First Amendment & FOIA
Attorney General emails detail discussions before botched Oklahoma execution
In the weeks leading up to a botched execution, an Oklahoma assistant attorney general referred to defense attorneys’ warnings that the execution could go awry as “hysterical speculation,” records released to the Tulsa World show. Assistant Attorney General John Hadden also wrote in a March 21 email that he was “not eager to answer a…
Read MoreAudit shows Miss. rural water association plagued by financial problems
An audit of the North Lee County Water Association in Mississippi turned up widespread financial management problems, including violations of several state and federal laws, the Daily Journal (Tupelo, MS) reports. The audit, which is likely “the most rigorous examination ever” of the nonprofit cooperative’s financial records, comes on the heels of a $1.2 million loan from…
Read MoreNew York state offices ignore Freedom of Information Laws
Part of New York’s Freedom of Information Law requires each state agency to maintain up-to-date “subject matter lists” — indexes of all records maintained by the agency — and to post them on the Internet. But a study of 86 New York state agencies by the Press & Sun-Bulletin found 9 in 10 were not…
Read MoreEmail shows effort to shield bin Laden photos
According to the Associated Press, “A newly-released email shows that 11 days after the killing of terror leader Osama bin Laden in 2011, the U.S. military’s top special operations officer ordered subordinates to destroy any photographs of the al-Qaida founder’s corpse or turn them over to the CIA.” When the AP initially asked for emails…
Read MoreFired Honolulu cop’s file illustrates lack of public insight into misconduct
It took the Honolulu-based Civil Beat almost one year and $935 to get access to files on three discharged police officers. The records, which were heavily redacted, provide new insight into the case of an officer accused of raping a woman on the hood of his patrol car. The officer’s case “illustrates how difficult it…
Read MoreJustice Dept. watchdog never probed judges’ NSA concerns
“In response to a FOIA request from USA TODAY, the Justice Department said its ethics office never looked into complaints from two federal judges that they had been misled about NSA surveillance.”
Read MoreMIA work ‘acutely dysfunctional’
“Largely beyond the public spotlight, the decades-old pursuit of bones and other MIA evidence is sluggish, often duplicative and subjected to too little scientific rigor, (an internal military) report says. The Associated Press obtained a copy of the internal study after Freedom of Information Act requests for it by others were denied.”
Read MoreExtra Extra Monday: terrorism fears and chemical plants, mental health gaps, factory farm pollution
Terrorism fears have led government to cloak the danger of hazardous chemical plants | The Houston Chronicle“Around the country, hundreds of buildings like the one in West store some type of ammonium nitrate. They sit in quiet fields and by riverside docks, in business districts and around the corner from schools, hospitals and day care…
Read MoreLaw to protect news sources could backfire in some cases, experts say
Legal experts say the proposed federal shield law could actually diminish the protections some federal courts have recognized, the St. Louis Beacon reports. “Contrary to conventional wisdom, the proposed federal shield law backed by the press and President Barack Obama wouldn’t help reporters protect their sources in big national security cases, such as the recent…
Read MoreConsultant’s report kept secret over ’embarrassing’ criticism
The Charleston Gazette reports that “a state agency paid a Virginia-based company an estimated $118,000 to review West Virginia’s use of $126.3 million in federal stimulus funds to expand high-speed Internet, but Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin’s administration won’t release the consultant’s findings to the public.” The reason, Commerce Secretary Keith Burdette told the Gazette, is that at…
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