Category «Freedom of Information»

Killer Apps: Vanishing Messages, Encrypted Communications, and Challenges to Freedom of Information Laws When Public Officials “Go Dark”

Stewart, Daxton, Killer Apps: Vanishing Messages, Encrypted Communications, and Challenges to Freedom of Information Laws When Public Officials “Go Dark” (April 13, 2017). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract= “In the early weeks of the new presidential administration, White House staffers were communicating among themselves and leaking to journalists using apps such as Signal and Confide, which …

Subjects: E-Government, E-Mail, E-Records, Freedom of Information, Government Documents, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Privacy, Social Media

Search Database of Millions of Previously Classified Documents on Industrial Poisons

“Columbia University’s Center for the History and Ethics of Public Health, located at its Mailman School of Public Health, and the City University of New York’s Graduate Center are proud to jointly present Toxic Docs. This dataset and website contain millions of pages of previously secret documents about toxic substances. They include secret internal memoranda, …

Subjects: Environmental Law, Freedom of Information, Legal Research, Search Engines

Trump Visitor Logs Subject to FOIA Lawsuit

“The National Security Archive, together with the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University and the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), are filing a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security for the release of the White House visitor logs today, April 10, in the federal District …

Subjects: Freedom of Information, Government Documents, Legal Research

New Website Lets You Fax Art to Congress to Save the NEA

Artsy Editorial – “In the months since President Donald Trump took office, members of Congress have watched their phone lines reach capacity and their email inboxes overflow as constituents voice their displeasure with the administration’s policies and appointees… Now, a new website is giving citizens a way to get artistic with their political grievances. Artifax …

Subjects: Censorship, Civil Liberties, Congress, Economy, Education, Freedom of Information, Government Documents, Knowledge Management, Legal Research

Open Access Innovations Are Impacting Academic Publishing

Chronicle of Higher Education: “Open-access advocates have had several successes in the past few weeks. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation started its own open-access publishing platform, which the European Commission may replicate. And librarians attending the Association of College and Research Libraries conference in March were glad to hear that the Open Access Button, …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Education, Freedom of Information, Internet, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Libraries, Search Engines

POGO’s 2017 Baker’s Dozen Wishlist for Congress

“The Project On Government Oversight (POGO) has unveiled its biennial list of 13 policy areas ripe for Congressional action. It includes recommendations for legislative fixes to make the federal government more transparent, accountable, and ethical. Called the “Baker’s Dozen,” these are priorities demanding immediate attention by lawmakers who are serious about improving the effectiveness of government and saving taxpayers …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Congress, Economy, Freedom of Information, Government Documents, Legal Research, Legislation

Science – USDA is not posting new animal inspections

Follow up to multiple postings addressed here – Some animal welfare data removed from USDA site is restored – news from Science [Meredith Wadman] that “the Donald Trump administration appears to have reversed its decision to remove from public sight the results of past government inspections of animal research facilities. But getting hold of new …

Subjects: E-Government, Freedom of Information, Government Documents, Knowledge Management, Legal Research

Memo in CREST shows Agency considered employing semantics to get around ban on destroying damaging material

Muckrock report and documents: “Declassified records recently unearthed in CREST show the CIA waffled on a promise to obey the law in destroying records of Agency’s illegal activities and wrongdoing In 1976, Congresswoman Bella Abzug wrote to CIA Director George H.W. Bush about the existing moratorium on the destruction of CIA files. As the Chairwoman …

Subjects: E-Government, E-Records, Freedom of Information, Government Documents, Knowledge Management, Legal Research, Privacy

Three out of Five Federal Agencies Flout New FOIA Law

National Security Archive: “Three out of five of all federal agencies are flouting the new law that improved the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and required them to update their FOIA regulations, according to the new National Security Archive FOIA Audit released today to celebrate Sunshine Week. The National Security Archive Audit found that only …

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

MIT announces prize for responsible civil disobedience

“On July 21, 2016 we announced the creation of a $250K cash prize award for responsible disobedience. This idea came after a realization that there’s a widespread frustration from people trying to figure out how can we effectively harness responsible, ethical disobedience aimed at challenging our norms, rules, or laws to benefit society. And so …

Subjects: Civil Liberties, Free Speech, Freedom of Information

Physicist declassifies rescued nuclear test films

“The U.S. conducted 210 atmospheric nuclear tests between 1945 and 1962, with multiple cameras capturing each event at around 2,400 frames per second. But in the decades since, around 10,000 of these films sat idle, scattered across the country in high-security vaults. Not only were they gathering dust, the film material itself was slowly decomposing, …

Subjects: Defense, Environmental Law, Freedom of Information, Government Documents, Knowledge Management, Legal Research

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