The FOI and First Amendment Center is designed to be a central repository for IRE information
about FOI activities and links to other valuable FOI resources.
Providing examples and guidance for new FOI requests ideally will
help speed the process and improve the success rate.
Latest FOI News
Illinois govenor makes county level medical data unavailable citing HIPAA
The (Springfield, Ill.) State Journal-Register is protesting Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich's decision to withhold county level enrollment totals for people covered by Medicaid and other state-subsidized health-care programs.
“His administration says releasing anything other than statewide numbers would violate HIPAA, the federal health-care privacy law that went into effect a few years ago,” Journal-Register reporter Dean Olsen wrote in a post to NICAR-L. “The governor came into office after HIPAA took effect but didn't start witholding county-level data until last year, after the administration "re-read" the law.”
Editor and Publisher article
The (Springfield, Ill.) State Journal-Register article
National Security Archive finds pending FOI requests filed in the '80s
The Knight Open Government Survey conducted by the National Security Archive found unanswered requests filed during the Reagan presidency and instances of agencies misleading Congress.
"In January 2007, the Archive filed FOIA requests with the 87 leading federal agencies and components for copies of their "ten oldest open or pending" FOIA requests. The Department of State, responding to an Archive "ten oldest" request for the first time, reported ten pending requests older than 15 years--the majority of the oldest requests in the entire federal government. Other agencies with the oldest requests include the Air Force and two components of the Justice Department, the Criminal Division and the FBI."
Read the Editor and Publisher story:
"Study: FOIA Requests Dating Back to Reagan Administration Remain Unanswered"
California First Amendment Coalition wins open records case
In what the CFAC is labeling a "landmark open records case," Santa Clara County is being forced to make the county's parcel map database available to the public at minimum cost. Previously, the mapping information was only available to a limited number of buyers at a cost far above typical open records costs.
Kansas develops searchable online ledgers
Many states currently post their records on the Internet, but that doesn't mean it is easy to find what you are looking for. Kansas hopes to change that by creating a database that is easily searchable by anyone wishing to track the state's spending. "Want to see how much the governor's office shelled out for pencils and paper? Three years and $40 million in technology upgrades from now, the answer will be at Kansans' fingertips," Daniel C. Vock writes.
Exceptions to the First Amendment primer
Congressional Research Service prepared this overview of exceptions to the First Amendment citing key Supreme Court cases that interrupt just how much press and speech freedom the courts will allow.
AP Gains Access to Calif. Prison Dept. Contracts
After an investigation by The Associated Press exposed oversight problems with the contract database, California's prisons department is releasing details on more than $4 billion worth of contracts. The state Justice Department had improperly shielded hundreds of contracts it labeled "confidential." The records that were released include more than 4,000 contracts and amendments, and thousands more purchase orders. The contracts and amendments alone, issued from 2003 through 2007, are valued at about $4.1 billion.
IRE Awards -- FOI
The Times-Union of Albany, N.Y., and the European Web site Farmsubsidy.org received Freedom of Information Awards in the 2006 IRE Awards. The Times-Union successfully battled the New York State Assembly to gain access to data about how legislators used a secret slush fund for pet projects; several important media outlets across the state also joined the paper's lawsuit. Farmsubsidy.org is a collaborative effort to gain access to agricultural subsidy data from European Union member nations and provide online access for citizens and journalists. Its work alllowed journalists in multiple countries to report on subsidy programs that primarily benefit corporations or millionaires, and it has led to calls for policy reforms and increased transparency in the EU system.
Citizen Watchdog in Dallas
Jennifer LaFleur authors a Dallasnews.com column devoted to helping citizens understand and use government records laws. Her first post reminded readers that "Although it may seem otherwise, media folks are far from being the biggest requesters of government records or the reason these laws were written. You are." LaFleur is computer-assisted reporting editor at the Dallas Morning News and serves on the board of directors for the Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas. She is a former IRE and NICAR training director.
Brownout at the EPA
Petra Bartosiewicz of Salon.com found that the Environmental Protection Agency quietly began downsizing its 35-year-old library network earlier this month, shuttering its headquarters branch in Washington and three regional libraries in Chicago, Dallas and Kansas City, Mo. Hours and services are to be reduced gradually in the remaining 22 regional branches in the network. The agency's budget has been slashed by $100 million for the fiscal year beginning this month, and the libraries have lost one-third of their $6.5 million annual funding. The EPA cites its money woes and a shift to an online model as the reason for the closures, but critics charge the move will erase vital chunks of institutional memory, and is more proof that the Bush administration has no interest in letting the EPA fulfill its role as an environmental watchdog.
See more updates from the Coalition of Journalists for Open Government or read The FOI Advocate, the E-Newsletter
of the National Freedom of Information Coalition.
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