Business Briefs: May 7, 2011 St. Augustine Record The St. Augustine Beach City Commission has asked city attorney Douglas N. Burnett of St. Johns Law Group to teach a seminar on Florida's Public Records Act and the Sunshine Law at 7 pm on May 9 at the St. Augustine Beach City Hall. ...

Information redacted in Citadel thefts Charleston Post Courier The Citadel Public Safety Department appears to have violated the state's Freedom of Information Act by blacking out information on an incident report involving the theft of more than $5000 worth of computers and electronics, ... and more »

Polls: Aggrieved parties, candidates storm tribunals Vanguard BY CLIFFORD NDUJIHE, deputy political editor AFTER rain comes sunshine, so goes the saying. By analogy, after elections come election petitions and the Nigerian polity is about to witness another torrent of petitions after the 2011 elections. ... and more »

Courthouse News Service

ACLU sues US for not providing information about how FBI collects ethnic data ... The Star-Ledger - NJ.com The lawsuit — brought by the ACLU's New Jersey division and its national office in New York — comes after the New Jersey division filed a Freedom of Information Act request last July seeking the information, said Nusrat Choudhury, an attorney with ... NJ ACLU suing FBI, Justice Department over data collectionNorthJersey.com ACLU sues in NJ over FBI ethnic data collectionBusinessWeek Civil organization sues FBI over data collectionPress TV all 17 news articles »

City of Danville releases list of positions eliminated WSLS By GoDanRiver Staff The city of Danville released the specific positions eliminated in April's layoff of 13 employees after a Virginia Freedom of Information Act requests by local media. Danville wanted to begin downsizing the city government before ... and more »

Freedom of information Irish Times AMENDMENTS TO the Freedom of Information Act are being considered within the Department of Finance. As one of the most secretive of all government departments, its officials are likely to favour minimal change rather than reinstatement of the Act's ...

The Two Tribes of Open Government? Huffington Post (blog) I thought "open government" was such a simple concept -- that the "what" and the "why" were not really complicated. We want to see what the government is doing so that we can make sure it is doing it well and doing it for the right ... Whatever Happened to Obama's Open Government Pledge?WNYC (blog) all 2 news articles »

Our Public Records Law's Major Flaw The Bay Citizen (blog) As I mentioned in my last post, agencies can legally say no to some records requests because of exemptions built into sunshine laws, but sometimes the person requesting the records will disagree with a denial, redaction or hefty fee. ...

Judge sets June 30 date for Bert Fish hospital to undo merger with Adventist Orlando Sentinel Circuit Judge Richard Graham ordered the hospital to separate from Adventist Health System, ruling that their $80 million merger was negotiated in closed meetings that violated Florida's Government in the Sunshine law and that a second merger handled ...

Court Slams FBI For Saying It's Okay For The Federal Government To Lie To A Court Techdirt A few months back, we pointed out how the EFF had discovered that the FBI was extremely arbitrary in how it redacted information on Freedom of Information Act requests. There are specific rules about what should be redacted and what should be allowed. ... Top Three FOIA Cases Balance Public's Right to Know, Government's Right to ProtectAssociated Content all 2 news articles »

Q&A: Garcia Speaks Out Patch.com The results of a Freedom of Information Act request were released this week. How do you respond to the allegations being made against you? Garcia: When people take things out of context they can spin things out of control. Have things changed since you ... and more »

BBC News

Climategate scientists 'too secretive and may have broken Freedom of ... Daily Mail It is thought that the theft was motivated by the CRU's repeated refusals to provide detailed information about the data underlying its temperature records. The files showed scientists plotting how to avoid Freedom of Information requests and appeared ... Climate reviews 'leave science ok'BBC News all 4 news articles »

Three weeks ago we launched our Who Has Your Back campaign, calling on companies to stand with their users when the government comes asking for users' data. We chose twelve companies we were most concerned about, including the three largest social networking sites, the three largest web email providers, and the three largest Internet service providers in the United States. And then we added three more companies that we believe are vital players holding sensitive consumer data: Apple, Amazon, and Skype.

Now it’s your turn.

Tell EFF which company you think we should add to our list. It can be any Internet company that has a significant physical presence or user base in the U.S. (so that it's covered by U.S. laws). It can be a file sharing service, an online chat service, a social network – any company holding your data that should stand by your side and support your rights. Based on your suggestions, we'll add a 13th company to our petition.

How to send your suggestions:

• Via Twitter or Identi.ca: send a message to EFF using the hashtag #standwithme.
  Example Tweet: "Hey @eff – tell @Dropbox to #standwithme"
• Via Facebook: post a message on our wall.
  Example Facebook post: EFF, add PayPal to your "Who Has Your Back?" campaign!

If you don't use these social networking sites, you can still participate! Just send an email to action@eff.org and list the name of the company in the subject line of your email.

Based on your suggestions and our own analysis, we'll pick two of the companies and hold a run-off. And you, the user, will get to choose the 13th company in our campaign.

So make your voice heard. Send us a tweet, a Facebook post, or an email today.

The county released records Thursday related to former Prosecutor John Bujak’s contract with Nampa, including a transaction history of a trust account Bujak used to manage the funds. Nampan Bob Henry, who sued the county last year for release of financial documents related to the contract, said the documents provided further vindication for his position that the contract should have been handled openly. From the Idaho Press-Tribune

For Immediate Release: May 6, 2011 Washington, D.C. — The sealing of court records and proceedings in an Ohio corruption case was not only unconstitutional, but also unnecessary to ensure . . .

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued two new standards May 4 intended to protect Americans from potentially contaminated foreign food. From the agency:

The first rule strengthens FDA’s ability to prevent potentially unsafe food from entering commerce. It allows the FDA to administratively detain food the agency believes has been produced under insanitary or unsafe conditions. Previously, the FDA’s ability to detain food products applied only when the agency had credible evidence that a food product presented was contaminated or mislabeled in a way that presented a threat of serious adverse health consequences or death to humans or animals. [...]

The second rule requires anyone importing food into the United States to inform the FDA if any country has refused entry to the same product, including food for animals. This new requirement will provide the agency with more information about foods that are being imported, which improves the FDA’s ability to target foods that may pose a significant risk to public health. 

These are the kinds of commonsense safeguards that we should expect from our government. If a government scientist or other expert suspects that food could be dangerous, he or she should be able to check it out. And at the risk of sounding ignorantly American, if food isn’t good enough for another country, it shouldn’t be good enough for the U.S.

Foodborne illness sickens one in six Americans, hospitalizes 128,000, and kills 3,000 every year, according to the CDC. It’s one of those hazards that we can’t be expected to protect ourselves from without help – help that can come in the form of safeguards established by the FDA and other agencies.

The standards, both issued as interim final rules, are the first display of FDA’s enhanced rulemaking authority provided by the Food Safety Modernization Act, a sweeping food safety reform package signed into law in January after months of legislative deal-making. The rules are effective July 3.

By Paul Thacker Some of the most prestigious medical professional societies and patient advocacy groups may actually be little more than industry mouthpieces, pushing for expensive drugs and unneeded surgeries. That’s the subtext of a slew of investigative stories released...

By Nick Schwellenbach Every Friday, POGO will strive to make one document available that we or others have obtained through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), especially documents that have not previously been posted online. Some of these documents will...

By Mandy Smithberger The DEW Line's Stephen Trimble broke the news that the F-22 fleet is standing down "until further notice" due to concerns about a glitch in the on board oxygen system after pilots complained about hypoxia and decompression...

The Issues: Can City Hall Be More Transparent? Patch.com City should use or expand its usage of technological open government solutions such as the city's website and more focused web pages showing the city's expenditures such as “Where Your Taxes Go”. City should continue using independent and inquiring ... and more »

Whatever Happened to Obama's Open Government Pledge? WNYC (blog) (Peter Souza /White House Flickr) Obama has had a problem with open government advocates since taking office because his actions in office don't quite meet with the rhetoric of his campaign. In some cases this isn't exactly fair, given that the ...

A Victory For Open Government Shepherdstown Observer They believed that a free press should shine light on the workings of government and hold elected officials and bureaucrats accountable to the people. But that light depends on the willingness of people with information to step forward. ... and more »

Press TV

NJ ACLU suing FBI, Justice Department over data collection NorthJersey.com The ACLU's New Jersey chapter filed a Freedom of Information Act request last July seeking records concerning the FBI's use of race and ethnicity data to map local communities under the Domestic Intelligence Operations Guide. The public is increasingly ... ACLU sues in NJ over FBI ethnic data collectionBusinessWeek all 15 news articles »

Sunlight Foundation's Political Party Time: Glee! The Fundraiser

Sunlight Foundation: Monitor Group Admits Violating FARA Law

Unable to pinpoint responsibility for an “unwritten” policy  that resulted in the dumping of Liberty, a conservative newspaper at Oregon State University, the newspaper editors seem likely to lose their bid for compensatory damages. After the incident, the university changed their policy to allow equal access on campus to all newspapers. A federal district court [...]

After donating over a $1 million to a business lobby and $1 million to the Republican Governors Association during the mid term national elections, News Corp. which owns Fox News, has pledged to publicly disclose their donations on their corporate web site. In the interim, News Corp. will also disclose political donations from January through [...]

A FAC led amicus brief joined by more than 90 newspapers and other publications was filed Thursday in an appeal of a Brown Act law suit involving  the Tulare County Board of Supervisors.  The suit challenges the supervisors’ practice of holding lunchtime meetings–regularly and often–that were nonpublic and held without notification to the public or [...]

Two Texas school districts in Fort Worth and Baytown said they will no longer block students from accessing gay, bisexual and transgender content on the Web. After the American Civil Liberties Union challenged the districts, they investigated and found that the filters blocked educational information not sexually explicit. -db From the Courthouse News Service, May [...]

The broad implications of the death of Osama bin Laden were discussed in a new report from the Congressional Research Service.  The report does not contain any new factual information or much in the way of new analysis.  Rather, it presents an account of the policy questions arising from bin Laden’s death that may warrant [...]

By every available measure, the level of domestic intelligence surveillance activity in 2010 increased from the year before, according to a new Justice Department report to Congress on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. “During calendar year 2010, the Government made 1,579 applications to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (hereinafter ‘FISC’) for authority to conduct electronic [...]

Where there's smoke, there's fire. POGO's Morning Smoke is a collection of the freshest investigations, scoops, and opinions related to the world of government oversight. Have a story you'd like to see included? Contact POGO's blog editor. Defense Grounded! Stealth...

(Pardon the sarcasm, but some things are so absurd that there is no other way to communicate them.)

Legal fight is about principle Visalia Times-Delta California is at a crossroads regarding the principles of open government: Do we uphold the right of the people to know what their government is doing? Or do we allow elected leaders to operate in secret? More than 100 newspapers filed ... and more »

Kentucky auditor candidates call for more transparency Louisville Courier-Journal The two Republican candidates for state auditor are calling for greater transparency and more scrutiny of spending as part of a conservative vision for a leaner and more open government. State Rep. Addia Wuchner of Burlington and John T. Kemper III, ... and more »

GrillSmith flap pits parents against school leaders Tbo.com Public officials are bound by ethics and procedures outlined in Florida's Government in The Sunshine Law, including one that prohibits them from meeting, formally or casually, to discuss items they will take action on. But there is no law against ... and more »

Starpulse.com

Happy 50th: George Clooney Is a True Star & Class Act At 50 Starpulse.com Dividing his time between a sumptuous villa on the shores of Lake Como, Italy, and the sunshine city of Los Angeles, few can question Clooney's earned and deserves the superstar life he has. A-List Actor, Writer, Director, Producer, Activist, ... and more »

Maplewood Council's E-Discussions Violate Law, Media Experts Say Patch.com It's a practice that violates the Missouri Sunshine Law, media law experts say. The most recent example was in late March, when the council staged a lengthy email discussion about banning the “open carry” of firearms in the city. ...

'Freedom of Information is not for us' – housing charity Westminster Community ... West End Extra A CHARITY controlled by City Hall is under pressure from opposition councillors to be more transparent after its chairman declared it was not subject to Freedom of Information (FoI) requests. Westminster Community Homes (WCH) was set up by ...

ACLU sues in NJ over FBI ethnic data collection BusinessWeek In the complaint filed in US District Court in Newark, the ACLU said it filed a Freedom of Information Act request in July seeking the release of records about the FBI's "mapping" of local communities under the Domestic Intelligence Operations Guide. ... and more »

Freedom of Information Act inquiry ducks FOIA requests Register The Information Commissioner's Office said that CRU had breached Section 77 of the Data Protection Act, which highlighted a loophole it wanted to see plugged. (The University would later make a pledge (PDF) to the ICO to mend its ways). ...

Sunlight Labs: Open States Reaches Halfway Mark

Sunlight Foundation Reporting Group: Senate wants to "check in" on mobile developments

Welcome to the FOIA blog! The FOIA blog was established since August of 2006 and is solely mine. I am Scott Hodes, a FOIA attorney based in Washington D.C. You can find out much more about my law practice at...

Gonzales balances AP request on bin Laden photos with national security MYfoxLUBBOCK.COM The Associated Press has filed, under the Freedom of Information Act, a request for the pictures of Osama bin Laden's body. Former Attorney General and current Texas Tech professor Alberto Gonzales explains the balance the government walks between ... Could FOIA Suit Force Release of Bin Laden Photos?ABA Journal bin Laden Photo and FOIA - Obama Gets Best of Both Worlds, Says Law ProfPRLog.Org (press release) Want Osama Pictures? Better Ask A Lawyer.Above the Law Glens Falls Post-Star (blog) -Nieman Watchdog (blog) all 7 news articles »

Kansas City Star

In the Nation | Philadelphia Inquirer | 2011-05-06 Philadelphia Inquirer WASHINGTON - A federal commission Thursday recommended construction of a museum on the National Mall honoring the history of American Latinos. The commission submitted a report to Congress and the White House outlining details of the proposed $600 ... Locals welcome call for national Latino museumSan Gabriel Valley Tribune Commission recommends museum honoring US LatinosLos Angeles Times Commission seeks congressional support for Latino museumFox News MiamiHerald.com -Art Daily -NBC Washington all 445 news articles »

Govt CIOs to outline key IT projects The Australian It advised government agency CIOs to study the draft in conjunction with the government cloud computing framework and declaration of open government, in order to gauge the impact over the next three years.

Editorial: Pass Ron Paul's 'Audit the Fed' bill OCRegister Free government is open government. Citizens need to know what's going on in their government to make informed decisions on Election Day. But there is one major, nondefense sector of the federal government that never has been completely audited: the ...

Group dinner challenged Tbo.com Public officials are bound by ethics and procedures outlined in Florida's Government-in-the-Sunshine Law, including one that prohibits them from meeting, formally or casually, to discuss matters they will take action on. But there is no law against ... and more »

PAs still not toeing FOI line Cayman News Service (CNS):The information commissioner said public authorities are still not following the proper processes in connection with the Freedom of Information law and still trying to keep information under wraps. In her eleventh decision, as she ordered the ... Fire station assault report ordered releasedCaymanian Compass all 2 news articles »