Tracking our own FOIA debacles almost caused us to miss big transparency news in Illinois–a suit brought against Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka a week and a half ago over the office’s failure to produce the state’s checkbook under a valid FOIA request. Transparency advocates over at For the Good of […]
The FOIA Project will soon extend its tracking model to other agencies, starting with a test application applied to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. A grant awarded to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) at Syracuse University, which hosts the project, by the Ethics and Excellence in Journalism Foundation will […]
The results of a FOIA request filed by MuckRock News investigating Federal Trade Commission complaints over questionable business practices uncovered 685 small business complaints filed against the business review site Yelp From The Daily Caller: Allegations against Yelp included spamming businesses that used its service, making harassing sales calls and […]
The Illinois Attorney General’s office ruled in favor of county documents being turned over is being stymied by the slow flow of information about the ruling, the Galesburg Register-Mail alleges in a story it published Saturday. The paper filed a FOIA request in July 2012 for court documents pertaining to […]
The Commercial Appeal says they’ve reached a preliminary settlement with the FBI over a 2010 FOIA request that was answered with 348 heavily redacted documents relating to civil rights-era photographer Ernest Withers’ work as an informant for the agency. From the Associated Press: About a year ago, the judge in the […]
The result of a “Civil Liberties Impact Assessment” conducted by the Department of Homeland Security has concluded that it’s unnecessary to require border officials to identify “reasonable suspicion” before searching personal electronic devices. From an excellent writeup on the decision’s significance by Wired’s David Kravets: The memo highlights the friction between […]
Freedom of Information Act requests can be an amazing tool for granting the public greater access to behind-the-scenes government operations. But information that valuable doesn’t come cheap. The Southtown Star reports that Steve Eberhardt, who’s running for mayor of Tinley Park, has filed enough FOIA requests over the past 13 […]
The folks at freedominfo.org (whose work mirrors our own on an international scale) are reporting that Croatia has adopted a new freedom of information law in conjunction with efforts to join the European Union. From FreedomInfo.org: “After almost 10 months of intensive work within working group of the Ministry of […]
Chicago journalist Stephen Franklin writes in with thoughts about a recent WBEZ report: We know from the news that Chicago school students are dying. But as this WBEZ report explain, we do not know that for a fact from Chicago public school officials. At least for 2013. The officials’ explanation, […]
Do we have any readers from the District? If you live in the Washington, D.C. area (or are willing to travel!) the National Press Club Journalism Institute is hosting a fantastic-sounding FOIA panel: Event: How to Make the Most of FOIA When: March 14, 2013, 6:30 – 8:00pm Where: National […]
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