Accurate, Focused Research on Law, Technology and Knowledge Discovery With Daily Postings Since 2002
“Chairman Henry A. Waxman and 18 other committee chairs introduced legislation to strengthen the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and restore GAOs authority to pursue litigation if documents are improperly withheld from the agency. One key provision of the Government Accountability Office Improvement Act of 2008 (H.R. 6388) repudiates the district court decision in Walker v. …
FOIA Facts: My Proposals for the FOIA: Following up on the passage earlier this year of the OPEN Government Act of 2007, FOIA expert Scott A. Hodes make two proposals absent from the law, but which would help FOIA requesters. Published June 29, 2008 60 Gadgets in 60 Minutes – Three techie gurus (Barbara …
DOJ Office of Information and Privacy – Guidance on Preparing Backlog Reduction Plans (posted 06/27/2008): “This memorandum provides guidance for preparing Backlog Reduction Plans. All agencies with backlogs which have not made progress in reducing those backlogs over the last two years are required to prepare Backlog Reduction Plans by September 8, 2008. Each agency …
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) posted the PDF version: [Y-RR-FWS-0007-2007] Program Assessment Rating Tool (PART) Progress Evaluation of the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) Endangered Species Program, that was released on June 25, 2008. This statement appears on the cover page, Portions of this report have been redacted pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 552(b)(5) …
“Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Waxman sent a letter today requesting that President Bush declassify provisions in the Joint MNF-I/U.S. Embassy-Baghdad Campaign Plan that refer to U.S. military bases in Iraq and the timeline for their existence, as well as a GAO report issued today regarding this Joint Campaign Plan.”
Statewatch Analysis, June 2008 – Proposal on access to documents: Article-by-Article commentary, Steve Peers, Professor of Law, University of Essex “The following Statewatch analysis looks at every provision of the access to documents Regulation which the Commission has proposed to amend, as well as several key provisions of that Regulation which the Commission has not …
News release: “The Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO) has released its Report to the President for Fiscal Year 2007…The Report profiles data about the Government-wide security classification program during Fiscal Year 2007.”
Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse [TRAC] Report: “Federal immigration prosecutions in March 2008 continued their recent and highly unusual surge, apparently reaching an all-time high, according to timely data from the Justice Department. The total of 9,350 such prosecutions was up by almost 50% from the previous month and 73% from the previous year. The dramatic …
“The World Information Access 2008 Report presents important trends in the distribution of information and communication technologies around the world. The 2008 WIA Report explores information access by looking at trends in the blogger arrests worldwide, diversity in the ownership of media assets in the 15 largest media markets in the Muslim world, and the …
Follow up – related postings on missing White House emails, today’s news: News release: “Today, D.C. District Court Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly issued an opinion in CREW v. Office of Administration, finding that the Office of Administration (OA) is not an agency subject to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). In May 2007, CREW sued OA …
EPIC: In a unanimous decision, the US Supreme Court upheld the right of individuals to request documents under the Freedom of Information Act, even if similar documents were previously requested by others. The Court rejected the Federal Aviation Administration’s contention that it may ignore requests if the agency previously received identical requests from different requesters. …
Attorney General’s Report to the President on Executive Order 13,392, “Improving Agency Disclosure of Information” (posted 06/10/2008) “In the Executive Order, the President directed the head of each Executive Branch agency to designate a senior official (at the Assistant Secretary level or equivalent) to serve as that agency’s Chief FOIA Officer. So as to ensure …
