Public records

President Bush has ordered federal agencies to respond to recent recommendations that address how to more efficiently declassify documents.

The Pennsylvania Senate today unanimously passed a bill to improve the state's open records law. 

A Vermont District Court judge said that he thinks video and audio recordings of interactions the police had with a murder suspect are a matter of public interest that should be released. 

The suspect, Brian Rooney, is charged with the killing of University of Vermont senior Michelle Gardner-Quinn. The material in question covers interviews between the police and the suspect from the time Gardner-Quinn disappeared to when her body was found six days later. 

The Detroit Free Press' marvelous investigation into the veracity, or lack thereof, of testimony by Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and Chief of Staff Christine Beatty during a multi-million dollar whistleblower retaliation trial was all made possible due to Michigan's open records laws, and The Free Press' dogged pursuit under the law to obtain these public employee's text messages. 

In a strange development within an even stranger case, a Tennessee chancellor ruled that a tape featuring the "graphic fantasies" recorded by a former county judge should not be disclosed to the public, according to a report by the Chattanooga Times Free Press.

In response to harsh criticism over his administration's e-mail retention policies, Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt is instituting a new e-mail archive system that is expected to cost about $2 million in its first year, the Associated Press reports.

It's shocking and frankly sad to finally learn what the owners of the Crandall Canyon Mine knew or should have known about the cause of the mine collapse that ultimately claimed the lives of nine people involved in the disaster.

The University of Virginia has won the support of two state lawmakers to introduce legislation that would allow the school to keep private the names of donors who ask for anonymity when making gifts.

If enacted, the bill would grant the school an exemption under the Freedom of Information Act to withhold an indeterminate amount of information about their donors.

Texas Sen. John Cornyn (R) said Tuesday that he intends to sponsor legislation to make government spending information more accessible to the public.

Cornyn's proposal calls for expanding the federal government's spending Web site, which allows visitors to search federal contracts and grants. According to the Associated Press, a pilot program would give Americans the option of searching for such expenditures as government staff salaries and travel costs.

West Virginia's Supreme Court agreed to hear the city of Charleston’s appeal of a case involving a newspaper's Freedom of Information Act request for police timesheets.