Three steps needed for Colorado to follow Obama's lead

Chantell Taylor, director of the Colorado Ethics Watch, outlined three ways Colorado state and local government can show a commitment to transparency. These include implementing a policy for the retention of electronic records, adopting a fee waiver in the Colorado Open Records Act and setting maximum limits on fees charged for employee time spent retrieving public records.

As one of his first official acts, President Barack Obama issued an executive memorandum instructing members of his administration “to operate under principles of openness, transparency and of engaging citizens with their government.” There are a number of ways Colorado state and local government can follow suit and join the president in his commitment to an “unprecedented level of openness in government.”

To begin, the Colorado General Assembly should immediately adopt and implement a uniform policy for the members and their staff, setting minimum standards and guidelines for the retention of electronic records, including e-mail records in particular. Incredibly, there is currently no policy at all.

Instead, without any minimum requirements, members are encouraged to develop their own individual policies on retention of e-mails, make their own determinations as to what records are public, and regularly delete records that they think do not qualify as public.

More here.

Bloggers not considered legitimate journalists by Coast Guard

Interesting debate on whether FOIA standard fee waivers for journalists should apply to bloggers.

This spring, the Coast Guard allegedly faked a key test of its flagship National Security Cutter, according to sources close to the program. The maritime service denies this. But six months later, the Coast Guard essentially has rejected two blogs' Freedom of Information Act requests for documentation related to the test. (The Coast Guard asked for $18,000 in fees to honor the request, and denied applications for the standard fee waiver for journalists.)

On Monday, Coastie Commandant Thad Allen explained why: The service doesn't necessarily consider blogs legitimate media, and so didn't feel they were owed the same considerations under FOIA. Allen made these points during a Pentagon-sponsored conference call with bloggers, to announce a new "social media engagement" strategy.

More here.

No Public Interest in Iraq PTSD Cases? Really?!?

From the CREW website:

Today, CREW received a truly remarkable response from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to its FOIA request for documents relating to the VA’s abhorrent practice of under-diagnosing PTSD in veterans to save money. According to the VA, CREW is not entitled to a fee waiver -- meaning it has to pay for the costs of finding and copying responsive documents -- because there is no longer any public interest in this issue! Ignoring the wealth of news articles triggered by CREW’s and VoteVets.org’s release of an internal VA e-mail and the congressional hearing that release prompted, the VA claims that any records CREW requests “would not reveal anything new.”

We know what that means -- fee waiver or not, the VA has no intention of letting any more incriminating e-mails out of its clutches. Let’s hope there are more courageous VA employees willing to blow the whistle on what the VA is, and is not, doing for our veterans.

The VA also claimed it could not respond to the request as written because CREW failed to identify the specific VA offices and employees that would have responsive records. As CREW made clear in its response, we are committed to shining the brightest light possible on the VA’s treatment of veterans suffering from undiagnosed PTSD and we will not back down from these shameless excuses that the VA has offered.

More here.