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The FOI ADVOCATEJune 4, 2006 Vol. 4, No. 30The 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 NEWSSEND 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." -- Justice Louis Brandeis, 1928 (Articles link to external sites) ANTITERROR, IRAQ, ETC.“The danger to political dissent is acute where the government attempts to act under so vague a concept as the power to protect domestic security.’ Given the difficulty of defining the domestic security interest, the danger of abuse in acting to protect that interest becomes apparent.” -- The ACLU quoting a 1972 United States Supreme Court opinion in United States v. United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan,407 U.S. 297 (1972), which re-emerged in the news recently after Justice Department lawyers blacked it out in filings in a Patriot Act case. For the evidence, see a portion of the ACLU's court filing after the Justice Dept was allowed to censor it. PENTAGON RELEASES 9/11 VIDEO:The Pentagon on Tuesday released the first video images of American Airlines Flight 77 crashing into the military headquarters building and killing 189 people in the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. GENERAL FOIA NEWSFOI AT WORK: MENTALLY UNFIT BUT FIGHTING ANYWAY: Despite a congressional order that the military assess the mental health of all deploying troops, fewer than 1 in 300 service members see a mental health professional before shipping out. Once at war, some unstable troops are kept on the front lines while on potent antidepressants and anti-anxiety drugs, with little or no counseling or medical monitoring. And some troops who developed post-traumatic stress disorder after serving in Iraq are being sent back to the war zone, increasing the risk to their mental health. These practices, which have received little public scrutiny and in some cases violate the military's own policies, have helped to fuel an increase in the suicide rate among troops serving in Iraq, which reached an all-time high in 2005 when 22 soldiers killed themselves - accounting for nearly one in five of all Army non-combat deaths. The Courant's investigation found that at least 11 service members who committed suicide in Iraq in 2004 and 2005 were kept on duty despite exhibiting signs of significant psychological distress. In at least seven of the cases, superiors were aware of the problems, military investigative records and interviews with families indicate. ROBERTS’ AFFIRMATIVE ACTION FILE RAISES EYEBROWS: Last summer, during the pre-confirmation body-cavity search of Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, a Roberts-related file at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library went missing. The file was marked "affirmative action" and presumably contained something on that topic written by Roberts—who is known to be extremely hostile to affirmative action—when he worked in the Reagan White House counsel's office. Although the file disappeared after a White House employee and two assistants vetted the Roberts-related files, National Archives officials assured reporters that no one had been permitted to bring bags into the room with the documents and no one was left alone with the documents. (We know the visitors were a White House employee and two assistants because that's how they're described in a separate document from the inspector general's office.) That turns out not to be true. The Web site The Memory Hole (www.thememoryhole.org) has now posted a report from the National Archives' inspector general, vast portions of which have been blacked out prior to its public release. The report clearly states that the White House visitors were allowed to bring personal items into the room where they examined the documents, and further were left alone whenever they needed to talk to the White House about what they were finding. One of these Bush White House employees, the report says, was the last known person to see the missing file. But the Bushies deny they pinched it. PETA SUES AG OVER ACCESS TO INVESTIGATIVE RECORDS: PETA filed a lawsuit in the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia against the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) for withholding vital information from documents requested under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) that pertain to investigations of incidents involving the suffering and deaths of animals. Specifically, the USDA has begun withholding documents that contain statements from witnesses and the agency’s investigators, claiming that it is protecting their "privacy." PETA points out that the FOIA requires the release of the statements and that, in any event, the public’s right to know outweighs any "privacy" interests. Withholding such information makes it nearly impossible for PETA to monitor compliance with federal laws or build a criminal case to take to law enforcement officials, PETA argues. PROPAGANDA, NEWS CONTROLDARE NOT SPEAKETH OF SALMON: The Bush administration -- having made it hard for federal scientists to talk publicly about global warming -- appears to have decided that loose lips are also bad when they talk about salmon. The Washington office of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration -- the agency responsible for protecting endangered salmon -- has instructed its representatives and scientists in the West to route media questions about salmon back to headquarters. Only three people in the entire agency, all of them political appointees, are now authorized to speak of salmon, according to a NOAA employee who has been silenced on the fish. The order was issued the day after an article appeared last month in The Washington Post quoting federal technocrats making positive statements about two recent decisions -- one by a federal judge, the other by federal scientists -- that challenged previous Bush administration policy about protecting salmon in the troubled Klamath River, which flows out of Oregon into California. IN THE STATES“It's not the public's meeting. It's the school board's meeting." -- Hampshire County, W.Va. School board attorney Norwood Bentley From the First Amendment Center SF CHRONICLE WANTS PAY MEETING OPEN: The Chronicle has notified the University of California that it will ask an Alameda County judge today to order a UC Board of Regents committee to meet in public next week when it votes on pay proposals for high-ranking officials, according to the newspaper's lawyers. In a suit to be filed in Superior Court, The Chronicle argues that a closed-door committee meeting scheduled next Wednesday violates the state's open-meeting laws. The newspaper's lawyers plan to ask for a court order at a hearing today to require a public session. UC's "top management has been acting as if the university is a privately held company and it can spend money as it sees fit and make compensation decisions behind closed doors, with occasional rubber-stamp approval from the regents,'' Karl Olson, a lawyer for The Chronicle, said Thursday. "But UC is a public trust, and its actions have to be taken openly.'' In response, the university's general counsel, James Holst, said the law -- which requires open meetings on any "action by the regents'' affecting the pay of certain executives -- applies only to the final vote on pay at a meeting of the full Board of Regents. The committee "merely considers and makes a recommendation to the board'' and thus may meet in closed session, Holst said. He said he disagreed with a contrary conclusion by the state's legislative counsel, the Legislature's legal adviser. Read the entire article.FOI AT WORK: GEORGIA SUPERINTENDENTS PERKS REVEALED: Base pay for metro Atlanta-area school district superintendents is on par with similar size districts nationally, but there are hidden perks, a report says. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution recently analyzed 14 area superintendents' contracts and found all made more in base pay than the governor of Georgia. But contracts include various incentives, expense accounts and perks that don't show up in clear language, creating criticism for the lack of transparency, although not for pay, the newspaper said. A Freedom of Information Act request by the Journal-Constitution found perks ranged from $7,800 for the head of Coweta schools to an added $108,300 for Atlanta's chief. Karon Williams, a mother of two Fulton County schools students, said paying superintendents what they are worth is one thing, but "to make it unclear -- I have an issue with that." Read the entire article. WHAT GOES ON IN EXECUTIVE SESSION... After heated debate over free speech versus the right to keep certain information private, the Independence, Kentucky, City Council adopted an ordinance that could subject to fines anyone who reveals conversations that took place in a closed session of council. Critics said fining anyone who reveals anything about government actions would dampen free debate and discourage whistleblowers. Proponents said the ordinance, adopted 4-2, protects the city and taxpayers from a breach of sensitive information that could adversely affect the city. Under the ordinance, a person charged with discussing information from an executive session of council would get a hearing before the city ethics board. The board could levy a fine of up to $250. Tattling on closed sessions could result in fine Executive session ordinance passes This apparently is a trend worth watching: The public consents to government secrecy Blowing whistle on whistle-blowers? Silence Is Not So Golden To Council A FUN FOI AUDIT! In February and March, Houston Press reporter Keith Plocek drove 1,683 miles in Harris and its surrounding seven counties, visiting 63 school districts to test for compliance with the Texas Public Information Act. The trip wasn't without complications. Keith got lost in Magnolia and was pulled over in Angleton, and halfway through the journey he realized different districts take different weeks off for spring break, which was a real kink. But after visiting all 63 of them, here's what he found: • 44 percent of districts violated the part of the public information act that prohibits them from inquiring why the information is being requested. • 30 percent of districts incorrectly said they had ten business days to fulfill the request. The public information act does mention ten days, but requests should be fulfilled "promptly." • 10 percent of districts did not respond at all. • Charges for the information varied widely from district to district, ranging from zero to $34. Read the entire article ALASKA GUV SUED BY STATE SENATOR FOR PIPELINE DEAL: Alaska's governor unveiled information about the state's multi-billion dollar deal for a new natural gas pipeline last week in compliance with a court order in a state lawmaker's open records lawsuit. Superior Court Judge Larry Weeks of Juneau ordered Gov. Frank Murkowski to release details of the natural gas pipeline contract his office says it negotiated with BP, Conoco-Phillips and ExxonMobil Corp. -- the state's three biggest oil companies. The governor's office provided the 320-page agreement, which will not be finalized until it wins approval from the state Legislature, said Mark Morones, a spokesman for the state Department of Law. "It has been posted [on the Internet] and widely spread to the Legislature and the public," he said. The proposed pipeline would carry natural gas 3,000 miles from Alaska's North Slope to the lower 48 states. Murkowski began negotiating the deal two years ago and publicly announced an agreement in February. In a statement, he announced that the deal could bring as much as $129 billion in revenue to the state and, conservatively, as little as $26 billion. State Sen. Hollis French, an Anchorage Democrat, sued under the state's open records law when he noticed that a related oil tax measure was before the Legislature and would be tied to the pipeline contract. "We examined the oil tax but couldn't see the contract to which it was linked," he said. "With two weeks left in the session, I had no choice but to go to court." Read the entire article. A NICE LOOK AT FEES IN MICHIGAN: Every community has gadflies and self-appointed political watchdogs, but few residents monitor government like Joyce Fitch. From the computer in her Sterling Heights home, Fitch reaches out over the Internet and grabs any and all information she can about her local government. And when computers can't produce what she's after, she does it the old-fashioned way -- she fires off a Freedom of Information Act request. That's why she's upset that the city recently raised its copying fees for FOIA requests from 25 cents to 30 cents a page -- after a first-page cost of $1.60. Fitch said she worries the nickel-and-diming adds up to an effort to thwart residents' right to know what their elected officials are doing. "We have the right to access the public records our tax dollars paid for … at the actual cost," said Fitch, who has filed FOIA requests for information such as City Council members' city-owned cell phone bills. Michigan's Freedom of Information Act, a law ensuring citizen access to public records, allows government bodies to assess costs "limited to actual duplication, mailing and labor." But a check of FOIA copying costs from municipalities around Metro Detroit shows a wide range of fees for the same type of work. Copying a single page in Livonia, for example, costs 10 cents, while the same page in Grosse Pointe Woods costs $5... Read the entire article. IN THE STATEHOUSES: UPDATES ON FOI LEGISLATION"I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations." --James Madison, speech in the Virginia Convention, June 16, 1788 NEW YORK PONDERS OPENING THE LEGISLATURE: Should the state Legislature have to live by the same Freedom of Information Law that applies to state agencies and local governments? INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENTS
FOI IN IRELAND DROPS: Use of the Republic's Freedom of Information Act by Irish journalists has declined to an all-time low. ON THE EDITORIAL PAGESThe Lansing, Mich., State Journal on concealed weapon permit secrecy: “The Michigan House now has a bill that would hide another government function from public scrutiny, a bill that would make public officials less accountable. And all, we are told, in the name of personal privacy. Subscribing to The ADVOCATE LISTSERVTo subscribe:
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