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The FOI ADVOCATEVisit the new FOI ADVOCATE Blog, the official blog of NFOIC, in which we bring news of freedom of information developments. Join us there for FOI advocacy discussions. January 9, 2007 Vol. 5, No. 4The E-Newsletter of the National Freedom of Information Coalition, a unit of the Missouri School of Journalism "A government by secrecy benefits no one. It injures the people it seeks to serve; it damages its own integrity and operation. It breeds distrust, dampens the fervor of its citizens and mocks their loyalty." -- 110 Congressional Record 17, 087 (1964) (Statement of Senator Long) NFOIC NEWS
SEND US YOUR STATE’S NEWS at daviscn@missouri.edu. “Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding."
TOP OF THE NEWSLET US COUNT THE WAYS: Just how many different ways has the Bush Administration tried to hide once-public information sources from the public record? Help us count the ways.On Friday, Justin discovered that the Department of Defense has suddenly classified the numbers of attacks in Iraq for September through November of this year -- after providing the figures for every month since the war began. Why classify the information now? If there's a good explanation, we don't know it, and the Pentagon isn't returning our calls. As others have noted, it's far from the first time that the administration has tried to deep-six data that was unhelpful to its goals. Over the years, they've discontinued annual reports, classified normally public data, de-funded studies, quieted underlings, and generally done whatever was necessary to keep bad information under wraps. Have an example? The Talking Points Memo welcomes additions to its (ever growing) list at: Help TPMmuckraker.com GENERAL FOIA NEWS“One of the things that almost never works is secrecy--particularly secrecy in defense of dumbness." The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ordered the trial court to settle factual disputes between Cox Newspapers and the Justice Department over the privacy rights of illegal immigrants convicted of a crime. At the heart of the case is whether those privacy rights outweigh the public's right to know that they have been released into the community. "We're gratified that the judges agreed with us that the trial court shouldn't have granted the government's motion for summary judgment," said Andrew Alexander, bureau chief of the Cox Washington bureau. Cox will confer with its lawyers to determine how to proceed, he said. "We continue to believe that what we're seeking is clearly in the public interest," Alexander said. "Disclosure far outweighs any privacy interests for undocumented immigrants who have been convicted of serious crimes in our courts and who have been sentenced to spend time in our jails." The information is essential for assessing whether the government is properly enforcing deportation laws, Alexander said. "At its core, the case involves a bedrock American principle that citizens should have access to information that enables them to evaluate the performance of their government," he said. Read the entire article. CHENEY VS. OPENNESS, ROUND 10,000: The Bush administration asked an appeals court yesterday to overrule a federal judge and allow the White House to keep secret any records of visitors to Vice President Dick Cheney's residence and office. To make the visitor records public would be an "unprecedented intrusion into the daily operations of the vice presidency," the Justice Department argued in a 57-page brief to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The government was responding to an October order, by U.S. District Judge Ricardo M. Urbina, to release two years of White House visitor logs to The Washington Post. The Post, researching the access that lobbyists and others had to the White House, sought Secret Service records for anyone visiting Cheney, his legal counsel, chief spokesman and other top aides and advisers. Read the entire article. SBA YANKS DATA: The Small Business Administration has removed company-specific revenue and employee figures from a public database. The online Central Contractor Registry is a searchable database of information on companies that qualify for federal small business awards. Company files contain contact information, a description of the business and other details, and -- until Dec. 12 -- a firm's three-year average annual revenue and number of employees. Now, in place of the revenue and employee numbers, the Web site offers the message: "A firm's actual revenues and number of employees are not releasable under the Freedom Of Information Act." The American Small Business League says the government removed employee and revenue from the site to avert increased scrutiny over contracting practices. The trade association advocates policies that benefit small businesses. Federal agencies are supposed to award 23 percent of the value of direct contracts to small businesses, but private research companies have found that much of the small business contracts actually go to companies that outgrew the size limits or acquired small business contracts through acquisition. "This is another attempt by the government to keep Congress, the public, and the media from being able to prove that the Pentagon, the General Services Administration, and other federal agencies have completely falsified their small business numbers for several years," says the group's president Lloyd Chapman in a statement. Read the entire article. LEAHY PROMISES OVERSIGHT, FOIA REFORM: Retail banks must begin to match the retail industry in how they interact with customer, process orders, and create relationships - or the future of banking could lead to a "powered-by" environment where banks compete for business on a per-transaction basis. This is one of the top findings from a new TowerGroup research report capturing the top 10 business drivers, strategic responses, and technology priorities for the global retail banking market in 2007. TowerGroup analysts in the areas of core banking, customer knowledge, process re-engineering, enterprise systems, delivery channels, and technology innovation believe 2007's opportunities for retail banks will be realized only through the efficient use of resources and a focus on improvement, rather than on new actions or initiatives. With society changing at an increasingly faster pace - and non-bank industries creating best-in-class products and experiences - retail banks globally must respond with innovation in the way they perform, as well as in the way existing products and services are offered, priced, and delivered to the consumer. Read the entire article. AND SPEAKING OF OVERSIGHT: Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), the chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, has created a new subcommittee that will tackle decisions made by the Bush administration regarding which government records should be made available to the public. Waxman has not released his committee's agenda for this year, and his panel has yet to organize formally, but his plan to create a subcommittee devoted to government transparency foreshadows what is expected to be a contentious debate with the administration over executive branch documents. "We have legislative jurisdiction over [the Freedom of Information Act] and some of the other issues that relate to openness in government," Waxman said yesterday. Waxman also plans to form four other new subcommittees by merging and dividing the seven subpanels that existed under Republican control of Government Reform. They will be called National Security and International Relations; Domestic Policy; Federal Workforce, Post Office and the District of Columbia; and Government Management, Organization and Procurement. Waxman and the Bush administration have tangled previously over access to sensitive White House information. Waxman has supported lawsuits filed under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to discover the interactions between industry groups and an energy task force headed by Vice President Dick Cheney before the White House unveiled its energy policy. In the interests of government transparency, in Democrats' view - or in the interests of political gain, from a Republican perspective - Waxman also could challenge the recent administration practice of reclassifying portions of the National Archives. The administration's policy of responding to FOIA information requests could also come under scrutiny. Access to the National Archives has become a touchy political issue in recent years as some documents have the potential to become big stories, such as the January 2001 memo from former counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke that warned Bush of the threat posed by al Qaeda. Read the entire article. WATCHDOG GROUP SEEKS SUBPOENAS: As federal investigators look into state hiring practices under Gov. Rod Blagojevich, the public has the right to know what kinds of questions they're asking, a watchdog group maintains in a new lawsuit. The Better Government Association of Chicago filed the Freedom of Information Act suit Thursday in Springfield against the Blagojevich administration, seeking release of subpoenas it may have received as part of an ongoing federal investigation. U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald confirmed last year his office is reviewing "very serious allegations of endemic hiring fraud'' in Blagojevich's government — an investigation that already has led to indictments of a top Blagojevich associate and others. Subpoenas are legally binding demands for information routinely issued to targets or witnesses in such investigations. Blagojevich's administration early on acknowledged receipt of federal subpoenas by state offices. But in the past year, as questions about state hiring, state contracts and campaign contributions have crept closer to Blagojevich himself, the administration has stopped discussing subpoenas in any way. Read the entire article. IN THE STATES“It's not the public's meeting. It's the school board's meeting." The Assembly, which has long resisted releasing details about such spending, disclosed the list under order from a State Supreme Court judge who ruled last month in a lawsuit brought by The Times Union of Albany. The release of the material did not end the legal battle over the information. A lawyer for the Hearst Corporation, the publisher of The Times Union, said Monday night that the format was so cumbersome and unmanageable that the company would return to court if the Assembly did not provide the information in a way that would be easier to analyze. Read the entire article. (Registration reguired) PENNSYLVANIA PAPER LOSES FIGHT FOR PHONE RECORDS: A newspaper lost its legal battle to obtain the phone records of a state lawmaker. The state Supreme Court upheld a lower court's dismissal of The Herald-Standard's lawsuit against Rep. Larry Roberts, D-Fayette. The Herald-Standard has been trying since 2000 to get cellular and long-distance phone records from Roberts, arguing they are public because the calls were paid for with state money. The paper also claimed a former Herald-Standard reporter's civil rights were violated because Roberts had shown the records to other members of the media but not to the reporter. Commonwealth Court judges dismissed the case in May without considering the reporter's claims. The Supreme Court affirmed that dismissal in a ruling last week with a one-sentence order. Publisher Val J. Laub said he was appalled at the Supreme Court's ruling. "However, behind every cloud is a silver lining and I believe that the judicial actions of our state courts will serve the media industry well by inciting newspapers across the state to continue the battle to move Pennsylvania from one of the worst states in the county for access to public records, to a much needed higher level," Laub said for Thursday's papers. Read the entire article. DELAWARE PRES HIRED IN VIOLATION OF SUNSHINE? The University of Delaware Board of Trustees hired Patrick Harker without an official meeting or public vote, which one public policy expert said violates Delaware's open meeting laws. "The Board of Trustees are covered in the Freedom of Information Act," said John Flaherty, of the government watchdog group Common Cause. "They certainly should have noticed they were going to meet, they should have given seven days notice, there should have been a public discussion at the meeting." None of those actions was taken before Harker's hiring was announced Friday. The executive committee of the university's board of trustees voted to elect Harker in a closed meeting, board chairman Howard Cosgrove said. The executive committee is authorized to act between sessions for the Board of Trustees. The full, 32-member board never met to vote on whether to hire Harker, Cosgrove said, and won't publicly discuss the issue until a scheduled Dec. 11 meeting, more than two weeks after the decision was made. "Discussions occurred at the end of the looking at the candidates, among the board members, and there was agreement among the board members," he said. "Not everyone was present, so we polled those that were not present because it's a large board and not everyone was here." Read this and this. CINCY ENQUIRER FIGHTS FOSTER RECORD DENIAL: Enquirer attorney John C. Greiner said Monday he will ask the Ohio Supreme Court to hear oral arguments in a bid to make the state reveal the identities of foster parents who are paid to look after children in trouble.. Greiner filed the action on behalf of The Enquirer after the Ohio Department of Jobs and Family Services refused to make the information public. The Enquirer asked for the data as part of an ongoing assessment of the foster system after the alleged killing of disabled 3-year-old Marcus Fiesel by his foster parents in August. “If (foster parents) are going to seek certification and the taxpayer money they get, it seems to me it’s not asking too much for the public to know who these people are,” Greiner said. The same filing asks for the release of records about Jaysen Bell, a Clermont County foster father indicted in October for on charges of rape, sexual battery, gross sexual imposition and sexual imposition involving two boys placed in his home for protection. Bell, free on a $100,000 bond, was the foster father to more than 30 children since 1999. In October, Barbara Riley, director of the social service agency, said releasing the roster of foster parents would endanger children. She issued no statement about the Supreme Court filing. “We believe our interpretation of the law protecting foster children and the addresses where they live is correct and one we will defend,” said Dennis Evans, a department spokesman. Read the entire article. ELON TO HOST NORTH CAROLINA COALITION: A new Sunshine Center at Elon University will help educate the public about the importance of open government, the university announced Thursday. Elon's School of Communications will become the academic home of the N.C. Open Government Coalition, a group of organizations promoting public access to government records and meetings. The new center is named for public records and open meetings laws, commonly known as sunshine laws. The center will open Monday. Member organizations include The Associated Press, N.C. League of Municipalities, Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation, N.C. League of Women Voters, N.C. Library Association, N.C. Press Association, N.C Lieutenant Governor's Office, John Locke Foundation, journalism schools at leading universities, major law firms, Time Warner Cable and the state's leading newspapers and broadcast stations. The center's main role is to become the state's leading resource on citizen access to the workings of government and First Amendment issues. Elon communications professors will develop teaching tools and programs to reach the public. Elon and the coalition will host North Carolina's celebration of open government with events during Sunshine Week in March. "It really ties in to what we believe and what we hope our students believe," said Paul Parsons, dean of Elon's School of Communications. "We do believe democracy functions best when government operates in the light of day." Elon will function as the educational arm of the coalition, not as an advocacy center, Parsons said. The university has been involved with the coalition since its founding and issued an invitation to host a permanent academic center for it. Read the entire article. FOIA AT WORK: DRUG TESTING THE JOCKS: He came from a stable home. Good athlete, spotless record. But when Virginia Tech drug-tested him, he showed positive for marijuana. "He swore up and down he didn't use it," said Mike Goforth, the school's director of athletic training. "I promise you I wanted to believe him. It had me tore up." This was many years ago. But Goforth can't shake the memory. "We were trying to figure out what could have went wrong (with the test)," Goforth said. "He even volunteered to take another test, and it came back positive for cocaine. You talk about blowing our minds." Virginia Tech and Virginia are among the many Division I-A sports programs that randomly test all athletes for street drugs each academic year. And for all the attention given steroids and other performance-enhancers, drugs such as marijuana and cocaine are more common among college athletes. For example, NCAA testing at its championship events in 2004-05 produced 17 positives for street drugs, two for steroids. Virginia Tech and Virginia test for steroids only on suspicion... Through the Freedom of Information Act, the Daily Press requested test results from the last five years at both schools. Virginia Tech cooperated. Virginia did not. Read the entire article. UNDER THE DOME: FOI LEGISLATIONGEORGIA BILL ON ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT BACK? The future of a proposal that would shroud certain government discussions has become something of a secret itself.Lawmakers say they aren't sure that the measure to cloak industrial-recruitment negotiations will return when the General Assembly opens its next session in January. House Speaker Glenn Richardson, R-Hiram, suggested as much earlier this year on the campaign trail. "It depends on who you talk to," said House Minority Leader DuBose Porter, D-Dublin. His party teamed up with skittish Republicans to kill the measure two years ago. Potential sponsors are backing off the idea, and Eric Johnson of Savannah, Republican leader of the Senate, has labeled the measure all but dead. If it were to come back, the measure previously known as House Bill 218 could spark renewed controversy and expose the same rifts in the GOP that surfaced in 2005. Read the entire article. INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENTSFOI AT WORK IN THE UK: More than three people a week were raped in York and North Yorkshire last year, after reported cases rose by nearly 40 per cent, dramatic new figures have revealed.Instances of blackmail have also soared, increasing almost five-fold in the past 12 months. Child abduction, sexual offences against children, and incest have also risen, as have bike thefts, car break-ins, shoplifting and a range of other crimes. The startling statistics emerged after The Press used the Freedom Of Information Act to obtain details of every offence recorded by North Yorkshire Police in the past two years, enabling us to present the most detailed ever analysis of crime in our area. The figures show that between October 2005 and September 2006, there were 23,024 crimes in York, and 55,688 across the force area as a whole - equivalent to one every nine-and-a-half minutes. Read the entire article. CANADA’S BIGGEST STORIES IN 2006, THANKS TO FOI: We wouldn't have known that school fees were illegal or that 81 Mounties were cited for misconduct in BC without the Freedom of Information Act. Campaign for Open Government, an organization dedicated to keeping government operations transparent believes we would be in the dark with out that legislation. Sergeant Schultz on the TV show Hogan's Heros used to declare "I know nothing, nothing!" That's the typical response when governments are asked about things like child death reviews or lottery retailers winning more than their statistical share of jackpots. Darrell Evans with Campaign for Open Government says although it might be in society's best interest to find out things like that, the government resists at every attempt to get to the truth. "They've doubled the amount of time they have to respond to requests, and they routinely assess large fees to discourage requesters." Read the entire article. ON THE EDITORIAL PAGESThe Des Moines Register on the University of Iowa’s secret presidential search: “In its botched search for a new president for the University of Iowa, the Board of Regents took the position that the only way to assure the very best candidates are considered for the job was by excluding the public.That's not necessarily true. Even stellar candidates might not insist on secrecy. And a new president picked with the confidence and support of the greater university community and the people of Iowa would be preferable to someone - even with arguably better credentials - who is selected in secret...” Read the editorial. The Philadelphia Inquirer on the abuse of terrorism as a label: Two years ago, debris in the Delaware River punctured the hull of the Athos I as the oil tanker headed for Citgo's asphalt refinery in Paulsboro. The vessel spilled 265,000 gallons of heavy crude into the river, fouling 115 miles of shoreline, killing wildlife, and leaving unknown consequences for the river's health. A few months after the spill, we at the Work Environment Council asked the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection whether we could review the refinery's required spill-prevention and cleanup plan. The DEP said we couldn't see the information, citing the risk of terrorism. It changed its mind only after we threatened to call the press. The incident is one example of how the state government - pushed by the chemical industry - has used the fear of terrorism since 9/11 to restrict public access to important information about hazardous substances in their midst, and to spill-prevention and cleanup plans. Unfortunately, there is a new attempt to restrict information in the name of security. Buried in a lengthy DEP-proposed rule is language that would allow oil and chemical executives to keep secret key information that the public needs for environmental protection. Under the proposal, corporations may stamp "Confidential" on reports concerning corrosion of chemical storage tanks, worker training, and disposal options for contaminated soil from pipeline spill cleanups. The same DEP division charged with providing right-to-know information would, under these Spill Act rules, allow companies to keep secret the "types of hazardous substances present at a facility." Read the editorial. The Pennsylvania Newspaper Association’s Teri Henning on the need for reform: It is well understood that Pennsylvania has one of the worst open records laws in the country. In state-by-state surveys of open records laws, Pennsylvania generally falls within the bottom two or three. What that means for Pennsylvania residents is that we are often unable to monitor the work of our local and state governments or to hold them accountable for their decisions. And it seems to get harder every day. Laws continue to be passed that prevent access to information, as with the recent slots law — which exempts much applicant information from disclosure and allows the applicants themselves to designate documents as “confidential.” Recent court decisions have further limited access, as the Pennsylvania appellate courts have ruled that an agency can refuse access to almost all of the information on public officials’ cell phone bills and on legal invoices submitted to agencies. In 2001, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that a document that supported the payment of $145 million from public funds to settle a lawsuit was not a public record. The courts have also ruled that the public has no right to a draft contract or proposal until the contract or proposal is finalized — which is obviously too late for the public to comment. Read the editorial. The Lansing, Mich., State Journal on a new exemption: “Michigan lawmakers who made Senate Bill 647 into law last month - both Democrat and Republican - would have you believe it is a pro-police measure. It is, in reality, a pro-police union measure, one that places unions' employment interests over the public's right to know. The law seals off from public view statements compelled from law officers during internal investigations - regardless of what those statements might tell us about the fitness or behavior of a particular officer. (Officers refusing to cooperate in internal investigations can face the loss of their jobs.) It's disappointing that almost the entire government of Michigan backed this bill. Gov. Jennifer Granholm signed it Dec. 28, after it received a 106-0 vote in the House and a 30-7 vote in the Senate. (Every member of the mid-Michigan delegation backed it, from state Sen. Gretchen Whitmer, D-East Lansing, to state Rep. Rick Jones, R-Grand Ledge.)...” Subscribing to The ADVOCATE LISTSERVTo subscribe:
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