Complying with the 1966 Freedom of Information Act these days is a hugely complex technological feat that goes far beyond filing cabinets, good judgment and black markers.
One trick to organizing and handling mind-boggling numbers of documents is keeping in mind the requesters' needs, according to experts looking to make this government service more effective.
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Read More… from Tangled up in FOIA requests, agencies turn to technology
What's your dragon attack plan?
Freedom of Information Acts are a powerful transparency tool between governments and constituents. But they can also yield to some pretty freaky inquiries–as we found out Saturday when an organization of local governments representing more than 350 councils in England and Wales released a list of the most unusual requests they had received so far this year
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Read More… from These Are Some of the Weirdest FOIA Requests Fielded This Year in the UK
The campaign of state Rep. TOM CROSS for state treasurer thinks it is not fair that freedom of information requests to the House and Senate have been handled very differently.
The office of the House clerk released hundreds of pages of documents about the 21 years spent by Cross, a Republican from Oswego, in the Illinois House. Among those asking for the documents was ZACH KOUTSKY, campaign manager for state Sen. MIKE FRERICHS, D-Champaign, who is the Democratic candidate for treasurer.
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Read More… from IL House, Senate seem to handle info requests differently
In Gainesville, Fla., it doesn’t take a Freedom of Information request to find out what city officials are chattering about on email. One merely has to go online and read them.
That city recently began posting email correspondence about public business to and from the mayor and the city commissioners. There may be other localities doing it as well, but this is the first one that’s been brought to my attention.
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From MuckRock: A veritable FOIA frenzy ensued in 2013 following a series of leaks about NSA surveillance programs, recently released documents show.
From June 6 to September 4, the National Security Agency’s FOIA load increased 1,054 percent over its 2012 intake. In that three-month span, the agency received 3,382 public records requests. For comparison, the NSA received just 293 requests over the same period in 2012.
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Read More… from NSA inundated by FOIA requests after Snowden leaks
From Mitchell Daily Republic: HURON — An agreement that remained secret for more than two years and sent thousands of dollars to an ex-superintendent was unsealed and read aloud Monday evening at a Huron Board of Education meeting .
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Read More… from Secret Huron superintendent agreement opened, read aloud
From Mitchell Daily Republic: HURON — A copy of a secret agreement that directed nearly $175,000 to an ex-superintendent of the Huron School District must be provided to The Daily Republic, a judge ruled Wednesday.
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In a four-page decision, Third Circuit Judge Jon Erickson said the district must release a copy of the settlement agreement between it and ex-superintendent Ross Opsal.
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Read More… from Mitchell Daily Republic wins case against Huron (S.D.) schools
From Idea Lab: New technology tools, combined with raised expectations among voters and stakeholders for government transparency, have sparked a movement toward “open government.” Championed by advocacy organizations and a few high-profile elected officials, the trend seeks to promote greater accountability and responsiveness for the systems of representative democracy. An area of particular opportunity — as well as potential concern — is the growing cache of large datasets of public information now available on the Internet.
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Read More… from Public Open Data: The Good, the Bad, the Future
From Courthouse News Service: Though makers of the film "Zero Dark Thirty" were given access to the officers who helped take out Osama bin Laden, a government watchdog cannot get the same treatment, a federal judge ruled.
A few months after a team of Navy Seals killed Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan, on May 2, 2011, Judicial Watch learned that the Defense Department and CIA had been communicating with director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal.
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Read More… from Talks behind ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ will stay secret
