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The New York Times: “Ernie Lazar, an unheralded hero of researchers who mined his vast digital and documentary archive of government records on political extremists to invigorate their books, articles and arguments and to warn against “it can’t happen here” complacency, died on Nov. 1 at his home in Palm Springs, Calif. He was 77…Mr. …
United States Courts: “A new free public database of federal judges’ financial disclosure reports (FDRs), including periodic transaction reports (PTRs), was launched today by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. Once users register in the new database, they can access an electronic version of federal judges’ reports. The new database design allows members of …
EPIC: “The D.C. government outsources critical governmental decisions to automated decision-making systems in areas such as public benefits, healthcare, policing, and housing. As a result, District residents are surveilled, screened, and scored every day. But because of weak government transparency laws, opaque procurement processes, the power and influence of tech vendors, and the decline in …
GovFresh, Luke Fretwell – “Defaulting to an open protocol to syndicate government information makes public communications universally accessible. Every government website should have an RSS feed. This ensures there is an open, universal standard for syndicating government information. The problem – While it’s important that government shares information via distributed outlets – social media, email …
Internet Archive Blogs: “On Friday, October 7, the Internet Archive filed a reply brief against the four publishers that sued Internet Archive in June 2020: Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins Publishers, John Wiley & Sons, and Penguin Random House. This is the final brief in support of our motion for summary judgment (our previous motions can …
Courthousenews: “Traveling more than 1,000 miles over the course of five days, Courthouse News journalists visited 25 Virginia circuit courts to report on civil complaints filed in those courthouses. Their goal was to demonstrate what it would take to cover the public record of the Virginia courts by visiting each courthouse in person. The trip …
Human Rights Watch: “The United States Department of State is empowering ordinary people around the world to report human rights abuses by foreign security forces. On September 30, the State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor launched a new reporting tool, the Human Rights Reporting Gateway, that gives the public a way to …
WSJ [paywall] – “Hidden records show thousands of senior executive branch employees owned shares of companies whose fates were directly affected by their employers’ actions, a Wall Street Journal investigation found…The review spans 2016 through 2021 and includes data on about 850,000 financial assets and more than 315,000 trades reported in stocks, bonds and funds …
Via Patrice McDermott – “From Gabe Roth at Fix the Court Hi, folks. I want to keep everyone apprised of what’s going on with the Open Courts Act, a bipartisan, bicameral bill that would modernize the federal judiciary’s court records system and make access to documents free (instead of the current $0.10 per page, which …
CREW: “The Judicial Conference—a national policymaking body for the federal courts…should implement a comprehensive prohibition on all federal judges and Supreme Court Justices owning or trading individual securities and develop a strong code of conduct for the Supreme Court. In a letter sent [September 20, 2022], CREW urges the Judicial Conference to act swiftly to …
Jeremy Singer-Vine: ” The Data Liberation Project is a new initiative I’m launching today to identify, obtain, reformat, clean, document, publish, and disseminate government datasets of public interest. Vast troves of government data are inaccessible to the people and communities who need them most. These datasets are inaccessible. The Process: Identify: Through its own research, …
Notice of Proposed Rulemaking – Enhancing Transparency of Airline Ancillary Service Fees: The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) is proposing a rule which would significantly strengthen protections for consumers by ensuring any fees charged to seat a young child with an accompanying adult, change or cancel a flight, or travel with a first checked bag, …
