to find suspects and witnesses.
• Customer service: A chemical company contains you because they know you have a pool. They saw it on Google Maps.
• Product safety and recalls: Public access helps companies find people who own things now considered unsafe.
• Due diligence and other legal duties.

NFOIC Summit: Public access threats

Richard J. H. Varn, director of the Coalition for Sensible Public Records Access and the chief information officer for the City of San Antonio, spoke on the threats to and values of public access. Here's part one of notes on his 2009 NFOIC Summit session:

Threats to public access:

• Identity theft and security: The problem with identity theft is not with public records. It would flourish even if all access was cut off. A social security number is only worth about 10 cents on the black market. Concerns over identity theft, however, had led to more restrictions to public access than any other issue in the past couple decades. When public identifiers are not made public, it is nearly impossible to distinguish one person from another. It leads to more false positives and false negatives.
• Implementing public policies by redacting the truth: Because people with criminal records have difficulty finding jobs, apartments, etc., there has been a trend to expunge convictions from public records. However, this doesn't hide the fact that someone has been convicted. It's still in the police blotter archives, and a fellow co-worker could definitely reveal a prior conviction that another employee tried to hide. Redaction doesn't solve the problem. What would solve it is an employability of felons act. Facts can still be acted on. These people need rights.
  
• Increased fees beyond marginal cost and self-funding portal: Florida, for example, passed a cost increase to help solve its budget problems.
• Security concerns lead to overclassification.
  
• Coalition failures: Exemptions for media aren't enough. Citizens should have rights to the same information, and coalitions should champion for them. These citizens who request records are, after all, sometimes valuable sources.
• Private technology, public business: Using private e-mail accounts to conduct public business is ever increasing.
• New technology, same old issues: Just because it's Twitter or the latest social networking fad doesn't mean anyone is excused from providing access and charging only marginal costs.
• Enforcement failures: Obviously, many state coalitions are struggling to add teeth to their state's FOI laws.

NFOIC announces 2009 summit

The National Freedom of Information Coalition and the Minnesota Coalition on Government Information bring you the 2009 FOI Summit from Minneapolis, Minnesota, on June 5 - 6.

Access to information is protected and expanded by a vibrant FOI community at all levels.

The FOI Summit helps promote that, and your participation is vital.

Join us for lunch at noon on Friday, June 5, at the Minneapolis Marriott City Center as we launch the conference with opening remarks from Richard J. H. Varn, director of the Coalition for Sensible Public Records Access and the chief information officer for the City of San Antonio. Following that is the return of the ever-popular FOI Salon, which includes a moderated discussion of what's going on in all of the states.

Saturday, we'll have panels on FOI & Infrastructure, Financial Transparency, and FOI as Civics Education.

For our keynote address Saturday, we're proud to present Paul Anger, vice president and editor of the Detroit Free Press. Mr. Anger has nearly 40 years’ experience as a reporter and editor.

The Free Press, you'll remember, played a key part in the controversy surrounding the former Mayor of Detroit, his firing of whistleblowers, and the text messages that exposed his lies under oath. The existence and implementation of the Michigan Freedom of Information Act was a key factor in the media’s ability to help the public learn the truth.

Scheduled panelists include:

Paul Anger, Vice President/Editor, Detroit Free Press
Richard J. H. Varn, Director, Coalition for Sensible Public Records Access
Rebecca Otto, Auditor, State of Minnesota
James R. Nobles, Legislative Auditor, State of Minnesota
Jane E. Kirtley, Silha Professor of Media Ethics and Law, University of Minnesota School of Journalism & Mass Communication
Patrice McDermott, Director, OpenTheGovernment.org
Joel Kramer, CEO and Editor, MinnPost
James Schiffer, Reporter and Editor, StarTribune

Scheduled panels include:

Coalition Sustainability — How do you keep that fledgling FOI group going, or take the next step?

FOI and Infrastructure — The Minneapolis I-35W Bridge collapse placed laser-like focus on infrastructure issues, not only in Minnesota, but all over the country. A panel of experts will gather to discuss the use of FOI to inform the public about infrastructure issues.

FOI as Civics Education — Freedom of information is a core democratic value, and one that should be celebrated in classrooms coast to coast. The NFOIC welcomes a panel of education and civics experts to discuss the national renaissance in civics and how FOI can play a leading role.

Financial Transparency — At the same time that some in our government are making efforts to increase transparency with online tracking, others are refusing to divulge the specifics of who’s getting what. Meanwhile, folks in the FOI community are doing our best—with reporting, blogging, and special projects—to follow the money. Join us for the lowdown on government spending and fiscal accountability.

Contact: Charles Davis, Executive Director, National Freedom of Information Coalition
Phone (573) 882-5736
E-mail daviscn@missouri.edu

More here on how to register early and save on rates for the conference and lodging.