First Amendment & FOIA
City insiders’ tickets dismissed at much higher rate than most
Patrick Lakamp of The Buffalo News analyzed 24,000 parking ticket hearings, finding that most Buffalo residents pay the majority of their fines, whereas as a select few city insiders get their fines dismissed. “They just write letters to the city’s parking enforcement director. Two-thirds of the time, their tickets go away.” A deputy commissioner of…
Read MoreFEMA contracts with criminals
Megan O’Matz and Sally Kestin of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel found that “government inspectors entrusted to enter disaster victims’ homes and verify damage claims include criminals with records for embezzlement, drug dealing and robbery.” The paper found the names of more than 100 inspectors for the Federal Emergency Management Agency through public and confidential sources;…
Read MoreWeb site lists day-care violations, not punishments
Robin Farmer of the Richmond Times-Dispatch used the Freedom of Information Act to investigate licensed day-care centers in Virginia. Parents can look-up online if their child’s center has violations, but the site does not reveal whether the center has been punished for them. The Times-Dispatch found that “nearly 95 percent of 2,600 centers had at…
Read MoreFoundation administrators highly compensated
Erin Jordan of the Des Moines Register obtained salary records of foundation employees at Iowa’s three public universities. They found on average the employees made less than the national average, but the administrators were far above the average salary with “… U of I Foundation President Michael New topping out at $250,000 a year.” Despite…
Read MoreU.S. implements secret policy to win over Islam
David E. Kaplan of U.S. News & World Reports details how the White House is implementing a secret policy to intervene not just in the Muslim world, but within Islam itself, and how Washington has set up a program of political warfare unmatched since the height of the Cold War forty years ago. The project…
Read MoreOrlando convention center fails to meet high standards
Dan Tracy of the Orlando Sentinel spent more than six months investigating the Orange County Convention Center and the industry surrounding Central Florida’s largest single public-works project. “The center’s $748 million expansion, which opened in August 2003 in the midst of a tourism and travel slump, attracted only 154,317 new visitors during its first full…
Read MorePhysicians stay on, despite past drug and alcohol problems
Cheryl W. Thompson of The Washington Post studied medical board records from the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia, finding that “scores of physicians in the area and across the country have been given repeated chances to practice, despite well-documented drug and alcohol problems.” In addition, sanctions in such cases can take months or years…
Read MoreArmor shortage due to Pentagon missteps
Joseph Tanfani, Tom Infield, Carrie Budoff and Edward Colimore of The Philadelphia Inquirer studied the availability of armor for military vehicles in Iraq, finding a shortage “had more to do with Pentagon missteps than any lack of industrial capacity.” The importance of vehicle armor is highlighted in casualties: “Since May 1, 2003, when the United…
Read MoreHousing authority spending practices questioned
Brian Meyer of The Buffalo News used city records to show that “the agency that runs public housing in Buffalo set aside nearly $124,000 last July for trips, credit card spending, cell phones, insurance and stipends for its seven volunteer commissioners for this fiscal year. … This is the same Buffalo Municipal Housing Authority that…
Read MoreHouse members hire family, pay with campaign funds
Larry Margasak and Sharon Theimer of the Associated Press reviewed federal campaign filings to find that “dozens of lawmakers have hired their spouses and children to work for their campaigns and political groups, paying them with contributions they’ve collected from special interests and other donors.” The AP identified about 50 House members who pay their…
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