EXERCISE YOUR FREEDOM...I NEED YOUR HELP!

HELP ME FIND SENATOR SECRECY

The NFOIC, SPJ, and your nation, needs your help.

On April 12, the Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously passed the Open Government Act, sponsored by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX).

The bill, which has garnered support from more than 100 organizations, would improve the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) by reducing delays in releasing government records requested under FOIA by creating incentives for public officials to comply with the law.

The House passed a similar measure earlier this year but the bill was blocked from reaching the Senate floor for a vote May 24 when an unknown Senator placed a secret hold on the bill.

A secret hold. On an FOI bill. Think about that a minute.

This is not the first time a secret hold has been used to block open government legislation from reaching the floor. In Aug. 2006, Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AK) put a hold on a bill to create a searchable public database of all federal grants and contracts. Steven's role was revealed only after online public advocates and journalists forced senators to go on the record about whether they placed the hold or not.

And that’s what we want to do right now: get them on the record and find out who Senator Secrecy is...

HOW YOU CAN HELP:

Check www.spj.org and look for the link with FIND THE SECRET SENATOR — and see if your senator has been called already.

If not, or if they are not on the record yet, call them right away.

Ask them, quite simply, and POLITELY:

“Did Sen. XXX place a hold on the Open Government Act?”

Send us your answer — e-mail to daviscn@missouri.edu and we’ll get the response online immediately.

It’s fun.

It’s for a good cause.

It’s a fine way to exercise those First Amendment rights on a Memorial Day break.

Cue the Irony: Secret Hold Placed on FOI Bill

This threatens to RUIN my Memorial Day weekend, people....

For the second time in as many years, a member of your United States Senate has placed a SECRET hold on a transparency bill -- this time it's the Open Government Act.

"Regrettably, an anonymous Republican hold is stalling this important Freedom of Information Act legislation, needlessly delaying long-overdue reforms to strengthen FOIA and to protect the public's right to know," said Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), a co-sponsor of the bill along with Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX).

"It is both unfortunate and ironic that this bipartisan bill, which promotes sunshine and openness in our government, is being hindered by a secret and anonymous hold. This is a good government bill that Democrats and Republicans alike, can and should work together to enact," Sen. Leahy said in a May 24 floor statement.

He doesn't sound half as angry as I am. More to come on this. I have an idea....

CD

It's Worth Remembering: Geneaologists Are Natural Allies

From the Seattle Times:

"For every generation in this country there has been a war. And with wars come millions of records that can shed light on family history, detailing everything from the color of soldiers' eyes to what their neighbors may have said about them.

On Thursday, Ancestry.com unveils more than 90 million U.S. war records from the first English settlement at Jamestown in 1607 through the Vietnam War's end in 1975. The site also has the names of 3.5 million U.S. soldiers killed in action, including 2,000 who died in Iraq.

"The history of our families is intertwined with the history of our country," Tim Sullivan, chief executive of Ancestry.com, said in a telephone interview. "Almost every family has a family member or a loved one that has served their country in the military."

The records, which can be accessed free until the anniversary of D-Day on June 6, came from the National Archives and Records Administration and include 37 million images, draft registration cards from both world wars, military yearbooks, prisoner-of-war records from four wars, unit rosters from the Marine Corps from 1893 through 1958, and Civil War pension records, among others.

The popularity of genealogy in the U.S. has increased steadily alongside the Internet's growth. Specialized search engines on sites like Ancestry.com, Genealogy.com and FamilySearch.com, along with general search portals like Yahoo Inc. and Google Inc., have helped fuel interest...."

If your coalition hasn't reached out to state historical and genealogy groups, now is a perfect time....

CD

In Delaware, the AG steps up

From today's Wilmington Journal comes news that the state's AG will support a bill giving his office jurisdiction to represent citizens in FOI jams, much to the chagrin of at least one powerful lawmaker:


"A powerful opponent of previous legislation related to sunshine laws expressed concern Tuesday after Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden announced his support of a bill that would allow his office to represent citizens who file Freedom of Information Act cases against the state.

Senate President Pro Tem Thurman Adams Jr., D-Bridgeville, said he worries the proposed bill could stretch the Attorney General's Office thin. Adams has put the brakes on previous FOIA bills, including two this session that remain stalled in the Senate Executive Committee, which he chairs.

Under current law, the Attorney General's Office represents the state in FOIA cases brought by the public, often requiring citizens to pay their own legal fees as they seek documents from state agencies.

A bill, which is expected to be introduced when legislators resume session next month, would allow a person who has been denied information by a state agency to go to the Attorney General's Office for a determination on whether the agency is violating the sunshine law...."

Senate President Pro Tem Thurman Adams Jr., D-Bridgeville, said he worries the proposed bill could stretch the Attorney General's Office thin. He said that the AG risks "opening up a bigger can of worms than he thinks because they'll have to deal with a lot of off-the-wall complaints."

Ah, you gotta love that: a state attorney general receiving inquiries on open government = "a can of worms."

And I thought we called it democracy?

CD

Hattiesburg Scalia Flap Ends

The Hattiesburg American, much to its credit, just won a three-year fight for a piece of paper:

The U.S. Justice Department on Tuesday agreed that the Hattiesburg American was improperly denied access to documents into an investigation of the seizure of reporters' tapes of a 2004 speech by Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

The decision comes more than two years after the newspaper appealed the U.S. Marshals Service's refusal to allow access to records pertaining to the seizure of tapes of Scalia's speech at Presbyterian Christian School in April 2004.

anice McLeod, associate director of the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Information and Privacy, determined that the Marshals Service acted inappropriately when it denied the newspaper access to investigation records.

The investigation began after a marshal seized the tapes of Hattiesburg American reporter Antoinette Konz and Associated Press reporter Denise Grones.

The marshal said she acted at the direction of Scalia.

The Hattiesburg American and the Associated Press later successfully sued the Marshals Service. Scalia also sent written apologies to the reporters, saying the marshal had not acted at his direction.

However, the Hattiesburg American's Freedom of Information Act request for documents related to the investigation was denied by the Marshals Service. The newspaper had requested a copy of the final report related to the investigation, transcripts of interviews conducted during the investigation and guidelines for handling the media provided to agents who provide security for judicial officers.

Keep Your Eye on This....

An excellent piece in the New York Times today about the use of court records for anti-snitch groups. Note the Justice Department's ominous language:

There are three “rats of the week” on the home page of whosarat.com, a Web site devoted to exposing the identities of witnesses cooperating with the government. The site posts their names and mug shots, along with court documents detailing what they have agreed to do in exchange for lenient sentences.

Last week, for instance, the site featured a Florida man who agreed in September to plead guilty to cocaine possession but not gun charges in exchange for his commitment to work “in an undercover role to contact and negotiate with sources of controlled substances.” The site says it has identified 4,300 informers and 400 undercover agents, many of them from documents obtained from court files available on the Internet.

“The reality is this,” said a spokesman for the site, who identified himself as Anthony Capone. “Everybody has a choice in life about what they want to do for a living. Nobody likes a tattletale.”

Federal prosecutors are furious, and the Justice Department has begun urging the federal courts to make fundamental changes in public access to electronic court files by removing all plea agreements from them — whether involving cooperating witnesses or not.

“We are witnessing the rise of a new cottage industry engaged in republishing court filings about cooperators on Web sites such as www.whosarat.com for the clear purpose of witness intimidation, retaliation and harassment,” a Justice Department official wrote in a December letter to the Judicial Conference of the United States, the administrative and policy-making body of the federal court system.

“The posting of sensitive witness information,” the letter continued, “poses a grave risk of harm to cooperating witnesses and defendants.”

Video from NFOIC sessions coming soon...

Catch the first of eight streaming videos from the National Freedom of Information Coalition Summit sessions in Seattle May11-12. Most of those will be available later this week, but the panel discussion, ""Sports Secrecy: Stadium Deals in the Luxury Suites?" is already available.

Special thanks to the TVW, Washington State's Public Affairs Channel, for recording all of these sessions. What a great resource!

The link to the NFOIC broadcast page is here.
or the main site is www.tvw.org

We're back!

The blog suffered while I was in Seattle co-hosting, along with the Washington Coalition for Open Government, the 2007 FOI Summit. I'm afraid I was just too busy to even think about it!

But we've had a most productive weekend, and we're even picking up some nice coverage in the Seattle Times (thanks Mike!)

We'll also soon have lots of content on the NFOIC site, including video of sessions!

CD

Texas passes shield legislation....Congress next?

The Associated Press is reporting that Texas is moving on a shield law:

The Texas Senate approved a bill May 1 giving journalists limited privilege against being forced to testify in court or disclose confidential sources.

Dubbed the “Free Flow of Information Act,” the bill had struggled to win support of lawmakers concerned it would hinder prosecutors’ ability to gather evidence in criminal cases.

The bill’s sponsor, Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, said the bill was needed to protect confidential sources who might not come forward with valuable information for fear of being exposed.

“This is to protect the whistleblowers,” Ellis said after the bill passed the Senate 26-5. The bill now goes to the House for consideration. The legislative session is scheduled to end May 28.

“The press plays a vitally important role in our democracy and must be protected from government intimidation,” Ellis said.

News groups lobbied for the bill as necessary to protect sources and rein in prosecutors who might try to use the news media as an investigative arm of their office.

http://www2.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifShield Legislation Back in Congress

Legislators will try again to pass a federal shield law:

Reps. Rick Boucher (R-Va.) and Mike Pence (R-Ind.) are teaming Wednesday (May 1) to introduce the Free Flow of Information Act of 2007.

Similar bills have been introduced before, but that was in a Republican-controlled Congress and with opposition from the Bush administration.

The bill "sets criteria which must be met before information can be subpoenaed from reporters in any federal criminal or civil matter," say the representatives, adding that it "carefully balances the public interest in the free flow of information against the public interest in compelled testimony."

The bill looked like it had legs back in 2005, powered by the imprisonment of Judith Miller of the New York Times and subpoenas of reporters who had reported on the Wen Ho Lee espionage case.

The Military Cracks Down on Blogs...

An interesting development in the realm of military control of information. Wired says that "the U.S. Army has ordered soldiers to stop posting to blogs or sending personal e-mail messages, without first clearing the content with a superior officer, Wired News has learned. The directive, issued April 19, is the sharpest restriction on troops' online activities since the start of the Iraq war. And it could mean the end of military blogs, observers say.

Military officials have been wrestling for years with how to handle troops who publish blogs. Officers have weighed the need for wartime discretion against the opportunities for the public to personally connect with some of the most effective advocates for the operations in Afghanistan and Iraq -- the troops themselves. The secret-keepers have generally won the argument, and the once-permissive atmosphere has slowly grown more tightly regulated. Soldier-bloggers have dropped offline as a result.

The new rules (.pdf) obtained by Wired News require a commander be consulted before every blog update.

"This is the final nail in the coffin for combat blogging," said retired paratrooper Matthew Burden, editor of The Blog of War anthology. "No more military bloggers writing about their experiences in the combat zone. This is the best PR the military has -- it's most honest voice out of the war zone. And it's being silenced."

Army Regulation 530--1: Operations Security (OPSEC) (.pdf) restricts more than just blogs, however. Previous editions of the rules asked Army personnel to "consult with their immediate supervisor" before posting a document "that might contain sensitive and/or critical information in a public forum." The new version, in contrast, requires "an OPSEC review prior to publishing" anything -- from "web log (blog) postings" to comments on internet message boards, from resumes to letters home.

Failure to do so, the document adds, could result in a court-martial, or "administrative, disciplinary, contractual, or criminal action."

Despite the absolutist language, the guidelines' author, Major Ray Ceralde, said there is some leeway in enforcement of the rules. "It is not practical to check all communication, especially private communication," he noted in an e-mail. "Some units may require that soldiers register their blog with the unit for identification purposes with occasional spot checks after an initial review. Other units may require a review before every posting."

But with the regulations drawn so tightly, "many commanders will feel like they have no choice but to forbid their soldiers from blogging -- or even using e-mail," said Jeff Nuding, who won the bronze star for his service in Iraq. "If I'm a commander, and think that any slip-up gets me screwed, I'm making it easy: No blogs," added Nuding, writer of the "pro-victory" Dadmanly site. "I think this means the end of my blogging."

OK, now this is COOL!

From the folks at WikiFoia:

One main purpose of the site is to provide an extensive and growing "How To" guide for practical, concrete assistance for regular citizens who are thinking about filing an open records request in any state.

We're also collecting news, resources, legal information, breaking court cases, and more, including a space for considerable information about the open records landscape in each state.

Using a Wiki format allows anyone who drops in to add or edit information. We hope that as it grows, open records advocates in each state will use the easy-to-edit features of a Wiki to create a growing library of information.

Most of us are aware of the basic idea of a Wiki—they allow a group of people with a common interest to collaborate on creating informational content online. Wikipedia is the best known example.

With WikiFoia, people who are interested in using or learning about state sunshine laws can come together to share their wisdom and experiences. Some citizens feel quite intimidated by the open records process and wonder if they should leave it up to reporters and attorneys to do that kind of work.

With WikiFoia we hope to create a fairly informal and collaborative environment that reduces the "FOIA is only for experts" fear.

Also, since open records are constantly under review and revision, we hope that this online community—where anyone can add new information--will become a place well-suited to keeping up with those changes.

Additionally, we are collecting ideas for "internet-based transparency reforms"—an emerging area of citizen activism to encourage school districts, cities and counties to post a significant amount of information online to reduce the need for FOIA requests. (One school district in Illinois is considering a proposal to post every open records request it receives online, along with the requested documents.)

Please take a look at www.WikiFoia.org . Your comments and insights are welcomed. If you maintain an open records website, we'd appreciate it if you would consider adding a link to the WikiFoia. If the WikiFoia doesn't already include a link to your website, please feel free to add your links and any information you'd like to share.

For more information or any questions, please e-mail info@WikiFoia.org .

Thank you!
--

Great News from Washington State!

From the Great State of Washington, home of the 2007 FOI Summit:

Taxpayers may see more government records, and news reporters can protect their sources without being jailed under two bills Gov. Chris Gregoire signed into law.

The measures were among some two dozen that Gregoire signed on April 27.

Under the new sunshine law, a state committee is to examine more than 300 exemptions to the state's public-records act, a voter-approved law that spells out which government documents must be publicly disclosed.

Attorney General Rob McKenna requested the measure, which he said would repair years of damage done by laws and rules that keep government information out of taxpayers' view.

Voters overwhelmingly approved the state's public-records law by initiative in 1972.

The measure called for disclosure of campaign finances, lobbyist activity, financial affairs of elected officers and candidates, and access to public records.

When it passed, there were only 10 exemptions to the public-records section. Since then, hundreds of exemptions have been introduced.

Gregoire also signed a measure that protects journalists from being jailed for refusing to reveal their confidential sources of information.

Of Spies, and Secrets...

From the Times today comes a tale of spies and secrets...

Concerned about the growing dependence of the nation’s spy agencies on private contractors, top intelligence officials have spent months determining just how many contractors work at the C.I.A., D.I.A., F.B.I., N.S.A. and the rest of the spook alphabet soup.

Now they have an answer. But they cannot reveal it, they say, because America’s enemies might be listening.

Ronald P. Sanders, chief human capital officer for the director of national intelligence, said that because personnel numbers and agency budgets were classified, he could not reveal the contractor count.

“I can’t give you anything that would allow you to impute the size of the I.C. civilian work force,” Mr. Sanders said, using shorthand for “intelligence community” in a telephone briefing that covered everything about the contractor survey except its core findings.

Mr. Sanders said the study did find that about 25 percent of the intelligence work now contracted out resulted from personnel ceilings imposed by Congress. But 25 percent of what, he said he could not disclose.

Steven Aftergood of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists, said the decision not to reveal the numbers was a sign of dysfunctional policies.

“It reveals how confused the government is about what is really sensitive and what is not,” Mr. Aftergood said. “What would Osama bin Laden do with the fraction of intelligence workers who are contractors? Absolutely nothing.”

Steve is dead on here: we must begin a robust debate in this nation over what is quite properly a secret and what is just secrecy for operational CYA....

From Florida, A Charter School's Woes and E-Mail Records...

Florida Today has a fascinating tale of a charter school's woes, and e-mail sunshine violations? It's a heck of a read....

The Florida Sunshine Law prohibits members of public boards from discussing business outside public meetings -- including through e-mail.

But a review of electronic mail conversations among former leaders of Explorer Elementary and Middle School reveal a handful of possible violations by two board members in the month leading up to the charter's collapse.

"They can argue that they're just exchanging information, but the fact of the matter is it could have been a discussion that citizens would have wanted to take part in or be informed about," said Adria Harper, director of the First Amendment Foundation in Tallahassee.

FLORIDA TODAY requested e-mail records of Explorer's former principal, Ruben Rosario, in hopes of uncovering information about the problems that led to the district takeover last month.

Six weeks' worth turned up a series of exchanges between the school's former board president, Greg Gaddis, and former board secretary Patty Satter-
white. Most of the e-mails discussed administrative items, including preparation and distribution of meeting minutes.

But other e-mails sent separately from Gaddis and Satterwhite to the rest of the board directly addressed and solicited responses to significant issues, including the schools' finances and employment policies, that were scheduled for future board action.

In one e-mail, Gaddis suggested approving a revised audit "outside of our official meeting." In another, Satterwhite referred to two votes the board took through e-mail. Both e-mails appear to violate the state's open-government law...

Give us a hand...unmask a senator!

You know that part in Nacho Libre when Nacho has his mask ripped off....what? You haven't seen Nacho Libre? What's keeping ya?

If you HAD, you would know what the Sunlight Foundation is about to do to some unwitting U.S. Senator....

Yet again an anonymous Senator has placed what is known in the Senate as an "anonymous hold" on legislation that would increase transparency (I know, the irony is killing me...). You may recall this same stunt last year....anyway, this time a secret hold has been placed on a bill, S. 223, that would mandate that Senators file their campaign finance reports electronically. This process would not only make these reports more readily available to the public but would also save money and resources.

Secret holds are in such disrepute that earlier this year the Senate itself banned the practice, although the bill containing that provision has yet to become law. But until secret holds are banished forever, we need your help in exposing the culprit who is blocking consideration of the electronic filing requirement for Senate campaign finance reports.

We need your help to find out who placed this secret hold! Call your Senators and ask them if they are the one with the secret hold on S. 223. Then report back to the Sunlight Foundation's website. They have a list of Senators, organized by state, and their contact info. If a Senator issues a denial they will indicate that next to their name....SO DON'T CALL IF THEY ALREADY ARE ON THE LIST AS NO......

Quote of the Week...

From the Argus Leader in South Dakota comes the quote of the week:

South Dakota's Supreme Court will hear oral arguments April 23 in the dispute over whether an invitation list to a governor's pheasant hunt is a public record.

The court's argument schedule, released Thursday, sets the hunt-list case for 11 a.m. April 23.

Oral arguments generally last 50 minutes, with each side getting 20 minutes to present a case, and the party that brought the appeal getting a final 10 minutes for rebuttal.

The case involves the Argus Leader's attempt to get the invitation list to the 2005 pheasant hunt sponsored by Gov. Mike Rounds. The hunt is a long-standing event billed as a way to showcase South Dakota for business prospects.

Jim Hagen, who headed the state Department of Tourism and State Development when the case started, is named as defendant.

The newspaper says the information should be available to the public, which has a right to know what government is doing. The Argus Leader argued in circuit courts that even though private money paid for the hunt, Hagen's agency - a taxpayer-supported state office - helped arrange and coordinate the event.

The basic concern is unchanged as the arguments go to the Supreme Court, says Randell Beck, executive editor of the Argus Leader.

"The over-arching point to our ongoing efforts to disclose the names of those invited to the pheasant hunt boils down to a very simple concept: Why not?'' Beck said. "In all the legal back and forth over this issue, the state has yet to tell us why the people of South Dakota don't deserve to know. That's because there is no good reason. It's pretty simple.''

The state argues that revealing the list of invitees could give other states a look at South Dakota's business recruitment strategy. Rounds used that argument early in the dispute when asked for the list, saying it would "provide economic development agencies of other states or cities with nothing less than a list of businesses which are willing to relocate or expand if given the proper business climate.''

Circuit Judge Max Gors ruled for the state in April. He noted that state law says records required to be kept by an agency are open to the public, but no law requires the invitation list to be kept.

Taken to its logical conclusion, Gors said, the Argus Leader argument "would require state agencies to maintain every scrap of paper generated by state government and to allow public inspection.''

Well, yeah, Judge Gors, that kinda what this whole sunshine law thingie is all about...

Sanity 1, Secrecy 0

Calmer, more rational heads have prevailed in an access dispute I have been following in Louisville:

From FOI warrior and erstwhile environmental reporter James Bruggers comes the news:

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has posted maps on its Web site showing how people who live downstream from the Wolf Creek Dam would be affected by flooding in the event of a breach.

As recently as last month, corps officials refused to make electronic versions of the maps public, citing terrorism fears, after initially saying they would do so.

Corps spokesman Bill Peoples said yesterday that the agency, after a thorough review, decided to make an exception to its policy of not allowing widespread distribution of the maps because the dam is considered a high risk for failure.

"We look at this as a special circumstance," he said. "It's always a balancing act between the security concerns we have as an agency … and what the public needs to know.

"We still have security concerns."

The corps turned down The Courier-Journal's request to obtain electronic versions of the maps in February, citing two exemptions under the Freedom of Information Act....

Now, despite the contention of one source in the story that the media has blown (OK, so his word was "blowed"...) the story out of porportion, wouldn't you generally want to know more, more -- not less -- about a dam upriver from you that is earthen, old and leaky?

CD

FOI at work...

Jim Leusner, an FOI warrior, has just published a piece that uses FOIA to detail NASA's payments to the seven Columbia astronauts. It's an interesting look at NASA policy in the wake of a terrible tragedy....

From the Orlando Sentinel:

NASA paid $26.6 million to the families of seven astronauts who died aboard space shuttle Columbia -- a settlement that has been kept secret for more than 21/2 years.

The space agency recruited former FBI Director William Webster, also a former federal judge, to act as a mediator and adviser in negotiating the out-of-court settlements, according to documents released to the Orlando Sentinel through a federal Freedom of Information Act request.

The newspaper's request yielded just seven pages of documents that leave many questions unanswered, including exactly when the settlements occurred.

In an interview with the Sentinel, Webster, also a former CIA director, said he was bound by confidentiality and couldn't discuss details of the agreements, but defended the process as proper.

"The members of the [survivors'] families wanted this to be a private matter," said Webster, a consulting partner in Washington with the international law firm of Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy. "They were healing, and they were ready to discuss, properly, their rights. . . . Everyone felt it had a better chance of coming together without seeing their name in lights."

In brief written responses to Sentinel questions Friday, NASA spokesman Allard Beutel said little about the settlements, citing family privacy. He said the money came from the agency's budget via a 2004 congressional appropriation.

"The Columbia astronauts were our friends and co-workers," Beutel wrote. "Our concern always has been with the crew's families and their loss, and as a result NASA didn't announce details of the settlement in an effort to protect the personal privacy of the Columbia families."

Former NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe and ex-general counsel Paul Pastorek, who helped set up the settlement process, did not return phone calls and e-mails.

Dr. Jon Clark, widower of astronaut Laurel Blair Salton Clark, said NASA was "deferential" in dealing with the families through a turbulent period in their lives.

"We were in a state of shock," he said. "To go the lawsuit route, it's very painful and very protracted. So we settled."

Steven Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists, said he understood the families' desire for privacy but criticized NASA for not disclosing the settlements earlier. NASA, he said, is behaving as if the settlement is a source of embarrassment.

"It's not NASA's money. It's public money," he said.

Check Out The Watchdog Column...

My good pal Jennifer LaFleur, a computer-assisted reporting guru and all-around FOI warrior, has launched a citizen watchdog column in the Dallas Mornings News. It has lots of great tips and FOI stories, and is well worth bookmarking. Way to go, Jennifer!

Her latest column, on how Texas citizens can background anybody using public records, is a must read.

So Many Deserving Candidates...

The Bush administration and the Defense Department are among the winners of the 2007 Jefferson Muzzle awards, given Tuesday by a free-speech group to those it considers the most egregious First Amendment violators in the past year.

The Bush administration appears on the list, compiled by the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression, for its efforts to discourage, modify and sometimes censor government scientists’ reports and studies to be more in line with the administration’s political policies, notably on global warming, the center said.

“The number of major scientists who have come forward and indicated they were constrained by the administration viewpoint is quite worrisome,” center director Robert M. O’Neil told The Associated Press. “There have been similar concerns arising in other areas but we wanted to focus specifically on climate change as the most invaded or intruded area.”

Florida Opens Dockets...

From the First Amendment Center:

The Florida Supreme Court issued emergency rules yesterday designed to stop the improper sealing of court records and dockets in civil cases, but delayed a decision on whether they also should cover criminal cases.

The unsigned, unanimous opinion requires court clerks to post notices on their Web sites and courthouses after a record is sealed and allows citizens to then challenge those decisions. Courts are also prohibited from making case, docket and other identifying numbers confidential.

“Most significant for our purposes here ... the removal from public view of all information acknowledging the existence of a case is expressly not allowed,” the justices wrote.

That’s exactly what happened in Broward County with divorces and other civil cases involving more than 100 prominent people, including television personalities, judges and elected officials.

The Miami Herald last year disclosed the hidden docket after obtaining case numbers and names, but not sealed documents, through a lawsuit...

Closing the Statehouse Door?

From the Associated Press comes a fresh outrage....

The move was as much a surprise to most legislators as it was to reporters. Georgia House Speaker Glenn Richardson stepped to the podium two weeks ago on one of the busiest days of the legislative session and introduced a ban on reporters from the chamber while lawmakers are in session.

Within hours, the proposal was adopted and Georgia joined a growing number of states restricting journalists' access to lawmakers while legislative bodies are in session.

According to an Associated Press survey, legislative leaders in at least 38 states have restricted reporters from accessing lawmakers on the floors of at least one chamber during a floor session. Georgia joined Kansas this year in seemingly reviving the trend after several years in which few - if any - legislative leaders moved to restrict access.

Often, the measures are touted as a way to maintain order so legislators can focus on the debate at hand, or as a way to give lawmakers more space to maneuver through increasingly crowded rooms.

In Kansas, a new House Speaker imposed a similar ban on reporters this year in hopes of preserving decorum. In Georgia, the House leader argued reporters were given more leeway than their counterparts in other states.

"It just says the media is not to be given more rights than the public," said Richardson, a Republican from the Atlanta suburb of Hiram, before the change was approved on a 132-29 vote.

Critics contend it furthers limits the public's access to elected officials and restricts monitoring of government.

"This is another effort to impede public access to government proceedings," said Hollie Manheimer of the Georgia First Amendment Foundation. "By limiting the flow of information to the public, this is a step backward."

Wolf Freed....

From the San Francisco Chronicle

Josh Wolf, the blogger whose record 7 1/2 months in federal prison stirred debate about who qualifies as a journalist and what legal protections they should receive, was freed today after releasing video footage sought by prosecutors about an anarchist protest.

[Hear Josh Wolf's news conference (.mp3)]

Wolf, 24, held in contempt by a federal judge last August for defying a grand jury subpoena, walked out of the Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin at mid-afternoon after his lawyers and federal prosecutors reached a compromise, with the help of a federal magistrate.

Wolf posted the uncut video on his Web site, gave prosecutors a copy and denied under oath that he knew anything about violent incidents at the July 2005 protest. In return, his lawyers said, prosecutors agreed not to summon him before the grand jury or ask him to identify any of the protesters shown on his video.

Prosecutors' withdrawal of their demand for his testimony was the key to the deal, Wolf told reporters outside the prison gate.

"Journalists absolutely have to remain independent of law enforcement,'' he said. "Otherwise, people will never trust journalists.''

Asked about his imprisonment -- the longest-ever for a U.S. journalist for withholding information -- Wolf said, "Absolutely, this was worth it. I would do it again if I had to.'' He also said his case showed the need for a federal "shield law'' that would protect journalists, including bloggers, from having to disclose confidential sources or unpublished material.

Tennessee Series Generates Huge Response

From Editor & Publisher:

The Knoxville News Sentinel's open-meeting lawsuit against 20 current and former members of the county commission has struck a chord with readers.

Hundreds of them. Too many letters and e-mails to print.

It is the very response the American Society of Newspaper Editors might hope for as it concludes Sunshine Week, promoting open government at all levels.

"There is so much negative feedback in this business. Sometimes you get the feeling that everybody hates you and you never can get anything right," editor Jack McElroy said. "To latch onto something where people are supportive of you and enthusiastically so, it is really nice to feel."

The paper's lawsuit contends that Knox County commissioners made private deals before they appointed eight new members to fill term-limited vacancies Jan. 31 in a process steeped in small-town, good ol' boy cronyism and nepotism.

Three of the eight appointees had relatives on the commission, and 13 of the 19 commissioners either work for the county or have relatives that do. None abstained from voting as they filled the eight commission seats and four county offices following a Supreme Court order to recognize term limits adopted by voters in 1994.

It's illegal in Tennessee and most other states for members of a county commission or city council to meet in private to discuss public matters, except in limited circumstances.

But Tennessee's law has few teeth. News media groups, citizen groups and open government advocates are urging lawmakers to toughen the sunshine law. Among the proposals: Impose fines on public officials who close meetings or withhold documents. And last month, Gov. Phil Bredesen announced his plan to establish an ombudsman to help people denied access to public records.

Meantime, the News Sentinel's lawsuit may not be resolved for months. An initial hearing has yet to be set. And thenew commission appointments only run through 2008.

Sunshine Week Column for You....

In Sunday's Kansas City Star...

Sunshine Week is an occasion for thinking about the importance of access to governmental information — not the sexiest of topics, admittedly, but sometimes the things we take for granted have a way of sneaking up on us.

Every week is Sunshine Week at the National Freedom of Information Coalition, a nonprofit academic center at the University of Missouri School of Journalism. My job consists of helping a never-ending array of requesters with information requests languishing at all levels of government, from federal agencies to local boards.

Think that freedom of information is some special-interest fetish of the press? Think again...

While the Beltway Journalists Sing....

Josh Wolf rots in jail...

The SF Bay Guardian's Bruce Brugmann says it's a shame, and calls out Kurtz:

Marvelous. Simply marvelous. While ten of the l9 witnesses testifying in the Libby trial were singing journalists, and three of them were central to securing Libby's conviction, Howard Kurtz, the media critic of the Washington Post and the voice of the inside-the-beltway media establishment, did not raise any of the obvious issues and questions in this unprecedented mass outing of sources by journalists in federal court in Washington, D.C. It was a "spectacle that would have been unthinkable only a few years ago," as Adam Liptak put it rightly in the New York Times March 8.

Instead, one day after the Libby guilty verdict, Kurtz went after Josh Wolf, the longest jailed journalist in U.S. history for contempt of court, in his March 8 column headlined "Jailed Man Is A Videographer And a Blogger but Is He a Journalist?" Kurtz, who tosses softballs about every Sunday morning in his media show on CNN, hit Josh hard with a lead that said, "He is being cast by some journalists as a young champion of the First Amendment, jailed for taking a lonely stand heavy-handed federal prosecutors."

Then: "But Wolf's rationale for withholding the video, and refusing to testify, is less than crystal clear. There are no confidential sources involved in the case. He sold part of the tape to local television stations and posted another portion on his blog. Why, then, is he willing to give up his freedom over the remaining footage?"

And then he quoted, not a media lawyer nor a journalist with knowledge of
California law, but a professor who ought to be flunked out of law school (Eugene Volokh, a law professor at the University of California Los Angeles). Kurtz quoted Volokh as saying without blushing, "It's one thing to say journalists must respect promises of confidentiality they made to their sources. It would be quite another to say journalists have a right to refuse to testify even about non-confidential sources. When something is videotaped in a public place, it's hard to see even an implied agreement of confidentiality."

To which I ask....whatthe?

FOI Reforms Move Out of Committee!

Big News out of Washington:

The House Oversight and Government Reform Committee today approved HR 1309, the Freedom of Information Act Amendments of 2007, sponsored by William Lacey Clay, D-MO, Todd Platts, R-PA, and Henry Waxman, D-CA.

The bill is intended to force broad changes in government agency performance and response to FOIA requests.

The committee also cleared two other open government bills, one overturning President Bush’s order that blocked release of presidential records, the other requiring disclosure of donors to presidential libraries. All are expected to be offered for floor vote within the next week.

Also next week, Sens. Patrick Leahy, D-VT, and John Cornyn, R-TX, will introduce the 2007 version of their OPEN Government Act. The major difference between the House and Senate bills may be the final section of the House bill, which creates a presumption of openness for government records and direct agencies to release information if they do not reasonably foresee that disclosure would be harmful.

In effect, this reverses the Ashcroft memo – withhold information if there is any legal basis to do so. This still stands as Justice Department guidance to all federal agencies. Rep. Lamar Smith, R-TX, who sponsored FOIA reform in the last Congress, introduced a bill identical to Clay”s except for this section. At Thursday’s hearing, Republicans tried but failed to strike this section.

Here’s what else the “Freedom of Information Act Amendments of 2007” does:

-- Put pressure on the agencies to meet the 20-working day response deadline by waiving search and copying fees if the deadline isn’t met.

-- Requires agencies to establish FOIA hotlines and request tracking systems.

-- Creates an independent ombudsman, located in the National Archives, to help requesters resolve disputes without resorting to litigation.

-- Establishes the requester’s right to recover legal fees if they obtain disputed records from an agency after filing suit.

-- Broadens the definition of a journalist for fee waiver purposes to include most freelancers and bloggers.

-- Mandates broader and more specific performance reporting to heighten agency accountability for service quality.

-- Direct agencies to indicate the specific exemption being cited at the location of any redaction in a document.

-- Makes clear that government records held by private entities are covered by FOIA.

-- Requires that any bill amending the Freedom of Information Act include a clear marker declaring that intent.

-- Directs the Office of Personnel Management to report on the adequacy of FOIA staffing.

He's Baaaaaaack.....

From the Coalition of Journalists for Open Government:

Once again, an urgent request for action in response to efforts by Sen. Jon Kyl, R-AZ, to criminalize the leaking – and publishing – of classified information.

Sen. Kyl first sought to attach to a data mining bill being considered by the
Judiciary Committee what can only be described as a backdoor approach to an official secrets act. When the bill was held over, at least in part because its sponsor considered the amendment unfriendly, Sen. Kyl withdrew it and then submitted a rewritten version as a floor amendment to Senate Bill 4, which would enact recommendations of the 9/11 commission. That bill could be voted on as early as mid-week.

The modified amendment is not as sweeping as the earlier version but it is still dangerous revision of the Espionage Act and its chill would inevitably extend far beyond the classified information included. The new amendment makes it a crime to leak or “publish” any classified information contained in reports provided to Congress. These required reports -- 28 in all -- are detailed in three statutes identified in the amendment. (A copy is attached.)

Even as modified, the amendment is a dangerous overhaul of the espionage statutes and dramatically lowers the burden that the government must meet in order to prosecute a government leaker. Instead of proving, as required by current law, that the individual has reason to believe the information could be used to the injury of the United States, the government would only have to prove the individual used the information "in any manner prejudicial to the safety or interest of the United States". This lower standard could lead to a chilling of daily communications between the government and the media.

In addition, amendment makes it a crime to “publish” any classified information in the reports. If one of these reports says that a particular US port is vulnerable because local officials have been negligent in providing adequate security, and that is reported in the local newspaper, the reporters and publisher could be prosecuted for informing local citizens that they may be at risk,

Once again, Sen. Kyl seeks to use the amendment procedure to avoid the give and take of hearing and debate and a full and thoughtful discussion of whether any new law involving leaks are needed.

From our soundings on the Hill, there is considerable concern that if the amendment is added to the 9/11 bill it could be approved by the Senate.

This is not the time to wait and see what happens. Please share this and impress on your members the urgency of raising all our voices.

Latest on Espionage Act stuff

From my pal Rick Blum for the Sunshine in Government Initiative:

The markup on S. 236 was postponed.

Senator Kyl dropped his original broad language yesterday afternoon and last night circulated narrower language that he intended to bring up. Feingold, the sponsor of S. 236, the data mining bill, postponed consideration of it until the next meeting. The narrower language is still problematic.

Here is the new language:

SEC. 4. PROTECTION FOR CLASSIFIED INFORMATION CONTAINED IN AN ANNEX TO A DATA MINING REPORT.

Except as specifically authorized by paragraph (b)(8) of section 3 of this Act, whoever, being an employee of the United States House of Representatives or Senate, or being entrusted with or having lawful possession of, access to, or control over, any classified information contained in an annex made available pursuant to paragraph (b)(8) of section 3 of this Act, and who knowingly and willfully communicates, furnishes, transmits, or otherwise makes available such information to an unauthorized person, shall be fined under Title 18 of the United States Code or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.

Delaware Bill Would Make Legislature FOIA-able

DELAWARE BILL WOULD OPEN LEG RECORDS: Republican lawmakers today unveiled new legislation to make the General Assembly subject to Delaware's Freedom of Information Act, although the bill carries no penalties for noncompliance.

In other "good government" proposals, G-O-P legislators presented a bill requiring candidates for public office to disclose any delinquencies on taxes or child support obligations, and proposed that live audio webcasts of House proceedings be carried on the General Assembly's Web site.

The bills were unveiled amid heightened scrutiny of legislative ethics and the secrecy with which the General Assembly now operates, including closed-door discussions of budget bills.

New FOIA Report Card Is Grim....

Fuel for the fire of FOIA reform....

Back in December of 2005 with the White House coming under increasing criticism for its secrecy, President George W. Bush ordered federal agencies to speed up their responses to requests under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

A new FOIA report card by a coalition of journalists groups makes it clear that Bush's directive did not produce a "surge" in the response rate by the agencies.

The study by the Coalition of Journalists for Open Government concludes the Bush directive did nothing to speed up responses by agencies that have been systematically cutting back the personnel assigned to FOIA work, even as backlogs of requests grow and the cost of fulfilling requests increases.

"Requests remain heavily backlogged," the study says. "Requesters still have long wait times for a response from many agencies. And people seeking records and information remain less likely to get the information they seek than in the past."

The coalition assembled the FOIA performance reports from 15 Cabinet-level departments and 15 agencies dating back to 1998, when agency reporting was first required. The 13 agencies that had reported 2006 performance by Feb. 9 were also included in the study.

Overall, the groups said, FOIA performance remains at the lowest point since 1998.

One of the biggest problem is the growing backlog of requests. In 2005, the overall backlog was a record 31% of the requests, a percentage that was 138% above the 1998 level. And the agencies that have so far reported 2006 results are showing an even higher average backlog, the coalition said.

Here is a model worth looking into...

Open Congress is a brand-new project of the Sunlight Foundation and the Participatory Politics Foundation -- kind of a MySpace for legislation, or a Digg.com for Congress, if you will...

Check it out -- it's an amazing new participatory device, one that tracks all legislation, news about legislation, news on Congress the institution, and much more.

CD

Official Secrets Act is Back...

Well, a demon from the not-so-distant past has reared its ugly head again...

OFFICIAL SECRETS ACT REDUX

There's a new effort to create an Official Secrets Act, and this one is even more dangerous than Sen. Kit Bond's effort in the last session. Sen. Jon Kyl, R-AZ, plans to introduce an amendment to a totally unrelated bill when it goes to committee markup on Thursday. That bill, S 236, deals with data mining and has nothing to do with classified information

Kyl proposes to expand Section 798 of the Espionage Act of 1917 to make it a criminal act to communicate or publish any classified information "concerning efforts by the United States to identify, investigate, or prevent terrorist activity" and expand the penalty to 20 years in prison.

That's about as broad and vague as a piece of legislation can be. It would give the government tremendous power to silence its critics and to limit the debate and discussion on the techniques it elects to use in the war on terror.

THE TEXT

The proposed amendment would change 18 U.S.C. Sec. 798(a) to read as follows (Changes in boldface)

TITLE 18, PART I, CHAPTER 37 § 798

§ 798. Disclosure of classified information
(a) Whoever knowingly and willfully communicates, furnishes, transmits, or otherwise makes available to an unauthorized person, or publishes, or uses in any manner prejudicial to the safety or interest of the United States or for the benefit of any foreign government to the detriment of the United States any classified information—
(1) concerning the nature, preparation, or use of any code, cipher, or cryptographic system of the United States or any foreign government; or
(2) concerning the design, construction, use, maintenance, or repair of any device, apparatus, or appliance used or prepared or planned for use by the United States or any foreign government for cryptographic or communication intelligence purposes; or
(3) concerning the communication intelligence activities of the United States or any foreign government; or
(4) obtained by the processes of communication intelligence from the communications of any foreign government, knowing the same to have been obtained by such processes or
(5) concerning efforts by the United States to identify, investigate, or prevent terrorist activity” and shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both.

MY TAKE:

This is a cheap imitation of the British "Official Secrets Act," and a poorly written one, at that. It criminalizes any disclosure of classified information, regardless of lack of intent, even lack of knowledge that the information was classified, and contains no recognition of any public interest in such disclsoures. The community of press freedom advocates -- and the institutional press of the United States -- should fight this as hard as they can. It is a disastrous idea.

FOI at work...

The Columbus Dispatch takes a look at school bus driver safety, thanks to FOI...

The state handed Robert R. Casey a license two months ago to drive a big yellow school bus and collect kids in Cambridge.

The 49-year-old had been convicted nine times for driving under the influence of alcohol, and once for public intoxication, between 1980 and 1990.

Anton Mantz, 50, has ushered schoolchildren around Newark since 1996. His six DUIs and a drug-abuse conviction from the 1980s went undetected.

In Bridgeport, along the Ohio River in Belmont County, John Knight, 36, is a substitute driver with a record that includes five DUIs, two of them as recent as 2003 and 2004.

"That’s ridiculous," said Doug Scoles, executive director of the central Ohio chapter of Mothers Against Drunk Driving. "That should be a red flag for the citizens of Ohio."

The safety of thousands of Ohio schoolchildren has been entrusted to more than 150 bus drivers with histories of drunken driving or drug abuse, a Dispatch investigation found.

The near-universal reaction of school officials when informed that they had hired drivers with checkered pasts: "We didn’t know."

State laws, practice and policies make it virtually impossible for school officials to review complete driving histories maintained by the state.

The shortcomings have placed more than 150 schoolbus drivers on the road who might otherwise have been barred from delivering children between their homes and classrooms.

The Dispatch checked the driving records of school-bus drivers in 36 counties in central, eastern and southeastern Ohio. The newspaper examined public records from municipal courts, the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles and Nexis, a subscription service that collects public records across the country.

The newspaper found 167 drivers with DUI or drug-related license suspensions who drive, or drove recently, for 106 school districts, schools for the developmentally disabled and Head Start programs.

The majority have one drunken-driving conviction, most before 2000. But six drivers have three DUI convictions, and 14 have been nailed twice. The records of six other drivers reflect drug-related license suspensions.

The newspaper compared driving records to a state database that listed the names of bus drivers, as submitted by school districts last summer...

Minnesota Coalition, Blog now online

We're pleased to see that the Minnesota Coalition's web site is now looking quite lovely, and they have a blog, too!


Minnesota is in the process of revitalizing a pre-existing FOI group into an NFOIC-style coalition, and we applaud their progress!

CD

FOI Summit 2007: Seattle!

We've put together one heck of a show for you in Seattle -- FOI Central from May 11-12!

All the information is now online at our web site....

A cool new effort at Congressional sunshine...

From the Sunlight Foundation:

Today, the Sunlight Foundation is announcing the creation of the Open House Project, a collaborative and bipartisan effort on open government. The purpose of the project is to study how the House of Representatives currently integrates the internet into its operations, and to make public recommendations to its leadership on how to make the House of Representatives’ work more available to citizens on the Web.

“The Internet is an incredible vehicle for transparency, honest leadership and open government,” said Speaker Pelosi, in response to the project’s launch. “I am encouraged by this working group and look forward to recommendations on how the House can be as open and accessible to citizens as possible.”

The Open House Project working group will meet online via list-serv, blog and wiki. It is being led by Matt Stoller (of MyDD.com) and John Wonderlich (lead coordinator of the Congressional Committees Project on DailyKos) with Sunlight’s senior strategists Andrew Rasiej and Micah Sifry providing ongoing support.

The group, which includes renowned technologist Clay Shirky, Bush/Cheney 2004 eCampaign Director Mike Turk, Govtrack creator Joshua Tauberer, and leading blogger Markos Moulitsas-Zuniga of the Daily Kos, will be regularly consulting leaders in congressional process and the Internet as well as civically engaged citizens for their assistance in creating consensus on short-term reforms that can be implemented in the House. Expertise and research on many different aspects of Congress—ranging from video content, committee documents, and legislative support agencies, to lobbyist disclosure, and the use of structured information—will be integrated into a report to be presented to the Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi in March.

A great idea. And some really interesting people involved.

FOI AT WORK: The Rehnquist Files

If you haven't seen it yet, Slate's Hot Document feature is a riveting look at a record unveiled from the dark recesses of government -- and FOIA almost always plays a key role. Today's offering:

The memos, released recently under the Freedom of Information Act, were written prior to the late jurist's Senate confirmation as associate justice of the Supreme Court in 1971 and as chief justice in 1986. (For previous Rehnquist "Hot Documents" gleaned from the release, see here and here.)

Today's memo (see below and on the following 11 pages) preceeded Rehnquist's first Senate confirmation. It addressed the question of whether Rehnquist, who was then working in President Richard Nixon's Justice Department, was a racist. That the issue even had to be raised gives you some sense of how abysmal Rehnquist's civil rights record was.

It's a heck of a read.

Post-Katrina Analysis, Thanks to FOIA

FOI AT WORK: In the neighborhood President Bush visited right after Hurricane Katrina, the U.S. government gave $84.5 million to more than 10,000 households. But Census figures show fewer than 8,000 homes existed there at the time.

Now the government wants back a lot of the money it disbursed across the region.

The Federal Emergency Management Administration has determined nearly 70,000 Louisiana households improperly received $309.1 million in grants, and officials acknowledge those numbers are likely to grow.

In the chaotic period after two deadly hurricanes, Katrina and Rita, slammed the Gulf Coast in 2005 Katrina making landfall in late August, followed by Rita in late September federal officials scrambled to provide help in hard-hit areas such as submerged neighborhoods near the French Quarter.

But an Associated Press analysis of government data obtained under the federal Freedom of Information Act suggests the government might not have been careful enough with its checkbook as it gave out nearly $5.3 billion in aid to storm victims. The analysis found the government regularly gave money to more homes in some neighborhoods than the number of homes that actually existed.

The pattern was repeated in nearly 100 neighborhoods damaged by the hurricanes. At least 162,750 homes that didn't exist before the storms may have received a total of more than $1 billion in improper or illegal payments, the AP found.

The AP analysis discovered the government made more home grants than the number of homes in one of every five neighborhoods in the wake of Katrina. After Rita roared ashore, there were more home grants than homes in one of every 10 neighborhoods.

A Troubling Idea....

From today's Yankton, South Dakota Press & Dakotan:

The cause of open government took a potential step backward Monday when House Bill 1201 advanced in Pierre.

The bill, which passed the House 60-7 and now moves to the Senate, creates an opening in South Dakota's open meeting laws by allowing two or more governing boards to meet in order to "provide information" or "observe" proceedings. According to the provision, if a quorum of members are present (or involved in a teleconference) for such a purpose, "it does not constitute an official meeting," therefore requires no public notice or agenda.

This is a bothersome development in the current atmosphere, in which many school districts are exploring the idea of consolidating or sharing services with neighboring districts. If HB1201 becomes law, the members of two boards could meet without the public's prior knowledge and away from media scrutiny. It would have impacts on other board and commission proceedings, too.

Look for this one to start making the rounds, as our elected leaders tell us that they are just saving time and money...plus, no one really cares if they get together and "provide information" without notice or public attendance, do they? Of course not! Heck, why burden our public officials with all of these onerous rules....

Broad theme here: "Trust Us."

Not this old boy....

A Huge Victory in Libby Case...

A huge victory for openness in the Libby trial. This was a courageous decision, even if it was a slam-dunk legally.

From Editor & Publisher:

News organizations praised a judge's decision Monday to release tapes of former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter'' Libby's grand jury testimony, saying it would open a window into court proceedings.

U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton said he would make public the eight-hour recordings, which were played in open court as part of the Libby trial, even though he was worried that jurors could be influenced by outside media buzz.

Federal law supports the public release of evidence presented to a jury. But judges in high-profile cases occasionally have released only written transcripts or have delayed public disclosure until the trial's end.

"This is a victory for the public's right to know,'' said Karen Magnuson, president of the Associated Press Managing Editors and editor of the Democrat and Chronicle newspaper in Rochester, N.Y.

It's a Dam. It's Leaky. You Don't Need to Know...

An interesting piece by the excellent environmental reporter James Brugger in the Louisville Courier-Journal:

Back-pedaling on a promise to make Cumberland River flood maps widely available, the Army Corps of Engineers has settled on a strategy of providing copies to selected libraries downriver from the leaky Wolf Creek Dam.

David Hendrix, the corps official responsible for overseeing $309 million in repairs at the dam, said the libraries will be required to sign an agreement that they won't allow the public to take photos or otherwise copy the maps.aps.

My favorite quote:

Davis said it's public knowledge that there are population centers downriver from the dam.

"It doesn't take Osama (bin Laden) in a cave to figure this out."

Send me your greatest denial of 2006...

As part of Sunshine Week, a friend is seeking the worst, most outlandish, hilarious, sad, pathetic denials of FOI requests from 2006. Come on: I know all you FOI warriors out there have a story to tell!

Send your greatest hits to me at daviscn@missouri.edu

I'll make ya famous....

CD

A tip of the 'ol blogger hat...

To an Australian FOI blogger who kindly e-mailed me to say he had checked out the Advocate blog. It's a small world, after all....

Check it out. It's a nice way to see what sorts of issues are bubbling up in other parts of the world. Seems secrecy finds its way 'round the globe.

CD

Good News for Olson!

From Editor & Publisher:


The U.S. government agreed to drop two counts of conduct unbecoming an officer from its case against the Army lieutenant who called the Iraq war illegal and refused to deploy.

1st Lt. Ehren Watada, whose court-martial is scheduled Feb. 5, still faces a maximum of four years imprisonment if he is convicted of missing movement for his refusal to deploy last June and two remaining counts of conduct unbecoming an officer for comments made at a Veterans for Peace Convention in Seattle.

The two counts dropped Monday carry a maximum of two years in prison. They stem from comments he made to reporters in June explaining why he refused to go to Iraq and why he was challenging the Bush administration's reasons for going to war.

In exchange, Watada's attorney Eric Seitz agreed that two subpoenaed reporters will not have to testify. They are Honolulu Star-Bulletin's Gregg Kakesako and freelance reporter Sarah Olson.

FOI Frees an Innocent Prisoner...

From the Associated Press:

Two inmates - a convicted rapist in Georgia and a man who was unjustly convicted of murder in New York but helped find the real killer from his prison cell - were granted their freedom Tuesday after DNA tests proved their innocence.

Innocence Project co-director Peter Neufeld said he had never seen a case like that of Roy Brown, whose 1992 murder conviction was thrown out by a judge.

”Armed only with a notebook, stamps and a copy of the state’s Freedom of Information Law, Roy Brown identified the true perpetrator from a prison cell,” said Nina Morrison, an attorney at the Innocence Project.

Quote of the Day....

From the Times' coverage of the civil suits involving the NSA's domestic surveillance program comes this beauty from one of the lawyers involved in the plaintiffs' case:

""Sometime during all of this," Mr. Eisenberg said, "I went on Amazon and ordered a copy of Kafka's 'The Trial,' because I needed a refresher course in bizarre legal procedure."

From the story: The Bush administration has employed extraordinary secrecy in defending the National Security Agency's highly classified domestic surveillance program from civil lawsuits. Plaintiffs and judges' clerks cannot see its secret filings. Judges have to make appointments to review them and are not allowed to keep copies.

Judges have even been instructed to use computers provided by the Justice Department to compose their decisions.

But now the procedures have started to meet resistance. At a private meeting with the lawyers in one of the cases this month, the judges who will hear the first appeal next week expressed uneasiness about the procedures, said a lawyer who attended, Ann Beeson of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Lawyers suing the government and some legal scholars say the procedures threaten the separation of powers, the adversary system and the lawyer-client privilege.

Justice Department officials say the circumstances of the cases, involving a highly classified program, require extraordinary measures. The officials say they have used similar procedures in other cases involving classified materials.

In ordinary civil suits, the parties' submissions are sent to their adversaries and are available to the public in open court files. But in several cases challenging the eavesdropping, Justice Department lawyers have been submitting legal papers not by filing them in court but by placing them in a room at the department. They have filed papers, in other words, with themselves.

At the meeting this month, judges on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit asked how the procedures might affect the integrity of the files and the appellate records.

In response, Joan B. Kennedy, a Justice Department official, submitted, in one of the department's unclassified filings, a detailed seven-page sworn statement last Friday defending the practices.

"The documents reviewed by the court have not been altered and will not be altered," Ms. Kennedy wrote, and they "will be preserved securely as part of the record of this case."

Some cases challenging the program, which monitored international communications of people in the United States without court approval, have also involved atypical maneuvering. Soon after one suit challenging the program was filed last year in Oregon, Justice Department lawyers threatened to seize an exhibit from the court file.

This month, in the same case, the department sought to inspect and delete files from the computers on which lawyers for the plaintiffs had prepared their legal filings...

It's a rare day when the NFL pops up on my FOI alerts...

From Editor & Publisher:

A security video showing Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick surrendering a water bottle to a security screener at Miami International Airport was erased after The Atlanta Journal-Constitution requested it under Florida’s public-records law.

The Jan. 17 video was part of the investigation into the water bottle with a hidden compartment that an initial police report said contained a “small amount of dark particulate” and an odor consistent with marijuana.

Authorities this week said lab tests showed no evidence of drugs, and the bottle is no longer considered evidence in an investigation. Vick was cleared by police of any wrongdoing.

In a report on its Web site, the Atlanta newspaper said it requested a copy of the video on Jan. 18 from the Miami-Dade Police Department, under the state’s public-records law. Police spokesman Robert Williams said at the time that police had decided they would not release it because it was part of an open investigation.

On Jan. 23, after authorities said the case was closed, the newspaper said it again requested a copy of the video and was told that it had been erased.

Williams told the Associated Press yesterday that he had consulted with department attorneys about releasing a flash drive that contained video from a Transportation Security Agency camera at the airport. Those attorneys consulted with the TSA, which refused to release the contents of the flash drive because of security concerns and ordered that it be returned to the TSA, Williams said.

The matter became moot anyway, Williams said, because he then discovered that the investigating officer had erased the flash drive after being informed by the State Attorney’s Office that there would be no criminal charges against Vick.

Williams said the newspaper would have to take up the matter of releasing the videotape with the TSA.

According to the newspaper, Williams wrote in an e-mail: “That information was shown to the State Attorney’s Office and it was determined by them that no criminal act was committed, and no charges were filed. Therefore this video was deleted from the flash drive since it was not being used in a criminal case.”



...OK, so I may have to write more on this one. An airport video is maintained to do what, exactly? I'd think, among other things, to isolate individuals who pose a threat or even commit crimes. So the immediate desctruction of a tape seems to serve no purpose at all -- except prevent scrutiny of the system.

This is fascinating: is Vick's privacy at stake here? Certainly not. He was walking throuh airport security! Have you done that lately? Feel like anybody is really worried about your...privacy?

More on Olson...

From Editor & Publisher

A petition challenging U.S. Army subpoenas ordering reporters to testify in the court martial of an Army lieutenant has drawn more than 50 signatures from prominent media members, and will be placed online for more to sign later this week.

Sarah Olson, a freelance journalist and radio producer in San Francisco, began circulating the petition last week, which supports her efforts and those of Honolulu Star Bulletin reporter Gregg Kakesako to oppose the order to testify. Both have been subpoenaed to testify at the court martial of 1st Lt. Ehren Watada, which begins Feb. 5 at Fort Lewis, Wash.

Watada faces charges stemming from a refusal to deploy to Iraq and comments made against the war, including calling it "manifestly illegal." Olson, 31, has not been asked to reveal a confidential source or turnover notes, she says. But she is being ordered to verbally confirm elements of her reporting, which include interviews with Watada.

"My contention is that when you ask a journalist to participate in the prosecution of personal political speech, you are turning the journalist into the investigative arm of the government," she told E&P.

The petition states, in part, "In the name of the cornerstone values this nation claims to uphold and for which the men and women in the military are fighting, we ask that you end your insistence that journalists participate in the court-martial of Lt. Watada. We need more information, participation, and debate - inside and outside the military - not less. As the LA Times argued in its January 8th editorial: 'It's time for the Army to back off.'"

Olson says the petition signers have included Phil Donahue, syndicated columnist Norman Solomon, radio host Laura Flanders, and former Washington Post ombudsman Geneva Overholser. She said anyone can sign on once the statement and petition is placed on the Web, at www.defendthepress.org, on Wednesday.

"We are also asking people to send their own individual letters to the Pentagon," Olson added. "I hope the Army begins to realize that there are a bunch of people who do this for a living who are concerned."

The petition elaborates: "It's a journalist's job to report the news, not to participate in government prosecutions of political speech. The press cannot function if it is used by the government, and hauling a journalist into a military court erodes the separation between government and press. Turning reporters into the investigative arm of
the government subverts press freedoms and chills dissenting speech in the United States. The press must preserve its ability to cover all aspects of a debate, not just the perspectives popular with the current
administration. We believe a journalist's duty is to the public and their right to know, not to the government."

Not exactly FOI, but terribly important...

Defenders of press freedom should carefull monitor the Sarah Olson affair.

We often hear that the Pentagon exists to defend our freedoms. But the Pentagon is moving against press freedom, in a truly troubling way.

Journalist Sarah Olson received a subpoena to testify next month in the court-martial of US Army Lt. Ehren Watada, who now faces prosecution for speaking against the Iraq War and refusing to participate in it.

They want Olson to testify to authenticate her quotes from Watada - enlisting a reporter to substantiate quotes? Didn't she quote Watada already? What's to be gained?

No one here is arguing that national security, or the commission of a crime, or any other compelling interest is at stake. Indeed, they just want Olson to walk into a military courtroom and read back quotes...

Why?

Well, perhaps Olson put it best:

Ms. Olson, who has written:

"It is my job as a professional journalist to report the news, not to act as the eyes and ears of the government. I am repelled by this approach that jeopardizes my credibility and seeks to compel my participation in muting public speech and dissenting personal opinion.

"It seems clear that the U.S. Army is attempting to redefine the parameters of acceptable speech and to classify dissent as a punishable offense. Subpoenaing journalists in this case unequivocally sends the message that dissent is neither tolerated nor permitted. Utilize your constitutionally guaranteed speech rights and go to prison. What rational soldier would agree to speak with me or any other member of the media if jail was a likely result?"

For more: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Sarah_Olson

English translation of Reyes v. Chile online....

In September, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights issued a landmark ruling in Reyes v. Chile, holding that individuals have a fundamental human right to access government information under Article 13 of the American Convention on Human Rights. The Court condemned the government of Chile for denying requests from several environmental activists for impact assessments related to a controversial logging project in a native forest. The Court ordered Chile to comply with the information request and to put in place a freedom of information law to protect the right of access for all citizens. The ruling is binding on all members of the Organization of American States that have both ratified the American Convention on Human Rights and have voluntarily submitted to the jurisdiction of the Inter-American Court. (The U.S. has done neither, so is not bound).

The decision was not previously available in English, but the translation has just been released and is available at http://www.corteidh.or.cr/.

The link to the word document version is http://www.corteidh.or.cr/docs/casos/articulos/seriec_151_ing.doc.

Now THAT is a great idea!

VIRGINIA CITY CREATES FOI OFFICE: Acquiring information from city government could soon get easier for Suffolk residents.

The city plans to create an office that will handle requests for documents that are available to the public under the Freedom of Information Act.

Officials expect the office to open in March, and they hope it will make it easier for local residents to request and receive the records they're looking for.

A city employee who is trained in Freedom of Information guidelines will ensure that all requests get responses, and a city attorney will determine which documents don't have to be released.

The executive director of the Virginia Freedom of Information Advisory Council will train City Council on the Freedom of Information Act in March.

From the Daily Press

China adopts transparency law

From a great blog on FOI and e-government in China:

A draft regulation on the release of government information has been approved in principle by the State Council, China's cabinet, to promote government transparency. The regulation has prescriptions on the range of government information, release methods and procedure, and supervision. It will be promulgated by the State Council for implementation after further amendments.

The release of government information will focus on issues of utmost importance to the public to safeguard the public's right to know, according to information from the State Council on Wednesday.

The regulation is viewed as a move by the government to improve efficiency and prevent abuses of power."

News from Germany on FOI...

Regulatory expert Thomas Hart, who worked on behalf of the Bertelsmann Foundation on FOI implementation in Germany, passed on some interesting statistics on the first year of access.

The government reports a total of 2,278 requests -- not many, but again, it's the first year. Of that total, 1,379 were totally or partially approved, with 410 rejected. The report said that 142 rejections were challenged, with 67 challenges rejected (27 pending)

The users? Mostly private citizens, with only 92 requests by journalists, and
4 by Members of Parliament.

Fees were charged in only 5 percent (114) of all approved information
requests, with an average fee of 50 Euro (65 US-D)

Read more here.

Big News for Sunshine Week 2007

BEN BRADLEE, TOM BROKAW AND JUDY WOODRUFF ARE HONORARY CHAIRS FOR SUNSHINE WEEK 2007 OPEN GOVT. INITIATIVE

Leading journalists join nationwide effort against unwarranted secrecy; Will participate in Sunshine Week programs March 11-17, 2007

For immediate release: Jan. 17, 2007

WASHINGTON ─ Journalists Ben Bradlee, Tom Brokaw and Judy Woodruff are the honorary chairs of Sunshine Week 2007, March 11-17.

Bradlee is former executive editor and now vice president at large of The Washington Post. Brokaw is former anchor and managing editor of NBC Nightly News and now a contributing reporter and producer for NBC News documentaries. Woodruff is special correspondent for the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer and anchor of Conversations with Judy Woodruff on Bloomberg Television.

Sunshine Week http://www.sunshineweek.org is an open government initiative spearheaded by the American Society of Newspaper Editors. Entering its third year, the program encourages newspapers, broadcasters, online content producers, schools, libraries, civic groups and others to engage in discussions about the importance of protecting public access to government information and meetings. It is supported by a grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

As honorary chairs, Bradlee, Brokaw and Woodruff will serve as spokespeople for Sunshine Week 2007 and support the initiative’s efforts to empower and educate people about their right to know what government is doing, and why.

"Open government laws are absolutely essential to getting the information officials might prefer to see locked away in a safe," Bradlee said. "People may not think about Sunshine Laws every day, but when you need them, you need them. When you're trying to get information, you know that with these laws you're on the side of right. Sunshine Week is a good opportunity for journalists, the public and government officials to reinforce the importance of these laws and the foundations they're built on."

"If we present ourselves to the world as patrons of democracy, then we must be vigilant stewards at home of the oxygen that it requires – access to what our government is doing and the right to speak freely about it," Brokaw said. "Those who comprised what I call the Greatest Generation fought valiantly to preserve and protect those freedoms. It is up to us to ensure during Sunshine Week and all year that their sacrifices were not for naught."

"Government decision making in the United States should be as transparent as possible. Ours is a democratic system – of, by and for the people – and we ought to know what's going on," Woodruff said. "While I don't think you can create a blanket policy covering every situation, the default position should be for disclosure, for openness. We're a stronger society because information – good and bad – flows freely. Sunshine Week is a time to celebrate and protect that strength."

Sunshine Mulligans in Vermont...

From the Burlington Free Pres comes news of a troubling decison in Vermont, where a judge apparently believes that violating the state's open meetings laws can be remedied by a "do over..."


"A recent judge's ruling on the South Burlington School Board's violation of Vermont's open-meeting law is the latest in a series of decisions that have upset free-speech advocates.

Judge Matthew Katz in December ruled that even though the board violated the law by holding an emergency, closed-door meeting to craft a goodbye deal with the then-superintendent, the board remedied its actions by holding a public meeting a few days later when it voted on the agreement.

Although he said that the board did not show proof that it complied with the law, Katz, as he did in a similar ruling in 2005, said it was unlikely that the board would violate the open meeting law in the future. He assigned no punishment to the board and left the plaintiff to pay for his legal fees. (The board, for its part, said in an opinion piece published by a local newspaper that had the case gone to trial, it would have proved it acted legally.)

The judge's action has free-speech advocates wondering what will deter other boards from meeting in secret and who will want to challenge their government when, even if in the right, they will have to pay their own legal costs...."

From the Burlington Free Press.

A new audit in California, with the same depressing results

Police agencies in the capital region and statewide routinely delay, dismiss or ignore ordinary citizens' requests for reports on basic public crime, arrest and other topics, according to a landmark audit of California law enforcement agency practices.

The audit, overseen by the nonprofit group Californians Aware, was performed by reporters at 28 newspapers and three television stations across the state, including The Sacramento Bee and two other McClatchy Co. newspapers in California, the Modesto Bee and the San Luis Obispo Tribune.

Reporters visited 216 police, sheriff's and California Highway Patrol offices in 34 counties on Dec. 4, 2006, with a common goal: request law enforcement information to test compliance with the California Public Records Act. The audit measured what was provided and how fast.

http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/106879.html

Step One: Acknowledge That You Have a Problem...

In Delaware, where a new NFOIC-sponsored coalition is gearing up, its seems lawmakers want to embrace transparency -- provided they can talk about in closed-door sessions.

The Associated Press reports that after hearing complaints during last year's election campaign about how the legislature operates, including secret discussions by committees that craft budget bills, GOP lawmakers said they would consider ways to make the General Assembly more transparent.

"In passing the state's Freedom of Information Act several years ago, the legislature exempted itself. House Republicans say they now plan to address the FOIA issue as it applies to the General Assembly, but they want to do so out of the public spotlight.

Instead, they plan to form an internal working group "to research best practices in other states with regard to public access to legislative information and activities."

House Majority Leader Wayne Smith said the activities of the internal working group would not be open to the public.

"When legislation is proposed, as is true with any legislation, that will be something that will run through the committee process, and those (hearings), of course, will be open to the public and available for comment at any time during the process," he said.

Republicans said the working group would be charged with making recommendations "to improve the transparency of the General Assembly operations," and that the GOP hoped to pass legislation this year."

Sunshine Week in Spanish: A Great Idea!

Those of you with Spanish-language audiences take heed: Eight journalists including Gilbert Bailon, editor and publisher of The Dallas Times Herald's Spanish-language daily Al Día and David Sedeño, publisher of the Fort Worth (Texas) Star-Telegram's Diario La Estrella have formed the Sunshine Week 2007 Spanish Language Working Group to promote the importance of open government in the Hispanic community.

The group will promote Sunshine Week by working with the national, regional and state coordinators to develop Spanish-language materials for participating newspapers and news organization, through media interviews and public forums, and by leading their own organizations' Sunshine Week activities.

Meet the New Boss

Lost in the drama of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi taking the gavel last week was a good, old-fashioned dose of hypocritical secrecy.

Pelosi and her newly empowered pols moved to shut out Republicans in the first hours of Democrat control -- after holding a secret session of both parties -- in what looks like the same old, same old.

That's right: the candidates who lambasted Republicans for a shameful lack of transparency are spending their much-ballyhooed first 100 hours behind closed doors, debating amongst themselves.

Secrecy, it seems, is a bipartisan value. And they say the parties can't agree on anything....

See NFOIC's letter to the Dems for more.