Sunshine Week at Work in the States

from NFOIC:

Sunshine Week is a national initiative to promote a dialogue about the importance of open government and freedom of information. Participants include news media, civic groups, libraries, nonprofits, schools and others interested in the public's right to know.

Sunshine Week as a national effort is spearheaded by the American Society of News Editors. The key funder has been the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, with significant support from ASNE Foundation.

From here, you'll find a list of Sunshine Week events and observances that are being held across the country.

An added bonus: What you see here will also appear in Sunshine Week Coast to Coast, a special feature on the iPhone app, iOpenGov, brought to you by our friends and NFOIC member coalition, First Amendment Coalition.

The free app enhances the event listing with app tools that make it easy to get more information, visit Web sites, add events to your calendars, share the listing via email and Twitter and Facebook, and access maps and driving directions to the venues.

Get the app--and the latest news--here.

Sunshine Week: The forecast is mostly cloudy

from The Huffington Post:

COLUMBIA, Mo. (from Ken Bunting, executive director at NFOIC) -- Heading into "Sunshine Week," many open government advocates across the country feel they have much more to bemoan than they have to celebrate.

Even if no court or attorney general ever chastises Wisconsin's Republican legislators for violating open meetings law notice requirements, the convoluted web of parliamentary rationalizations surrounding their vote last night is still beyond ordinary comprehension.

Meanwhile, Utah Gov. Gary Herbert has signed into law a measure that now means that fewer than half of all U.S. state legislatures hold themselves to the same levels of transparency they prescribe for others.

Worse yet, open government laws in state after state, whether or not their reach goes to lawmakers themselves, are being damaged and weakened, with increasing frequency, by new exclusions, loopholes and crazy exemptions that promote more secrecy and a lot less transparency.

President Obama's openness pledge has garnered a lot of attention, with advocates questioning whether it was a false promise and whether his professed belief in transparency will ever make its way down through the vast federal bureaucracy.

But at the state and local levels, there has been little notice of an ongoing frontal assault on open, accessible government. When viewed comprehensibly and nationally, what has been happening in state legislatures all across the land has been downright scary.

Read the rest here.

Reporters Committee lauds another win for openness in Supreme Court

from Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press:

Washington, D.C. — The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press lauded today’s U.S. Supreme Court decision in another decision favorable to open government, this time ruling that the Navy’s use of a Freedom of Information Act exemption for records regarding internal agency personnel rules and practices was improperly invoked to deny the release of maps and charts.

“For the second time in a week, the Supreme Court has reinforced the public's right to get valuable information held by the government through the Freedom of Information Act,” said Reporters Committee Executive Director Lucy A. Dalglish. “The government's interpretation of the ‘High 2’ exemption was tortured, at best, and once again the Court relied on a common sense approach to government transparency.”

Last week, the court ruled that AT&T could not use a FOIA exemption related to “personal privacy” to prevent the Federal Communications Commissions from releasing records about the corporation.

The Reporters Committee and 19 news organizations filed an amicus brief last September in Milner v. Department of the Navy cautioning against the “erroneous” expansion of FOIA Exemption 2 with so-called “High 2” information that includes more than basic personnel rules and records.

“Exemption 2 by its plain language exempts only those materials ‘related solely to the internal personnel rules and practices of an agency.’ However … it has been expanded by agency interpretation and adopted by lower courts to over time cover more than just trivial matters of internal procedure to also include almost any record whose disclosure could enable some unidentified party to commit a hypothetical crime at some undefined future time,” the media brief noted.

Read the rest here.

A dark day for Utah FOI

from SPJ Blog Network:

On Wednesday, the Utah House Public Utilities and Technology Committee gave its OK to a bill that essentially dismantles the 20-year-old Government Records Access and Management Act (GRAMA). As The Salt Lake Tribune reports, the bill, House Bill 477, would strip the legislative intent statement from GRAMA, which states that privacy concerns would be balanced with the public’s right to know; requiring those who appeal a records denial to make the case for disclosure by a “preponderance of the evidence” rather than submitting to a balancing test of the public’s right to know verus privacy concerns; makes text messages, instant-message chats, video chats and voice mails private records; fee waivers would be based on whether it was in the best interest of “taxpayer resources” to do so, rather than whether the person is seeking the records for a public benefit; and would allow for the inclusion of overhead, salary and other costs associated with filling a request; and make much of the Legislature’s paperwork exempt from disclosure.

And those are just a few of the things it does.

Rep. John Dougall, R-Highland, ironically identified himself as an advocate of transparency. He claims GRAMA has gone too far and, to bolster his case, he trots out the canard of a constituent e-mailing a legislator to discuss a bill and mentioning as an aside that his child is sick, and the child’s illness being splashed across the front pages of newspapers.

Read the rest here.

Isthmus, Wisconsin Associated Press sue Gov. Scott Walker over access to emails

from Isthmus/The Daily Page:

Isthmus newspaper and the Wisconsin Associated Press today filed a lawsuit against Gov. Scott Walker over his office's failure to respond to open records requests regarding emails received by his office.

"The governor said he had gotten more than 8,000 emails as of Feb. 17, with 'the majority' urging him to 'stay firm' on his budget repair bill," says Isthmus News Editor Bill Lueders. "We're just trying to see these largely supportive responses."

The lawsuit, filed March 4 in Dane County court, names as defendants Gov. Walker and the office of the governor.

Isthmus made its request by hand-delivered letter on Feb. 18, a day after Walker referred to these 8,000 emails and about an hour before he held another press conference saying the number had since swelled to 19,000, again mostly positive. The paper followed this with two communications with Walker spokesperson Cullen Werwie (the second of which, on Feb. 24, was also sent to Brian Hagedorn, the governor's legal counsel). Both asked for an update on the status of the original request.

Read the rest here.

Does new Supreme Court decision in FOIA case stop Citizens United in its tracks?

from CREW:

The Supreme Court issued a decision in Fed. Communications Comm’n v. AT&T, holding the protection the Freedom of Information Act provides for “personal privacy” does not include corporations. AT&T was trying to prevent the disclosure of documents it had submitted to the FCC as part of an investigation, arguing their release would invade the corporation’s personal privacy. According to AT&T, because the word “person” in the FOIA includes corporations, the reference to “personal privacy” must also include corporations.

When the Supreme Court agreed to hear this case, many feared the Court would use it as an opportunity to extend its ruling in Citizens United, where it recognized the First Amendment rights of corporations, to broader contexts such as the FOIA. A number of groups, including CREW, filed friend-of-the-court briefs urging the Supreme Court to use common sense and congressional intent to limit the FOIA’s personal privacy protection to individuals.

Read the rest here.

A new 'toolkit' for opening up civic life

from techPresident:

Citizens who believe their government is open and transparent are more likely to be satisfied with civic life, according to research released by the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project and the Monitor Institute.

Accompanying that research is a set of materials drafted by the Monitor Institute, a for-profit think tank and consultancy hybrid, intended to help community leaders identify how better flow of information in their communities might improve civic life, and then plan out how to create that change.

Pew and the Monitor Institute, conducting surveys and workshops in research backed by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, found that the belief that local government is transparent correlates with a belief that citizens can make a difference in their cities. Respondents in Philadelphia, P.A., Macon, Ga., and San Jose, Ca., who said that local government does very or pretty well at sharing information were far more likely to report feeling that they could make an impact in their community than those who did not, the survey found.

Read more here.

Court: No personal privacy for business in FOIA

from Washington Post:

WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that corporations have no right of personal privacy to prevent the disclosure of documents under the federal Freedom of Information Act.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the 8-0 opinion Tuesday that reversed an appeals court ruling in favor of AT&T. The outcome was notable for its unanimity, especially in view of recent criticism from liberal interest groups that the court tilts too far in favor of business.

"The protection in FOIA against disclosure of law enforcement information on the ground that it would constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy does not extend to corporations," Roberts wrote. "We trust that AT&T will not take it personally."

Read the rest here.

Sensible strategies for open government and online hubs

from KnightComm:

The Aspen Institute Communications and Society Program and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation released two policy papers that call on community and elected leaders to adopt sensible strategies to expand government transparency, make public records and civic data more open and accessible to the public, and create local online hubs that provide maps for a community’s information resources.

Government Transparency: Six Strategies for More Open and Participatory Government, by Jon Gant and Nicol Turner-Lee, urges state and local governments to adopt six strategies that are particularly important for accelerating the trend toward open government at the state and local levels. The strategies focus on enhancing government expertise and transparency, educating citizens regarding the availability and utility of government information and e-government tools, expanding efforts to support greater adoption of broadband Internet access services and devices, and forging public-private-citizen partnerships in order to enhance open government solutions. Adopting these strategies will enable state and local governments to tap into the expertise and innovative spirit of the public to create new “public goods” apps and community information resources and ultimately enhance government accountability.

Creating Local Online Hubs: Three Models for Action, by Adam Thierer, explores three scenarios under which community leaders and other stakeholders can work together to create local online hubs where citizens can access information about their governments and local communities. Government information, requiring real transparency of public information, should form the foundation for building local online hubs according to the three models proposed by Thierer.

Read the rest here.

Spy Games: Inside the convoluted plot to bring down WikiLeaks

from Wired:

In November, when a major U.S. bank wanted a strategy for taking down WikiLeaks, [CEO of HBGary Federal Aaron] Barr immediately drafted a presentation in which he suggested “cyber attacks against the infrastructure to get data on document submitters. This would kill the project . . .”

Faking documents seemed like a good idea, too, documents which could later be “called out” so as to make WikiLeaks look unreliable.

And Barr wanted to go further, pushing on people like civil liberties Salon.com columnist Glenn Greenwald — apparently hoping to threaten their livelihoods. “These are established professionals that have a liberal bent, but ultimately most of them if pushed will choose professional preservation over cause, such is the mentality of most business professionals,” he wrote. “Without the support of people like Glenn WikiLeaks would fold.”

Read the rest here.

Government contractors targeted Chamber of Commerce's critics

from the Los Angeles Times:

Reporting from Washington — Hoping to win a lucrative agreement with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, three data security contractors for federal defense and intelligence agencies developed a proposal to monitor and manipulate the chamber's left-leaning critics, according to recently released e-mail correspondence.

Employees of the firms compiled short dossiers on a few activists that included photographs, references to their families and charts of their relationships with other liberal and labor leaders.

The proposals were received by Hunton & Williams, a law firm that represents the chamber.

[. . .]

The firm, which also represents Bank of America, solicited a separate proposal from the security firms to help the bank deal with a threat by WikiLeaks, the international hacker organization, to release some of the bank's internal data.

Read the rest here.

Firm targeting WikiLeaks cuts ties with HBGary - apologizes to reporter

from The Tech Herald: --

Dr. Alex Karp, the Co-Founder and CEO of Palantir Technologies, one of three data intelligence firms who worked to develop a systematic plan of attack against WikiLeaks and their supporters, has severed all ties with HBGary Federal and issued an apology to reporter Glenn Greenwald.

[...]

. . . The Tech Herald learned that Palantir Technologies, HBGary Federal, and Berico Technologies, worked together with law firm Hunton and Williams to develop a proposal for Bank of America in order to deal with the “WikiLeaks Threat.”

Hunton and Williams were recommended to Bank of America’s general counsel by the Department of Justice, according to the email chain viewed by The Tech Herald. The law firm was using the meeting to pitch Bank of America on retaining them for an internal investigation surrounding WikiLeaks.

[...]

Moreover, reporter Glenn Greenwald, who writes for Salon.com, was singled out in the proposal as a person offering a level of support to WikiLeaks that needed to be disrupted. This disruption would include making Greenwald, and others in similar situations, choose between professional preservation and cause.

Read the rest here.

Personal privacy and the right to know

from a New York Tmes editorial: --

For 45 years, the Freedom of Information of Act has invigorated American democracy by obliging the executive branch to make public a splendid range of documents. It serves the people’s right to know, while leaving out data whose disclosure could be harmful.

The law’s “exemption 7,” about facts gathered for law enforcement, omits records whose release could be “an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.” Until now courts have unanimously agreed its purpose is to protect individuals. Last month, the Supreme Court heard arguments about a case in which the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, in Philadelphia, decided “personal privacy” includes the privacy of corporations.

Federal Communications Commission v. AT&T addresses whether AT&T can prevent the F.C.C. from releasing documents about the company’s overbilling of the government. If the justices supported that interpretation, they would wreak havoc on the Freedom of Information Act. Fortunately, there’s little risk of that.

Read the rest here.

Democrats call on House panel to narrow FOIA request

from FederalTimes.com --

House Democrats are calling on the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee to pare back his request to dozens of agencies to divulge details of Freedom of Information Act requests from the last five years.

The committee's request "will encumber every agency with a work-stopping diversion" and have a chilling effect on the public's willingness to make use of FOIA, Rep. Peter Welch of Vermont wrote in a letter Tuesday to the committee chairman, Darrell Issa, R-Calif.

Last month, Issa asked dozens of agencies, ranging from the Justice Department to the Railroad Retirement Board, for their FOIA logs from the past five years, along with all communications with requesters and a rundown on how each request was handled.

Read the rest here.

FBI, DOJ and DEA stall release of records on bid to expand surveillance laws

from Electronic Frontier Foundation --

EFF filed a reply brief in its FOIA lawsuit seeking records from the FBI, DOJ and DEA that would justify the Administration’s need to expand federal surveillance laws like the Communications Assistance to Law Enforcement Act (CALEA). The proposed expansion would require communications providers like Skype, Facebook, Blackberry and Twitter to build wiretapping capabilities right into their systems, and although we know Congress intends to turn to this issue early this year, FBI, DEA and DOJ have argued they can’t give us all the documents we asked for until the summer of 2012. To force the government to turn over documents on a timeline that would actually allow them to influence the debate, we filed a motion for partial summary judgment, asking the court to order the agencies to produce documents within 10 days.

This lawsuit is based on two separate but related FOIA requests, one of which has now been pending with the FBI for almost two years. The earlier request seeks documents on the FBI’s “Going Dark Program,” a program intended to bolster the Bureau’s electronic communications intercept capabilities that could be strengthened by new legislation. The second request, now pending for four months, seeks materials related to a legislative expansion to CALEA, including evidence of any limitations of current surveillance technologies and records of communications between DOJ agencies and technology companies, trade organizations and Congress about potential legislation.

Read the rest here.

Tech world stunned at Egypt's Internet shutdown

from SFGate.com:

The Egyptian government's unprecedented shutdown of Internet and mobile phone access Friday stunned the world's technology community, which questioned whether the country can quickly recover from cutting such a vital link for commerce and communication.

The government's surprising move came in the face of widespread civil unrest, but essentially wiped the country off the world's online maps, said Jim Cowie, chief technology officer and co-founder of Renesys, a New Hampshire firm that monitors how the Internet is operating.

"It is astonishing because Egypt has so much potentially to lose in terms of credibility with the Internet community and the economic world," Cowie said. "It will set Egypt back for years in terms of its hopes of becoming a regional Internet power."

Read the rest here.

ACLU files FOIA request regarding VA Department of Transportation policies

from ACLU press release:

Winchester, VA - The ACLU of Virginia has filed a Freedom of Information Act Request with the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) seeking information about policies and practices affecting the destruction of the possessions of homeless persons who use land under the agency's control.

The ACLU's request comes in the wake of a January 5 incident in which a company under contract with VDOT destroyed a homeless encampment along Interstate 81 at Exit 315 near Winchester. According to news reports at least four homeless men had been using the property for months when road maintenance crews demolished the encampment.

The homeless men were not present at the time, but apparently lost tents, sleeping bags, camping gear, clothes, canned food and medication. At least one man lost his wallet, including his Social Security Card and birth certificate. The men received no advance notice that their property would be destroyed.

According to court precedents homeless persons, even while located on right-of-ways or other state property, have constitutional rights regarding their possessions.

"Federal courts have consistently ruled that homeless persons have an expectation of privacy that includes the right to be notified before their property can be seized or destroyed," said ACLU of Virginia Executive Director Kent Willis. "They may be homeless, but they are still entitled to the same constitutional protections that apply to the rest of us."

Read the rest here.

Republican congressman proposes tracking FOIA requests

from The New York Times:

WASHINGTON — Representative Darrell Issa calls it a way to promote transparency: a request for the names of hundreds of thousands of ordinary citizens, business executives, journalists and others who have requested copies of federal government documents in recent years.

Mr. Issa, a California Republican and the new chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, says he wants to make sure agencies respond in a timely fashion to Freedom of Information Act requests . . .

But his extraordinary request worries some civil libertarians. It “just seems sort of creepy that one person in the government could track who is looking into what and what kinds of questions they are asking,” said David Cuillier, a University of Arizona journalism professor and chairman of the Freedom of Information Committee at the Society of Professional Journalists. “It is an easy way to target people who he might think are up to no good.”

Read more here.

DHS releases FOIA report, but questions remain

from Electronic Privacy Information Center:

The Department of Homeland Security has released the Freedom of Information Act Report for 2010. The report analyzes the processing of FOIA requests made throughout the year by each DHS component, detailing the disposition of each request, response times, and the number of backlogged requests.

DHS is under scrutiny for their policy of referring FOIA requests to political appointees before processing. The release of over 1,000 agency documents revealed a persistent agency practice of flagging FOIA requests from EPIC and other watchdog organizations for referral.

Read the rest here.

Knight FOI Fund case compels public records release in upstate NY

from NFOIC.org:

COLUMBIA, Mo. (January 27, 2011)—A New York judge, ruling in a case supported by a Knight FOI Fund grant, has ordered disclosure of records sought by a Web publisher and a community activist regarding a volunteer fire company.

But in the same 13-page ruling, Warren County (NY) Supreme Court Judge David B. Krogmann held that many of the meetings of the Chestertown Volunteer Fire Company are of a "social" or "private nature," and are not subject to the state's Open Meetings Law.

June Maxam, editor and publisher of The North Country Gazette, and Christine Hayes, a deputy zoning administrator and assistant assessor for the Town of Horicon, NY, who represented themselves in the lawsuit filed on September 15, indicated that they planned to appeal the ruling.

Noting that they had represented themselves and therefore had no attorney bills, Judge Krogmann also declined to award the two women reimbursement for their legal fees and expenses. As offset for the fee reimbursements Maxam and Hayes had sought, Krogmann ordered that copying charges for the records being sought be waived. Maxam disputes the judge’s finding that she and Hayes incurred no legal bills.

Open government advocates expressed dismay over portions of the ruling, although Maxam and Hayes will be getting the records that were at the heart of the legal case after Krogmann completes an in camera judicial review to allow redaction of exempt, personal or private information..

"If they choose to appeal as they say they will, I hope some member of the New York bar who believes in open government will step forward and aid these petitioners in their important legal battle," said Kenneth F. Bunting, executive director of the National Freedom of Information Coalition (NFOIC).

"I know that finding volunteer legal representation is especially difficult when a judge has already ruled against granting fees and expenses. But there is much more at stake here than just a community squabble," Bunting added.

"It seems that the court did not thoroughly consider the breadth of the decision rendered by the state's highest court more than 30 years ago," said Robert J. Freeman, executive director of the New York State Committee on Open Government, a division of the Secretary of State's office that issues advisory opinions on open government matters.

Referring to a 1980 state Court of Appeals ruling in a case called Westchester Rockland Newspapers Inc. v. Kimball, Freeman added: "Based on that [Westchester] decision, it has been our view that meetings of volunteer fire companies are subject to the requirements of the Open Meetings Law."

Read the rest here.