Category «Freedom of Information»

TRAC: ICE’s FOIA Office Backlog Shows Ballooning Wait Times

Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse: “The median time FOIA requests have been waiting unanswered in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)’s backlog has climbed 64 percent in just the last sixty days. During this period according to ICE records, receipts of new FOIA requests and monthly closure numbers have not noticeably changed so the rise may reflect …

Subjects: Freedom of Information, Government Documents

"EFF Takes FOIA Fight Over Secret Wiretaps to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court"

“Today, EFF filed a motion in a secret court. This secret court isn’t in a developing nation, struggling beneath a dictatorship. It’s not in a country experimenting for the first time with a judiciary and the rule of law. And, as Wired recently noted, it’s “not in Iran or Venezuela, as one might expect.” No, …

Subjects: Courts, Freedom of Information, Legal Research

GlaxoSmithKline Clinical Study Requests

“Access to the underlying (patient level) data that are collected in clinical trials provides opportunities to conduct further research that can help advance medical science or improve patient care. This helps ensure the data provided by research participants are used to maximum effect in the creation of knowledge and understanding. Researchers can use this site …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, E-Mail, Freedom of Information, Government Documents, Legal Research, Privacy

Carbon Dioxide at NOAA’s Mauna Loa Observatory reaches new milestone: Tops 400 ppm

NOAA: “On May 9, the daily mean concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of Mauna Loa, Hawaii, surpassed 400 parts per million (ppm) for the first time since measurements began in 1958. Independent measurements made by both NOAA and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography have been approaching this level during the past week. It …

Subjects: Freedom of Information, Government Documents, Internet, Search Engines

Staying Ahead Of the Curve 2013: AARP Multicultural Work and Career Study

“Staying Ahead of the Curve is AARP’s Multicultural Work and Career Study. These studies – performed in 2002, 2007, and 2013 – provide an in-depth look at workers ages 45-74: their reasons for working, perceived job security, differential treatment received because of age, their ideal work scenario, the challenges they face, their plans for retirement, …

Subjects: E-Government, Freedom of Information, Government Documents

Sunlight Foundation: Municipal Lobbying Data Guidebook

Sunlight Foundation – Municipal Lobbying Data Guidebook “Why do we need access to lobbying data? Information that is critical to understanding access to power and how that access is being used should be made available to the public with as few restrictions as possible. That means making information available in searchable, sortable and machine-readable format, …

Subjects: E-Government, Freedom of Information, Government Documents

Reporters Without Borders – New Report: 39 Predators of Freedom of Information

“Reporters Without Borders is today, World Press Freedom Day, releasing an updated list of 39 Predators of Freedom of Information – presidents, politicians, religious leaders, militias and criminal organizations that censor, imprison, kidnap, torture and kill journalists and other news providers. Powerful, dangerous and violent, these predators consider themselves above the law. “These predators of …

Subjects: Censorship, Civil Liberties, Freedom of Information

EPIC FOIA Request Reveals Details About Government Cybersecurity Program

EPIC: “New documents obtained by EPIC in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit reveal that the Department of Defense advised private industry on how to best circumvent federal wiretap law. The documents concern a collaboration between the Defense Department, the Department of Homeland Security, and private companies to allow government monitoring of private Internet networks. …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Cybercrime, Freedom of Information, Government Documents, Internet, Legal Research

Get Grandpas FBI File.com Website Now Makes Getting FBI Files Easy

News release: “The process for obtaining FBI files about family members who may have been the subject of a federal investigation has just become much simpler with the help of a step-by-step consumer website: GetGrandpasFBIfile.com established by Virginia-based Meme Transmission Enterprises…The Federal Bureau of Investigation maintains billions of pages of records and millions of files …

Subjects: Freedom of Information, Government Documents

EPIC Sues FBI to Obtain Details of Massive Biometric ID Database

“EPIC has filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the FBI to obtain documents about “Next Generation Identification“, a massive database with biometric identifiers on millions of Americans. The EPIC lawsuit follows the FBI’s failure to respond to EPIC’s earlier FOIA requests for technical specifications and contracts. According to EPIC’s complaint, “When completed, the …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Freedom of Information, Government Documents, Privacy

WikiLeaks Launches Public Library of US Diplomacy

News release: “The Kissinger Cables are part of today’s launch of the WikiLeaks Public Library of US Diplomacy (PlusD), which holds the world’s largest searchable collection of United States confidential, or formerly confidential, diplomatic communications. As of its launch on April 8, 2013 it holds 2 million records comprising approximately 1 billion words. WikiLeaks’ publisher …

Subjects: Freedom of Information, Government Documents