Visitor Logs Subject to FOIA, Judge Says

Well, look to get your hands on these about Nov. 3, 2008...

A federal judge on Monday rejected a Bush administration argument for shielding records of White House visits by prominent religious conservatives.

U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth ruled that visitor logs from the White House and Vice President Dick Cheney’s residence are subject to Freedom of Information Act requests. The Secret Service creates the records and is subject to Freedom of Information Act requests.

The Bush administration, however, had ordered that the logs be turned over to the White House and treated as presidential records, which would protect them from public-records law.

In a lawsuit brought by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a liberal watchdog group, Lamberth ordered the Secret Service to turn over visitor logs regarding nine conservative religious commentators, including James Dobson, Gary Bauer and Jerry Falwell, according to an Associated Press report.

Lamberth said he did not have the authority to rule on a second CREW lawsuit seeking to render illegal the White House’s destruction of log records provided by the Secret Service. That lawsuit involved logs of White House visits by disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

More here.

FOI At Work: A Great Series on a Shameful Secret...

Every year, Arizona teachers lose their jobs because they molest their students, say sexually inappropriate things, even sleep with them in some cases. But schools, protected by state law, routinely keep these incidents secret. And educators move on to other jobs with little consequence.

The East Valley Tribune takes a long look at the issue, thanks to a BUNCH of FOI requests. Be sure to check out the great searchable database of public records here.

Tennessee Reform Update

The Commercial Appeal brings us up to date on how Tennessee's FOI reform efforts are shaping up:

Tennessee's Public Records law was enacted in 1957, declaring that "all state, county and municipal records shall at all times during business hours be open for personal inspection by any citizen of Tennessee."

Seventeen years later, lawmakers adopted its companion Open Meetings Act, which says: "All meetings of any governing body are declared to be public meetings open to the public at all times, except as provided by the Constitution of Tennessee."

In theory, the two laws work in tandem to give Tennesseans broad access to state and local government.

The reality has been less than the ideal. About 230 exemptions have been amended into the Public Records Act, including many -- medical records, Social Security numbers and student records -- that most people favor.

A "Right to Know Audit" in 2004 by the Tennessee Coalition for Open Government sent volunteers into government offices in all 95 counties asking to see some benign public document that citizens have a legal right to inspect -- items such as the minutes of planning commission meetings, where officials decide what can be built on the vacant lot next door.

On average, the coalition volunteers were denied that right about one-third of the time.

In October, a Knoxville jury of 12 citizens ruled that their county commission violated the Open Meetings Act when members met privately in small groups to select appointees to 12 top offices, including the sheriff, county clerk, trustee, register of deeds and eight commission seats. The decisions were later rubber-stamped in public.

The Knox County case raised concerns among local government officials statewide when the judge threatened commissioners with contempt of court if they violated the law again. It brought to a head three decades of frustration with the so-called "Sunshine Law" among many local officials.

Coincidentally, a separate effort by media and open-government advocates to update the two laws for an era of electronic data-keeping and communications gave the associations that represent city and county governments, school boards, public hospitals, public utilities and others an opening to seek modifications in the Open Meetings Act. The legislature created a special committee to study issues and propose remedies. In its hearings this fall, both sides pressed their cases...

HUGE FOIA News...

This just in...

Reversing a trend toward secrecy, federal agencies would have to be more responsive to Freedom of Information Act requests under legislation approved by the Senate Friday.

The bill, approved by voice vote, commits the government to be more open, shifting policies that since the Sept. 11 attacks have emphasized security in responding to requests for information.

The measure makes minor revisions to previously passed legislation to meet House concerns. The House could take it up next week, before adjourning for the year.

The bill would give the 40-year-old act its first makeover in a decade, streamlining a process plagued by long delays and bureaucratic obstacles. It is supported by dozens of media outlets, including The Associated Press.

It restores a presumption of disclosure standard that would commit agencies to releasing requested information unless there is a finding that such disclosure could do harm.

After Sept. 11, then Attorney General John Ashcroft instructed agencies against releasing information when there was any uncertainty over security or law enforcement exemptions.

The "Open Government Act" will "help to reverse the troubling trends of excessive delays and lax FOIA compliance in our government and help to restore the public's trust in their government," said Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., who sponsored the bill with Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas.

Cornyn tried in previous years to push a similar bill he authored through the Senate. When he was stat attorney general, Cornyn was responsible for enforcing open government laws.

"It's encouraging to see us so close to enacting sweeping reforms that will let more sunshine in government and increase the people's right to know," Cornyn said.

Leahy has been working with the Justice Department on the legislation and the administration is expected to support it.

It would take steps to ensure that agencies abide by the 20-day deadline for responding to FOIA requests, including a requirement that FOIA offices get requests for information to the appropriate agency office within 10 days of receiving the request.

Agencies that fail to meet the 20-day deadline would have to refund search and duplication fees for noncommercial requesters.

The legislation creates a tracking system for FOIA requests to help members of the public and the media and establishes a FOIA hotline service for all federal agencies to deal with problems.

FOIA would be applied to government records held by private contractors and a FOIA ombudsman would be established to provide an alternative to litigation over disclosure disputes.

More here. And here.

Gov's Mansion in Tennessee Draws Ire

A Nashville-based taxpayer group took aim at the governor's residence underground expansion plans.

Tennesseans for Accountability in Government met in a large ballroom at the Loews Vanderbilt Hotel.

A room, members said, is only half the size of the underground room planned for the governor's mansion.

The watchdog group claims the finances for the renovations on the mansion have been shrouded in secrecy.

TAG Vice President Susan Kaestner said the group organized the media event to raise public awareness about the proposed $19.2 million renovation and ballroom addition to the Executive Residence.

TAG members took aim at the second phase of the project. Their charge is that the project mushroomed into a large and unnecessary project underwritten by public and private money.

"We demand before the first shovel breaks the ground, the secrecy surrounding this projetc be lifted and the plans and cost be made public by the state," Kaestner said.

But state architect Mike Fitts said everything has been done under the watchful eye of the State Building Commission. He said much of the funding is from private donations.

Fitts said the project has changed somewhat since it was announced four years ago, but "that is not unusual with a project of this scale and complexity."

"The use of state funds has always been contemplated for appropriate parts of the restoration of this state property, but this has been a very public process carried out with the State Building Commission's oversight," he said.

More here.

FOI Down Under: Fewer requests, but more access

From The Australian:

In Australia, FOI requests have hit their lowest level in five years.

But more FOI applications are being approved, the latest figures show.

The annual report on freedom of information laws, released today by former Howard government attorney-general Philip Ruddock, details how well the crucial laws are achieving their aim of ensuring transparency in government.

It also shows bureaucrats are still refusing to release a great deal of information held by federal departments.

One in five requests for information during 2006-07 was knocked back at least in part, although 80 per cent of applications were granted for full release - a two per cent increase on 2005-06.

Centrelink and the departments of Immigration and Veterans' Affairs were the main recipients of FOI requests during 2006-07, mostly from people seeking details on their own cases.

A total of 38,787 FOI requests were received by all federal departments and agencies - down from 41,430 on the previous year and the lowest number since 2001-02.

Of the 34,158 rulings made during the year, 1,499 were refused outright, 5,128 were “partially granted” - and thus partially refused - and 27,531 were granted in full.

Documents granted for partial release frequently contain large sections of blacked-out material that prevent the applicant from knowing the full story.

But the number of FOI applications refused outright fell from six per cent in 2005-06 to 4.4 per cent in the last financial year.

The Single Best Use of FOIA I Have Seen This Holiday Season

Every once in a while, there comes an act of such singular genius that you must simply step aside and let it tell itself...courtesy of the Dallas Morning News:

Who's been naughty and is likely to end up with a stocking full of coal?

It might just be Santa Claus or Kris Kringle.

Public records show that nationally, someone named Santa Claus has been convicted at least a dozen times during the past decade.

Mr. Claus' indiscretions include a 1996 arrest for driving while intoxicated in Jefferson County, Texas.

And Mr. Kringle has a lengthy criminal record in Oregon.

Even the Christmas crew appears to have had some troubles: Rudolph Reindeer violated a restraining order in 2004.

But don't plug the chimney and forgo the cookies and milk just yet.

Skilled backgrounders know that you can't just put someone on the naughty list based on a name. Many people have the same name, but other information would distinguish them – such as their date of birth or home address.

Unless Santa has a summer home in Beaumont, it's unlikely the Texas drunken driver with the same name is the Santa Claus. None had an address at the actual North Pole, according to public records. But several residents of North Pole, Alaska, have criminal records.

And yes, in Virginia there is a Santa Claus. In fact, there are at least four – two of whom are women. But no public records showed criminal records for those Clauses.

Birth dates also can distinguish individuals in background checks. All of the Clauses and Kringles with criminal records were born in the 1900s. It has been published widely that the Santa Claus was around before that.

While this topic may seem like a frivolous excuse for a writer to combine public records and the holiday season, it's not all fun and games.

Backgrounding Santa is not unusual. Companies frequently run background checks on the individuals they hire to stand in for the famous North Pole gift-giver, particularly in cases where they interact with children.

Police in some areas of England this year asked organizations that employ "Father Christmas, elves and other festive characters" to run background checks, according to British news reports.

The same techniques I used to check on Mr. Claus can be used to check up on other people in your life.

Several online sites claim they can background someone for a fee, but many of those services are pricey. Government databases often are less expensive.

The Texas Department of Public Safety Web site provides access to a database of criminal conviction records. For a fee, you can search by a person's name.

If your search turns up no records, you're not necessarily in the clear; the records are incomplete because the agency relies on whatever information the counties provide. According to DPS, for example, Dallas County reported 78 percent of its 2004 criminal conviction records to the state, which is a marked improvement from just a few years ago. Denton County did better by reporting 82 percent of its records.

Salt Lake Trib Wins A Lawsuit Over Records It Should Have Been Handed The Day It Asked For Them...

Isn't it maddening that a fine FOI newspaper like the Salt Lake Tribune has to waste its litigation bullets on stuff that it should simply be handed that day of teh request? Madness!

Overtime and bonuses for city employees are fair game for public inspection, according to a court decision in a lawsuit between Sandy City and The Salt Lake Tribune.

The Tribune in 2004 requested records containing the names, positions, genders, pay and benefits for Sandy City police officers and fire department employees. The city refused to release certain details, claiming that an individual's bonus and overtime records are private information and not subject to the state Government Records Access and Management Act, which lists a public employee's "gross compensation" as a public record.

Sandy City offered to provide one figure reflecting the sum of overtime, bonus and regular pay for each employee, but Tribune reporters had requested a breakdown of total pay.

"Every other city they asked gave them that information," said Michael Patrick O'Brien, attorney for The Tribune.

The State Records Committee in 2005 upheld the Tribune's request, but Sandy City appealed the decision to the 3rd District Court.

In an opinion filed Friday, Judge Robert P. Faust rejected Sandy City attorneys' definition of "gross compensation" as a total sum that does not segregate overtime and bonuses from regular pay - a definition they supported with Webster's Dictionary, Faust wrote.

More here.

Google, Wikipedia: Government records hard to find!

The Washington Post drops in on the pubic records/search engine issue:

These days you can Google just about anything, from your favorite celebrity's pet to your boss's middle name. But using the biggest search engine to get information about the government often falls short.

That's what leaders from Google and Wikipedia plan to tell the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs today, urging Congress to require federal agencies to make their Web sites, records and databases more searchable...

Four out of five Web surfers use search engines to find information, usually bypassing a site's home page unless the page appears in the search results, said John Lewis Needham, manager of public-sector content partnerships for Google.

Needham has spent the past 18 months working with agencies to make their online presence more Googlable. The Internet giant is also working with states to let people search databases to find, for example, licensing records, consumer complaints and financial transactions. Virginia and the District have partnered with Google.

The biggest hurdle agencies face in sharing information with one another and with citizens is not the technology but rather how the agencies organize information, said Karen Evans, who oversees the e-government program for the Office of Management and Budget. OMB also must protect the privacy of people listed in the hundreds of millions of records on file, she said.

Suit In Illinois Seeks Access to Investgatory Records

An age-old tactic: close the investigation, then magically re-open it when someone asks for the records...

The Illinois State Police should release records of its investigations into claims that political interference undermined state probes of two pharmacies, the Chicago Tribune said in a lawsuit filed Monday.

State police officials said in October that the investigations were closed without prosecution, which means the files should be publicly available under the Illinois Freedom of Information Act, the newspaper contends.

But in November -- after the Tribune asked for the files -- state police officials announced the investigations had been reopened and they refused to turn over the records, according to the suit filed in Sangamon County Circuit Court.

More here.

FOI At Work: State Senator Guides Grant, Gets Paid...

A nice, nice piece of FOI-driven work in Alabama, that spins a motley tale...

State Sen. E.B. McClain received about $4,000 a month for several years from a nonprofit program after he helped persuade Alabama's two-year college system to fund it, records show.

The college system paid Heritage to Hope, a Birmingham nonprofit, more than $310,000 from February 2004 through September 2006 to operate a computer-based tutoring program that helped 13 people complete at least one level of training, according to system records. The program, canceled last year, was supposed to recruit high-school dropouts for training that would help them acquire a GED, a high-school equivalency certificate.

McClain, a Birmingham Democrat, was paid as a consultant by the program after helping it receive the two-year college funding, said the Rev. Sam Pettagrue, the retired pastor of Sardis Baptist Church and creator of the nonprofit.

Read more here.

As the Keystone State Turns...

The state House unanimously adopted a comprehensive amendment to an open records bill that would presume the records of all branches of state and local governments are public, as it passed a number of amendments to the bill Monday night. House members confidently predicted their failure to pass the bill last week would not bar the bill from being sent to Gov. Ed Rendell before the end of the year.

But about three hours after that vote was taken, Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi, R-Delaware, put out a statement in which he said: "The House adopted 19 separate amendments to Senate Bill 1 . Under House rules, the earliest that the bill can be sent to the Senate is late Tuesday night.

"The Senate approved this legislation, 48 to 1, on November 28. It is unfortunate that the leadership of the House of Representatives chose to delay substantive action for 12 days.

"The public and the Senate need to fully understand the impact of the many House amendments. We will begin studying them immediately. Strengthening Pennsylvania's Open Records Law remains my top legislative priority. As such, the Senate will act on Senate Bill 1 as soon as we return in January."

A vote on final passage of the House measure could come Tuesday night after 9 p.m., unless the House votes to suspend its rules and votes earlier.

The omnibus amendment changed a Senate bill that expanded access to state and local government records, but limited the number of legislative and judicial records available to the public, mostly to financial records.

Another turn in the PA saga....

The fits-and-starts process of overhauling Pennsylvania's open records law took a step forward Monday as the House of Representatives made a host of mostly minor revisions to a version previously approved by the state Senate. The main amendment, a measure sponsored by Rep. Tim Mahoney, D-Fayette, would provide greater access to records of the Legislature but prevented disclosure of birth dates and phone numbers in public records. The grueling hours of votes on Monday laid the groundwork for a final vote in the House, which could come as early as Tuesday. A House-Senate conference committee may be necessary to negotiate a compromise version before the measure can gain final approval by each body and be sent to Gov. Ed Rendell.

Read more here.

GREAT New NY Govt Data Site

From the Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin:

Attorney General Andrew Cuomo's office launched a Web site Wednesday that aims to shed some light on government at work in Albany. Dubbed Project Sunlight, it offers citizens access to data on campaign financing, lobbying, agency contracts, member items, legislation, as well as profit and not-for-profit corporations registered in New York. It's a broad offering of important information conveniently linked on one site.

For example, if you were searching data connected to a bill, here you can find out its number, name of its sponsor, a summary and who lobbied for it. The information available on your elected representative includes contact information including his/her Web site, counties served, sponsored legislation, campaign contributions, member items and contracts.

Information on member items can also be accessed by clicking on your county within a map of New York. A window pops up telling how many member items have been awarded this year. This format is great, because with a gentle scroll across the screen, you can see where the majority of tax dollars tapped for member items are showing up. Quite informative, indeed...

Check it out here.

PA closer to a real FOI law...

The Pennsylvania statehouse could be the scene of real FOI reform...or not. It seems too close to call from here, so I'll take you to the coverage, here. And here. The good news? They're working on it hard. The bad news? When the House started debating the legislation Wednesday, 40 new amendments had been introduced to muddy the message.

After several weeks of maneuvering, there is now only one major difference between the two competing bills. The House bill includes language that asserts that all legislative and executive records, plus financial records for the judicial branch, should be presumed to be open. That means the impetus would be placed on the government to keep records closed, as opposed to the current system in which the public must often fight to see public records.

This would be a major, major improvement, in its current form. But watch those amendments...

A Compromise on Concealed Weapon Permits in VA...?

The state police would withhold information about Virginians with permits to carry concealed handguns and allow no exceptions for political organizations and firearms advocates under legislation endorsed Monday by a state advisory council.

The draft legislation would prohibit the state police from releasing its database containing the identities of state residents with concealed-carry permits. The information had been considered a public record until March, when a Roanoke Times editorial writer wrote a column encouraging readers to check the list and included a link to the database. The newspaper obtained the database under the Freedom of Information Act.

Publication of the list triggered outrage from gun owners and advocates. The newspaper removed the database after receiving hundreds of complaints.

In response to the complaints, lawmakers vowed to take steps to restrict access to the information. The state police stopped distributing the information in April on the advice of Attorney General Bob McDonnell. Draft legislation endorsed Monday by the state Freedom of Information Advisory Council would make the ban permanent.

More here.

Great work from a smaller market...

For all of those out there who think building FOI-driven databases is too hard and too expensive and too time-consuming, take a look at the Bristol, Virginia, Herald Courier's newest online venture...

Gathering local government salaries from across Southwest Virginia and Northeast Tennessee was not only an arduous exercise of fiscal oversight for this newspaper, but also showed that localities routinely fail to follow open records laws.

The Bristol Herald Courier set out more than a year ago to collect salary data from what ended up being 65 local jurisdictions funded by taxpayers.

Every town, city, county and school system in an 11-county, two-state region – an area with a collective land mass larger than the entire state of Connecticut – was compiled for comparison purposes.

But not without a futile fight from many jurisdictions.
Johnson City never fully complied with our request under the Tennessee Public Records Act; instead of releasing first names, as the law requires, Johnson City disclosed first initials.

It also took Johnson City more than four months to even release the salaries of its city employees.

“Tennessee law says records in the hands of government shall be open for inspection during business hours and cannot be withheld unless there is a specific law that makes it confidential,” said Frank Gibson, executive director of the Tennessee Coalition for Open Government. “It’s assumed that means immediate release, but there is not a specific limit on how much time a custodian has to respond or to provide the information.”

An open government study committee has recommended that Tennessee implement a four-day time frame for compliance with the Public Records Act.

“Simple, small requests are to be immediate,” Gibson wrote in an e-mail. “In others the record keeper must grant the request or within 4 days cite a specific exemption in the law that allows the information to be withheld or explain why the record can’t be produced within the 4-day period.”

As Johnson City finally released the salary records, the city also tried to engage in a bit of horse trading.

See the whole series -- and access the database -- here.

It's an age-old debate: could scrutiny of cold case files help move the cases, or does it undermine investigations, even if those investigations have been dormant for years?

Lawyers tangled in the Georgia Supreme Court on Monday about a case that could force police departments to release documents in unsolved crimes, a move which authorities said would undermine their investigations.

The argument deals with the police use of the term "pending investigation" to refuse media requests for public information, a term that open records lawyers say is being abused by authorities to withhold public information.

Much more here.

In Wisconsin, the Bins Runneth Dry...

Madison, Wisconsin police are promising to look into why almost all daily police reports have stopped showing up in a bin at police headquarters that news reporters have used for years to keep residents informed about crime in their city.

"This the first I've heard that it's dried up," Capt. Carl Gloede, the department's chief records custodian, said in a recent interview. "I'll have to see who's doing the sorting now and pick their brain about what they're doing."

The dearth of information comes at a time when public interest in crime is intense. Hundreds of residents attended a series of meetings with police this fall to complain about crime and disorder in their neighborhoods...

The change started in late August, when fewer and fewer reports of assaults, thefts, burglaries and other incidents began showing up. The trend increased throughout the fall, with only a few reports of stolen bicycles or stacks of parking tickets put out.

Since at least October, regular checks have shown nothing in the bin other than an arrest log, which contains the minimal information police are required to provide under the law whenever a person is picked up, including the person's name, case number and tentative charge.

But the log does not describe the circumstances of an arrest, nor does it include any incident that did not involve an arrest.

More here.

Google in Florida records deal...

From The Buzz:

Florida and Google Inc. announced a partnership Monday that both say will make it easier for citizens to get access to public records through search engines. Gov. Charlie Crist said the Web site improvements will not cost the state any money, while a Google official, John Burchett, said he hoped his firm would receive increased traffic as a result.

Many records that are public are beyond the reach of Google's "crawlers," the automated seekers of online data that slam into firewalls into Florida for all kinds of reasons. Examples of records that will now be searchable include public school FCAT scores, water and waste permits, employment data and consumers' commuting patterns.

The Google deal follows Crist's creation of an Office of Open Government; a study commission on how government can become more accessible to citizens; and an executive order requiring state agencies' basic documents to be in plain language.

Florida is the sixth state to enter into a venture with Google, joining Arizona, California, Michigan, Utah and Virginia. To see how to get access to that hard-to-find information, go to http://www.google.com/publicsector.