Tag Archives: FOIA

The FOI Advocate blog is doing an excellent job of picking up more stories about local access to government information.

Good news from Virginia. After a recent study that showed how hard it can be to get public information in Virginia (See Survey of records access in Virginia), there is some new good news. One Virginia city "plans to create an office that will handle requests for documents that are available to the public under the Freedom of Information Act."

• Office to handle FIOA requests to be created, DailyPress, Hampton Roads, Virginia, January 18, 2007

Bad news from California. "Police agencies in the capital region and statewide routinely delay, dismiss or ignore ordinary citizens' requests for reports on basic public crime, arrest and other topics, according to a landmark audit of California law enforcement agency practices.... The average grade earned was an F plus."

• Public records access foiled By Andrew McIntosh, Phillip Reese, Chelsea Phua and Todd Milbourn, The Sacramento Bee, January 12, 2007

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FCC Releases, Withholds Ownership Documents, By John Eggerton, Broadcasting & Cable, 1/5/2007. Eggerton says, "The FCC's Media Bureau has released a number of documents and audio transcripts related to its media ownership proceeding, but has withheld some 1,400 pages of documents, including two draft reports, citing various privilege exemptions." I believe the documents released are here: Additional Materials documents identified by Commission staff pertaining to localism, media ownership, minority ownership and other related issues Federal Communications Commission Continue reading →

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This story reports on the results of a survey done by newspaper employees who were "dispatched to every city and county in the state [Virginia] in September to see how the 134 local governments responded to requests for public information that is supposed to be available under the Virginia Freedom of Information Act." Access to public data hard to come by, by Harry Minium / The Virginian-Pilot Daily Press Hampton Roads, Virginia (December 31, 2006)

The results were hardly encouraging for citizens who want to see how their government works, advocates for open government said. A little less than half the media representatives saw the requested records that, under state law, cities and counties have to provide. About one in every four times, the person seeking the information was denied access to what's supposed to be public information. "Unfortunately, some localities just have a predisposition to keep things secret," said Forrest "Frosty" Landon, executive director of the Virginia Coalition for Open Government. Continue reading →

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Here is a follow up to one of the stories in last week's post (Government Openness and Government Secrecy). Jon Wiener, who teaches history at University of California Irvine and who placed a FOIA request for FBI files on John Lennon in 1981 writes in the current issue of The Nation about what we learned from the release of the last few pages of these files.

• The Last Lennon File by Jon Wiener, The Nation December 20, 2006 (January 8, 2007 issue).

Why did four administrations fight in court to prevent the release of information that was already public? ... The answer, I think, has nothing to do with John Lennon. It has everything to do with the FBI and the Justice Department, and what they see as the principle they are defending: that they alone should define what constitutes a national security secret. They argued repeatedly in this case that the courts should defer to the FBI, which supposedly has expertise on national security that judges lack. The FBI and the Justice Department don't want the courts telling them they are wrong about what constitutes a national security secret--and they certainly don't want the ACLU telling them. For the ACLU too, it's not just about John Lennon, it's also about a principle--but a different one: the principle of freedom of information. In a democracy, the government's information belongs to the people; the people have a right to know the information in government files--and the FBI and the Justice Department do not get the last word in deciding what to release and what to withhold. That's what the Freedom of Information Act says: It gives the people the right to appeal decisions to withhold documents; it gives federal judges the power to examine documents the FBI is withholding; and most important, it gives judges the power to order federal agencies to release documents they conclude have been improperly withheld. That's the principle at the heart of the FOIA, and it's at the heart of the Lennon FBI files case.

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