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Posts Tagged ‘government’
Tips for keeping an eye on public spending
By Kasia Kovacs TIPSHEET View presentations from Joanna Lin and Cezary Podkul. Journalists didn’t have to look far to prove that Illinois Congressman Aaron Schock was using taxpayer money to pay for surfing in Waikiki, parasailing in Argentina and renovating his office with Downtown Abbey flair. All the reporters had to do? Check Schock’s Instagram account. …
Read MoreOMB to release largest index of government data in the world
By Matt Rumsey, Sunlight Foundation On Feb. 6, the Office of Management and Budget sent a letter to the Sunlight Foundation explaining how it planned to comply with our FOIA request for Enterprise Data Inventories. These inventories are compiled by 24 federal agencies as part of President Barack Obama’s 2013 open data executive order. The…
Read MoreWebinar to highlight new data set on campaign advertising
Got a big election on your horizon in 2016 or even 2015? Join us for a free webinar Thursday and to get a sneak preview of an unprecedentedly detailed data set that the Internet Archive, the Sunlight Foundation and Philadelphia’s Committee of Seventy compiled on political ads in Philadelphia this fall. They’ll be releasing data…
Read MoreNew York newspaper asks judge to force release of license plate data
The Democrat & Chronicle is fighting a county’s denial to provide license plate information about seven newspaper employees and a couple government-owned vehicles, the paper reports. The Rochester, New York-based paper has reported that Monroe County is indiscriminately amassing license-plate information from high-speed cameras. During the summer, a reporter filed a Freedom of Information Law…
Read MoreJudge lifts court order against Ala. newspaper
An Alabama judge has lifted a temporary restraining order banning the Montgomery Advertiser from publishing public documents it obtained from a gas company. The newspaper had obtained, through an open records request to the state’s Public Service Commission, a copy of Alabama Gas Corp.’s Integrity Management Plan, which contained information about the age and condition…
Read MoreMississippi town could make text messages readily available
A town in Mississippi could soon become the first in the state to archive and make available the text messages of public officials, according to the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal. The pending policy comes in response to a Mississippi Ethic Commission ruling against Tupelo, after the city had denied the Daily Journal text messages between…
Read MoreAppeals court upholds denial of FOIA request for detainee’s photo
A U.S. Court of Appeals upheld a Freedom of Information Act request denial to grant photos and other materials showing Guantanamo Bay prisoner Mohammed al-Qahtani to the Center for Constitutional Rights. Al-Qahtani is the alleged would-be 20th hijacker on 9/11 and one of the highest profile U.S. detainees at Guantanamo Bay. The panel ruled that…
Read MoreNPR releases militarization data ahead of White House analysis
NPR has released analyzed data that shows every military item shipped to local, state and federal agencies from 2006 through April 23, 2014, as a part of the 1033 program. The items from the Pentagon’s Law Enforcement Support Office include mine-resistant, ambush-protected vehicles (MRAPs) and assault rifles, among other things. NPR’s analysis also identifies the…
Read MoreDo police have to release the name of the officer involved in the Ferguson, Mo. shooting?
We’ve been getting a lot of questions about the Ferguson, Missouri police department’s decision not to release the name of the officer involved in the fatal shooting of 18-year-old Mike Brown. To get some legal answers, we turned to professor Sandy Davidson, who teaches communications law at the Missouri School of Journalism. Here’s what you…
Read MoreCuomo administration policy allows state to delete emails of government employees
According to WNYC, “New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s administration — which the governor pledged would be the most transparent in state history — has quietly adopted policies that allow it to purge the emails of tens of thousands of state employees, cutting off a key avenue for understanding and investigating state government.” “Last year,…
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