The IRE Resource Center is a major research library containing more than 23,250 investigative stories — both print and broadcast. These stories are searchable online or by contacting the Resource Center directly (573-882-3364 or rescntr@ire.org) where a researcher can help you pinpoint what you need. Browse or search the tipsheet section of our library below. Stories are not available for download but can be easily ordered by contacting the Resource Center:
Search results for "state freedom of information requests" ...
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Spanish-language FOIA requests
We undertook the project to explore the issue of language access and freedom of information. Our goals were threefold. First, we wanted to break new ground in open government with regards to language access by submitting FOI requests in Spanish. Second, we wanted to receive data from officials at city, country, state and federal levels to use as the basis for stories and articles that fulfilled our watchdog and public service mission. Third, we wanted to educated our colleagues and readers about their information rights so that they could have additional tools for their news production and consumption, respectively.
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Sex Offenders
State and federal authorities have lost track of 100,000 of the nation's 700,000 convicted sex offenders. Using a Freedom of Information Act request, the reporter found that only four states have complied with a law requiring states to keep uniform records on sex offenders.
Tags: sex offender; records; FOIA; sex
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Takings Initiatives Accountability Project: The Center for Public Integrity investigates ballot initiatives that would radically change land-use and environmental regulation in five Western states
The [non-partisan]Center for Public Integrity investigated 2006 "ballot initiatives that were designed to radically change land-use and environmental regulation in five Western states. They discovered that a trio of "secret donors" accounted for 99% of the propostions' bankrolls, and some of the initiatives did not comply with campaign-finance and other regulations. Then the Center revealed that 85 percent of the funding was coming from a single wealthy real estate investor and Libertarian activist, Howard RIch All but the Arizona inititative failed at the ballot. The Center for Public Integrity set up a stand-alone website-- www.takings initiatives.org-- and filed more than 50 articles on it. "Our general practice-- and a novel one as far as we can tell-- was to mount verbatim transcripts of the interviews on our website, including audio recordings where available. We sought to allow proponents, opponents funders and experts to have a chance to present their side of the story in their own words." The Center also checked with state and federal regulators for compliance of relevant laws and regulations.
Tags: Takings Initiatives; takings clause; ballot initiatives; land-use regulation; environmental regulation; tax-exempt organizations; Howard Rich; Andrea Millen Rich; Council for Responsible Government; William A. Wilson; state campaign-finance filings; public records requests; state freedom of information requests; America At Its Best; Americans for Limited Government; John Tillman; Howard Ahmanson; Fieldstead & Company; property rights; prefessional signature-gatherers; Colorado At Its Best; term limits; nonprofit advocacy organizations; Sam Adams Alliance; Sam Adams Foundation; Legislative Education Action Drive; Parents in Charge Foundation; Social Security Choice.org; Illinois Charitable Trust Bureau; educational vouchers; tuition tax credits; National Taxpayers Union; First Class Education; Susquehanna International Group; Jeffrey YAss; Cato Institute; Alliance for School Choice; Decision Education Foundation; Eric Brooks; Susan Mitchell; Pete Sepp; Kern Family Foundation; Generac Power Systems, Inc.; Milton Friedman; Taxpayer Bill of Rights; TABOR; Laird Maxwell; This House is MY Home; John Whitehead; Lower Manhattan Development Corporation; Exoxemis, Inc.; Family Farm Preservation Pact; Citizens for Community Protection; Kelo v. City of New London; eminent domain; New York Millionaires Assistance Act; Wallace Global Fund; Nicholas C. Dranias; PRNewswire; Eric O'Keefe; getliberty.com; George Soros
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Waiting for Justice
After the ethnic slaughter in the Balkans, Bosnia-Herzegovina's state court was going to take over trying war criminals charged with genocide, mass rape and torture. It has not happened. Millions of euros were spent to build a War Crimes Chamber, but not a single trial has been held, and hundreds of suspects live free among the same people they are charged with terrorizing.
Tags: war crimes; genocide; Balkans; terrorism; international court; Freedom of Information
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Access Maryland 2003: The Access Project
This year-long project tested state agencies' compliance with Maryland's freedom of information act. The result was an extensive series of articles that looked at different aspects of the state's open records laws and reported what agencies were complying and to what extent they were complying. The project showed that people only had about "a 60 percent chance of getting what they are legally entitled to, and often they will face improper questioning about who they are, why they want the record and who they work for." Electronic records proved even harder to get; for example, in one series of requests, the project revealed that "none of the state agencies tested...would provide public records in electronic format, and none would give out public information included in a database." The series took a hard look at such problems and what the public can do about it. As a result of the audit, the Maryland attorney general promised "a new training initiative for state employees."
Tags: open records; public records; access; public; documents; electronic records; database; technology; fees; government; agencies
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Stadium Naples
This IRE story is actually the FOI requests, court filings, affidavits and correspondence relating to reporter Gina Edwards attempts to obtain court-related documents from the state of New York "involving A.S. Goldman, a Naples-based brokerage firm that has been implicated in a $100 million fraud. ... New York's committee on Open Government, an official state body, agrees that the documents constitute public records, yet Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau's office has refused our repeated FOIL requests to review discovery documents." The story corresponding with the documents is #17443.
Tags: FOIA; public records; court records; stadium; lawsuits; open records; Freedom of Information Law "FOIL."
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Public Access Denied
An investigation by seven New Jersey Gannett newspapers found that local government officials "routinely fail to provide public records to citizens who request them, violating the state's Open Public Records Act..." The newspapers sent investigators to "town halls, school board offices and police departments in 213 towns, covering roughly a third of all communities in the state. Their goal was to gauge the average citizen's access to information considered public under state law or under state court rulings." The three-part series also looks at how other states handle public records, the types of roadblocks citizens have to overcome to obtain public records and the stories of individuals who tried to get public information but were thwarted by the government.
Tags: public records; New Jersey; state law; freedom of information; public access
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Holes in the emergency net
The Arlington Heights Daily Herald reports that "Illinois residents have no reliable storehouse to use to determine whether their emergency workers are getting to them quickly enough. An examination of 1997 and 1998 data from more than 200 departments in northern Illinois found many of the average response times on record with the state fire marshal are inaccurate. Comparison checking is impossible and checking with a department directly is not easy. Several would not provide the Daily Herald with the requested average response times data or did not acknowledge a Freedom of Information Act request."
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Open Records, Closed Doors
Seven Indiana newspapers teamed up for an investigation on the difficulty of obtaining open records in the state. In each county, the group requested five common public records: a police incident report, the sheriff's daily crime log, a death record, school board minutes and the salary of the basketball coaches at each county's largest high school. The investigation found widespread disregard of the law by government officials, especially among local sheriffs' units, to disclose documents.
Tags: Indianapolis Star and News; TheJournal Gazette; Fort Wayne; Tribune-Star; Terre Haute; Times of Northwest Indiana; Star Press; Muncie and Tribune; South Bend; County Government Adoption Police
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No title (id: 13950)
"Whipping Boy" is the story of a well-to-do Colorado woman who allegedly beat to death her adopted, 2-year-old Russian son. Because the death occurred in a rural town in the northern reaches of the state, the case did not receive a great deal of press attention in Denver. The obituary asked that in lieu of lowers, donations be sent in the child's name to The Attachment Center in Evergreen, Colorado. The clinic specializes in the diagnosis and treatment of attachment and bonding disorders. Through FOIA requests, Westword obtained autopsy reports and police investigative reports that had not been previously released to the media. The investigation ultimately discovered that the woman's defense would hinge on the fact that her son suffered from attachment disorder, and that somehow, because of that affliction, he was to be considered the instrument of his own death.(October 10, 1996)
Tags: Bowers Terrible Two Contest entry Freedom of information act 45 pgs.