RCFP: Freedom of information

Freedom of information

Items: 1654 (83 pages)

Pages: 1 · 2 · 3 · 4 · 5 · 6 · 7 · 8 · 9 · 10 · 11 · 12 ... · > · >>

QUICKLINK U.S. Supreme Court · November 20, 2009 · Freedom of information

ACLU urges Supreme Court to let FOIA ruling stand

In an effort to salvage a favorable federal appellate court ruling on the Freedom of Information Act, the American Civil Liberties Union urged the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday to refuse the government's request to vacate the court order requiring release of images depicting abuse of detainees in U.S. custody abroad.

The ACLU's years-long battle over release of specific images from Iraq and Afghanistan ended last month when President Barack Obama . . . [more]

— Miranda Fleschert, 3:57 pm · Comments: 0

NEWS MEDIA UPDATE West Virginia · November 16, 2009 · Freedom of information

Judicial email not public in West Virginia

Personal e-mail messages on government accounts are not public records, even when they are between a judge and a party to a pending case, the West Virginia Supreme Court ruled Nov. 12.

In the 4-1 ruling, the court held that former Supreme Court Chief Justice Elliott "Spike" Maynard could keep private all of the 13 messages he exchanged with Massey Energy Chief Executive Don Blankenship last year. At that time, Massey Energy — one of the largest coal producers in Appalachia — had several cases pending before the court, including the appeal of a $50 million jury verdict.

The Associated Press was initially denied access to the messages under West Virginia's public records law but won release of at least five of the messages when a lower court ruled they were public records because they dealt with Maynard’s judicial campaign. Last week's ruling put all of the messages out of the public's reach.

"We conclude that not one of the 13 e-mails was related in . . . [more]

— Miranda Fleschert, 6:51 pm · Comments: 0

QUICKLINK U.S. · November 16, 2009 · Freedom of information

Pentagon blocks release of all Bush-era detainee abuse photos

Defense Secretary Robert Gates last week blocked the further release of any pictures depicting abuse of foreign detainees in American custody, the Associated Press reported.

Gates' order specifically mentioned 21 photographs requested by the American Civil Liberties Union, which were the subject of a protracted public records lawsuit. Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said the order extends beyond those to include all photographs of the treatment of individuals captured or detained . . . [more]

— Brooke Ericson, 5:48 pm · Comments: 0

QUICKLINK New Jersey · November 10, 2009 · Freedom of information

Police use-of-force reports are public records in New Jersey

A New Jersey appeals court on Monday ruled that police use-of-force reports -- generated any time a police offer uses force against a citizen -- are public records and cannot be withheld as criminal investigatory records.

Attorneys for West Milford, a township in northern New Jersey, appealed a state trial court's ruling that the records should be released, arguing that it did not have to hand over the use-of-force reports to local residents and open-records activist Martin O'Shea because the documents were . . . [more]

— Miranda Fleschert, 3:36 pm · View reader comments (1)

QUICKLINK California · November 6, 2009 · Freedom of information

Student journalists wage battle for H1N1 death certificates

Journalism students at the University of Southern California are waging a battle to obtain the death certificates of individuals who have died from the H1N1 virus, the school's online news site Neon Tommy reported.

Reporters at Neon Tommy filed requests with county health officials to evaluate the government's response to the spread of the H1N1 virus in California. Two counties -- Los Angeles and Fresno -- reversed initial denials and handed over swine flu . . . [more]

— Miranda Fleschert, 3:03 pm · View reader comments (2)

QUICKLINK Washington, D.C. · November 3, 2009 · Freedom of information

White House releases first batch of visitor logs

The White House on Friday published nearly 500 visitor records online that detail visits made in the months from Obama's inauguration until the end of July, The Washington Post reported.

The records were in response to 110 specific records requests made in September and were released nearly two months before the White House is set to begin publishing visitor logs online each month.

In September, the Obama administration . . . [more]

— Kirk Davis, 5:13 pm · Comments: 0

QUICKLINK Washington, D.C. · November 2, 2009 · Freedom of information

FBI hands over transcript of Cheney on Plame leak

The FBI released documents under court order Friday that show former vice president Dick Cheney's recollection is fuzzy on his involvement in the exposure of an undercover CIA operative in the months leading up to the beginning of the Iraq war, the Washington Post reported.

The transcript of Cheney's 2004 interview, which was released after a long-fought legal battle waged by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, shows that he did not recall . . . [more]

— Amanda Becker, 5:15 pm · Comments: 0

NEWS MEDIA UPDATE 9th Cir. · October 30, 2009 · Freedom of information

Small Business Agency will pay attorney fees in FOIA case

The American Small Business League will finally get to collect legal fees from the Department of Justice now that the agency has dropped its appeal of a California federal court's award.

The Court of Appeals in San Francisco (9th Cir.) was set to hear the department’s appeal early next year, the league reported in a release.

The suit stemmed from when the Small Business Administration denied the league's request for the names of firms that received small business contracts and the amounts awarded in 2005 and 2006. The SBA claimed it kept no record of the names and that the information was stored at the General Services Administration.

In her ruling in favor of the league, U.S. District Court Judge Marilyn H. Patel found "curious" the SBA’s argument that it did not possess its own funding allocation information. Patel ordered the SBA to hand over the records and pay the league's attorney fees . . . [more]

— Miranda Fleschert, 5:55 pm · Comments: 0

QUICKLINK U.S. · October 29, 2009 · Freedom of information

Obama signs law blocking release of detainee torture photos

President Obama signed legislation Thursday that blocks the release of photos that depict the abuse of detainees in U.S. custody. The new law is expected to thwart any chance the Supreme Court will hear the case over whether the photos should be disclosed to the public.

The Homeland Security Appropriations bill Obama signed grants the Department of Defense authority to withhold the photos.

Now that the bill is signed into law, it likely makes the long-fought battle over the torture photos moot. The Supreme Court twice this month . . . [more]

— Miranda Fleschert, 6:35 pm · View reader comments (2)

NEWS MEDIA UPDATE Arizona · October 29, 2009 · Freedom of information

Arizona Supreme Court rules electronic data is public

The Arizona Supreme Court today ruled that metadata – information about the history, tracking and management of an electronic document – is subject to the state’s public records law.

Several national media organizations supported Phoenix police officer David Lake’s challenge that the city improperly denied his 2006 public records request for the metadata about documents he had previously requested and received. The city refused Lake’s request, arguing the metadata did not fall within the state’s definition of public records, which a court established in 1952, long before the advent of electronic documents.

In a unanimous opinion released today, the state’s high court held, “If a public entity maintains a public record in an electronic format, then the electronic version, including any embedded metadata, is subject to disclosure.”

David J. Bodney, a lawyer who helped write a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of The Associated Press, Gannett Co., The E.W. Scripps Company, and The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said . . . [more]

— Ansley Schrimpf, 5:50 pm · Comments: 0

QUICKLINK Florida · October 26, 2009 · Freedom of information

Requests for Florida school records expensive, time consuming

The open-government site Sunshine Review found that despite Florida's strong open records law, obtaining information on public schools is still a daunting process for private citizens, the group's editor wrote in the Orlando Sentinel.

As part of the nonprofit transparency group's Back to School project, it filed public records requests with Florida schools seeking information on school lobbyists. Though the schools largely answered the requests, it was . . . [more]

— Kirk Davis, 5:14 pm · Comments: 0

QUICKLINK 9th Cir. · October 26, 2009 · Freedom of information

Appeals court releases its opinion on release of petition signers

On the heels of a Supreme Court ruling that temporarily blocked the release of the names of people who petitioned to repeal a same-sex marriage law in Washington state, the appeals court has released its rationale for its earlier order to disclose the names.

The Court of Appeals in San Francisco (9th Cir.) ruled on October 15 that petition signing cannot be protected as a form of anonymous speech since there is no promise of confidentiality and Washington law specifically provides that both . . . [more]

— Miranda Fleschert, 4:58 pm · Comments: 0

QUICKLINK U.S. · October 22, 2009 · Freedom of information

Musicians file FOIA request seeking music used in torture

Dozens of high-profile musicians on Thursday demanded the release of song titles that were played repetitively as a coercive interrogation technique at Guantanamo Bay and signed onto a public records request filed by the National Security Archive, the Washington Post reported.

Current and former band members of Pearl Jam, R.E.M., Rage Against the Machine, Nine Inch Nails and the Roots signed the NSA's request, which was sent to numerous government agencies, . . . [more]

— Kirk Davis, 5:27 pm · View reader comments (3)

QUICKLINK U.S. · October 21, 2009 · Freedom of information

ACLU asks Gates to not block release of detainee abuse photos

The American Civil Liberties Union has asked the secretary of defense not to exercise his authority to withhold photos of detainee abuse that was granted to him by Congress -- pending an expected signing by the president -- earlier this week.

In a letter to Department of Defense Secretary Robert Gates, the ACLU urged him to "not invoke your new and discretionary authority to suppress images of abuse."

Congress passed . . . [more]

— Miranda Fleschert, 6:05 pm · View reader comments (1)

NEWS MEDIA UPDATE U.S. · October 20, 2009 · Freedom of information

Congress backs hiding of detainee abuse photos

The long-fought battle to release images depicting the torture and abuse of detainees in U.S. custody appears over after Congress passed legislation today that specifically exempts them from public disclosure.

The images were initially the center of a denied request under the Freedom of Information Act, that later became the subject of a lawsuit -- which dragged on for years -- and recently were dropped into the Homeland Security Appropriations Bill as an amendment specifically exempting them from the law in an effort to supersede court decisions on the issue.

This afternoon, the Senate voted 79-19 to approve the conference report on the bill, which was approved by the House of Representatives in a 307-114 vote last week. It will now go to President Obama to be signed into law. Obama has publicly opposed releasing the photos since May.

Because of the appropriations amendment, the Supreme Court has postponed its decision on whether it will hear arguments in the lawsuit initially brought by the American Civil Liberties . . . [more]

— Miranda Fleschert, 6:14 pm · View reader comments (2)

NEWS MEDIA UPDATE U.S. · October 19, 2009 · Freedom of information

Secret Service denies access to White House visitor logs

Despite the Obama administration's recent legal settlement to begin releasing White House visitor logs later this year, it has denied a different public interest group's recent request for those same records in the meantime.

In denying a request by watchdog group Judicial Watch, the U.S. Secret Service, through the Department of Homeland Security, said that White House visitor logs fall under the Presidential Records Act and are not subject to disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act because they do not originate with a federal agency.

Last month, the Obama administration announced its plan to voluntarily publish White House visitor logs on its Web site beginning Dec. 31 in response to lawsuits for visitor logs brought by another government watchdog group. The records that were the subject of Judicial Watch's request here -- from Jan. 20, 2009 through Sept. 15, 2009 -- will remain largely private.

“The Obama White House has yet to explain why visitor logs from its first eight months will be afforded special . . . [more]

— Miranda Fleschert, 6:34 pm · View reader comments (2)

NEWS MEDIA UPDATE U.S. · October 16, 2009 · Freedom of information

House approves bill banning release of detainee abuse photos

In a letter today, the Solicitor General Elena Kagan informed the Supreme Court that the House of Representatives voted yesterday to agree to the conference report on the Homeland Security Appropriations Bill, which exempts the release of abuse photos of detainees in U.S. custody. The bill passed by a vote of 307 to 114.

“It’s hard for me to express how disappointed I am with that decision. I am sorry because I believe that we had turned a page from the cloud of suspicion and secrecy that marked the previous Administration,” said Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) this morning on the House floor with respect to the conference report.

Last week, Kagan asked the Supreme Court to postpone its decision to hear arguments in the case over whether the photos should be released to the public because if the bill is signed into law, the government may . . . [more]

— Miranda Fleschert, 6:22 pm · Comments: 0

QUICKLINK Washington · October 16, 2009 · Freedom of information

Washington judiciary declares itself exempt from open records law

Washington’s Public Records Act does not apply to the state’s judiciary, the Washington Supreme Court ruled on Thursday. The decision exempts all judges within the state from disclosing their professional correspondence or case files.

The case stems from a public records request by open government activist David Koenig, who sought access to documents and communications about a City of Federal Way scandal involving the resignation of Municipal Judge Colleen Hartl in 2007, the Associated Press . . . [more]

— Miranda Fleschert, 6:08 pm · Comments: 0

NEWS MEDIA UPDATE Texas · October 15, 2009 · Freedom of information

Texas officials to file second suit over meetings act

Texas public officials are arguing for the second time this year that the state's Open Meetings Act violates their right to free speech. At least 20 elected officials from cities across the state have signed onto a potential lawsuit, including the mayor and four city council members in Pflugerville, the Austin American Statesman reported.

The act in question prevents a quorum of government officials from deliberating in secret and attaches a penalty of up to six months in jail and a $500 fine.

Rod Ponton, who represents the elected officials, told the Austin American Statesman the new suit against the State of Texas and Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott will be filed in federal court next month in the West Texas city of Pecos.

The Fifth Circuit dismissed a similar suit last month because the plaintiffs, Alpine city council members who were no . . . [more]

— Miranda Fleschert, 5:52 pm · Comments: 0

NEWS MEDIA UPDATE U.S. Supreme Court · October 9, 2009 · Freedom of information

U.S. asks court to delay detainee abuse photo decision

The Solicitor General has asked the Supreme Court to postpone its decision to hear arguments in the case over whether abuse photos of detainees in U.S. custody should be released to the public because if a pending Homeland Security Appropriations Bill is signed into law, the government may have the authority to exempt the photos from release and the appeal would be unnecessary, she contends.

The Supreme Court was set to consider the case at its conference today, but Solicitor General Elena Kagan urged the Supreme Court to postpone its decision in a letter sent to the court Thursday.

The House and Senate had already both passed the bill and sent it to a conference committee to reconcile the differences. On Oct. 7, the committee released a conference report that contained an amendment that “codifies the President’s decision to allow the Secretary of Defense to bar the release of detainee photos.”

The original amendment was introduced by Senators Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and passed the Senate in July. House . . . [more]

— Miranda Fleschert, 3:20 pm · Comments: 0

Pages: 1 · 2 · 3 · 4 · 5 · 6 · 7 · 8 · 9 · 10 · 11 · 12 ... · > · >>