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NexrGov: The creation process of Wikipedia is largely transparent – “Founded in 2001, Wikipedia is on the verge of adulthood. It’s the world’s fifth-most popular website, with 46 million articles in 300 languages, while having less than 300 full-time employees. What makes it successful is the 200,000 volunteers who create it, said Katherine Maher, the …
Sunlight Foundation: “To engage in a monumental understatement, it’s a big deal for the public’s information to be altered or disposed of without justified intention and public notice of the removal. In spring 2018, for the first time the National Archives and Record Administration (NARA) has begun using the Internet to inform the American public …
The New York Times: “Financial companies have worked to diminish the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s powers since the day the agency was created. Now, they’re on the brink of having one of their top demands granted: an end to the regulator’s public database of complaints about their products and services. Since 2011, the bureau has …
“EPIC has filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit to obtain the release of the unredacted Facebook Assessments from the FTC. The FTC Consent Order. required Facebook to provide to the FTC biennial assessments conducted by an independent auditor. In March, EPIC filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the 2013, 2015, 2017 Facebook …
Union of Concerned Scientists: “Newly released documents obtained by the Union of Concerned Scientists under three separate Freedom of Information Act requests and first reported on by POLITICO demonstrate that the Trojan horse “secret science” proposal being floated by Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt is entirely driven by politics. POLITICO writes: “Since Pruitt …
“The widespread concerns over misinformation online have created a tension in the United States between taking steps to restrict that information – including possible government regulation – and protecting the long-held belief in the freedom to access and publish information. A new Pew Research Center survey finds that the majority of Americans are resistant to …
[April 2, 2018] “the Sunlight Foundation’s Web Integrity Project released a new report, “Removal of Breast Cancer Website and Related Webpages from within HHS’s Office on Women’s Health Website.” We also released a blog post analyzing the wave of removals from the Office on Women’s Health (OWH) website, “Unexplained censorship of women’s health website renews …
National Archives: “Under 44 USC 3106 and 36 CFR Part 1230, “Unlawful or Accidental Removal, Defacing, Alteration, or Destruction of Records,” Federal agencies are required to “notify the Archivist of any actual, impending, or threatened unlawful removal, defacing, alteration, corruption, deletion, erasure, or other destruction of records in the custody of the agency.” NARA also receives notifications from other …
“The 2018 Edelman TRUST BAROMETER [Download the Global Results] reveals a world of seemingly stagnant distrust. People’s trust in business, government, NGOs and media remained largely unchanged from 2017 — 20 of 28 markets surveyed now lie in distruster territory, up one from last year. Yet dramatic shifts are taking place at the market level …
New Sunshine Week report shares best practices to maximize the power of FOIA – “In response to a growing culture of government secrecy, people are seeking new ways to defend their right to information and combat intensifying threats to transparency and accountability. Openness advocates, journalists, litigators and grassroots organizations working on a range of policy …
“Government transparency laws like the Freedom of Information Act exist to enforce the public’s right to inspect records so we can all figure out what the heck is being done in our name and with our tax dollars. But when a public agency ignores, breaks or twists the law, your recourse varies by jurisdiction. In …
National Security Archive: “The Secret Service and the White House have emerged as the dubious winners from the hard-fought competition for the National Security Archive’s infamous Rosemary Award for worst open government performance of 2017. The award, which the Archive began bestowing in 2005, is named after President Nixon’s secretary, Rose Mary Woods, who testified …
