Welcome to SPJ Blogs Sign in | Join | Help

June 2008 - Posts

Saturday, June 28, 2008 10:14 PM

Dams of death: Army Corps of Engineers' secrecy puts lives at risk

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers continues to put American lives at risk by keeping dam inventory secret, even after the recent Midwest flooding. The Corps used to provide the National Inventory of Dams online for anyone to download and find out if they
posted by DavidCuillier | 0 Comments
Friday, June 27, 2008 9:06 PM

Toni Locy subpoena likely moot with DOJ settlement

It appears former USA Today reporter Toni Locy won't have to cough up $50,000 or go to jail to protect her confidential sources, according to the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. The U.S. Department of Justice settled the Privacy Act suit
posted by DavidCuillier | 0 Comments
Friday, June 27, 2008 8:50 PM

CJOG closing its doors: Thanks for all your great work, Pete Weitzel!

The Coalition of Journalists for Open Government, led for four years by Pete Weitzel, will be closing its doors this summer as its funding runs out. The organization (see www.cjog.org) has helped build Sunshine Week and the Sunshing in Government
posted by DavidCuillier | 0 Comments
Thursday, June 26, 2008 1:51 AM

Court grants access to city council tapes in Illinois

An Illinois appellate court said citizens should have the ability to listen to tapes of city council meetings. Duh. Oddly, the city of Collinsville had argued that it didn't have to let a person listen to original audiotapes of city council meetings,
posted by DavidCuillier | 0 Comments
Wednesday, June 25, 2008 1:25 AM

Open records laws improved in Tennessee, Rhode Island

Tennessee record requesters will now be able to use an ombudsman to work out disputes with government agencies and arrest records must be more detailed in Rhode Island thanks to new legislation passed. The Tennessee law also requires agencies to respond
posted by DavidCuillier | 1 Comments
Tuesday, June 24, 2008 10:40 PM

Regime changes can lead to mass shredding of public records

The Utica (N.Y.) Observer-Dispatch reports that massive amounts of public records were apparently shredded by an outgoing Utica mayor's administration before a new mayor came into office. At least that's what the current administration says.
posted by DavidCuillier | 0 Comments
Monday, June 23, 2008 9:21 PM

FOI tip: Web sites from UK and UF with great document-driven story ideas

Looking for great stories you can do with the help of documents? Here are three Web sites that might help: 1. The Guardian in London has created a Web site where it posts stories based on public records, up to more than 1,200 now. Brits are going gangbusters
posted by DavidCuillier | 0 Comments
Friday, June 20, 2008 10:54 AM

National security classification costs $9.91 billion in 2007

The cost of classifying federal documents as secret increased 4.6 percent last year to $9.91 billion, the highest ever reported by the Information Security Oversight Office. See the report, as well as a good analysis by Steven Aftergood from the Federation
posted by DavidCuillier | 0 Comments
Thursday, June 19, 2008 3:41 PM

Obama begins the transformation: Spin, control, hide, lie

So it begins, the transformation of a candidate who had claimed to support open government and access to information, but is now heavily controlling media access and even lying to journalists. A story today in The New York Times explains how Barack
posted by DavidCuillier | 0 Comments
Thursday, June 19, 2008 12:10 PM

Miami photographer's case finished; Tips for police confrontations

Miami photographer Carlos Miller was found guilty of resisting arrest in a drawn-out legal battle over taking photos on a public street, but what is astonishing in this case is how the judge reacted. Even though the prosecutor asked for only three months
posted by DavidCuillier | 0 Comments
Wednesday, June 18, 2008 1:51 AM

FOI story tip: Find government plagiarism through Google

Here's a great tip for finding plagiarism within government: Put quoted passages in Google from government reports to find plagiarism by our leaders. I never thought of this as a story idea until I saw the June 11 story by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
posted by DavidCuillier | 1 Comments
Wednesday, June 18, 2008 1:14 AM

School superintendent contract ruled public in Illinois

The 2nd District Illinois Appellate Court ruled that Community Unit School District 200 must provide the contract for a former superintendent, according to a story by the Naperville Sun. A citizen sued in 2006 after the district refused to release a copy
posted by DavidCuillier | 0 Comments
Tuesday, June 17, 2008 6:27 PM

IRS forced to comply with 34-year-old FOIA request

This FOIA request might take the record for longest to be fulfilled. Last week a federal judge ruled that the Internal Revenue Service must provide information requested in a FOIA request first submitted in 1974 by Susan B. Long, then a University of
posted by DavidCuillier | 0 Comments
Tuesday, June 17, 2008 12:18 PM

New York bill would make property assessments public, again

A bill passing through the Assembly and Senate in New York would make property assessments public (see story). They were public until a 2006 court ruling that stated they should be secret to prevent unwarranted invasion of privacy. Since the ruling, people
posted by DavidCuillier | 0 Comments
Tuesday, June 17, 2008 12:08 PM

Florida city council members have to turn over private computers

While it appears the president doesn't have to turn over e-mails produced on public computers (see below), a judge in Florida said city council members must turn over their personal home computers in order for people to get copies of their city-related
posted by DavidCuillier | 0 Comments
Monday, June 16, 2008 4:09 PM

Judge: White House doesn't have to turn over e-mail records

A federal judge ruled today that the White House is not subject to FOIA and therefore doesn't have to turn over records regarding e-mails that might have gone missing. U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly's ruling means the administration doesn't
posted by DavidCuillier | 1 Comments
Friday, June 13, 2008 12:11 AM

FOI tip: Verify military status through downloadable form

It was 1995 and I was talking to a young man who said he served in Vietnam as an Army grunt, taking on the Viet Cong and earning medals for his valor. Later in the interview he gave me his age: 33. Vietnam ended in 1975, which would have made the guy
posted by DavidCuillier | 0 Comments
Thursday, June 12, 2008 6:08 PM

U.S. Supreme Court ruling today: OK to ask for records even if someone else asked and was rejected

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled today in a unanimous decision that it's OK for someone to request documents under FOIA even if someone else had asked for the documents, been denied, sued, and lost. Every person has a right to request and challenge a denial,
posted by DavidCuillier | 0 Comments
Thursday, June 12, 2008 2:05 PM

U.S. State Department blackballs FOI advocate from distribution list

Steven Aftergood, who writes the Secrecy News blog for the Federation of American Scientists, is appealing a decision by the U.S. State Department to take him off a distribution list because he corrected errors in their Foreign Relations of the United
posted by DavidCuillier | 0 Comments
Wednesday, June 11, 2008 11:58 AM

Start building your FOI story file now to justify transparency later

Start building your FOI story file now to help you out later when an agency denies you public records. Find important stories in your state that have huge public importance and interest that could not have been done without public records. In a Word or
posted by DavidCuillier | 1 Comments
Monday, June 09, 2008 11:21 PM

Document-driven story idea: Chemical neighbors of death

Here's a great document-driven series published this month by the Dallas Morning News: Dozens of sites with deadly chemicals placed close to residential neighborhoods without residents even knowing. The online stories include a map for people to
posted by DavidCuillier | 1 Comments
Sunday, June 08, 2008 1:56 PM

Six dollars per page? How to counter excessive copy costs

The sheriff's department in Jacksonville, Fla., proposed charging $6 per page for copies of public records, even though the state limit is 15 cents per page, according to the North County Gazette. That's after charging $3 for incident reports no
posted by DavidCuillier | 0 Comments
Friday, June 06, 2008 1:58 PM

Write about FOI and win a prize

Want to write about FOI and maybe win a prize? The Sunshine Week Citizen Journalism Award essay contest has begun and the first monthly winner was announced this month. Ryan Headley, a student at Rowan University, was the first winner,
posted by DavidCuillier | 0 Comments
Thursday, June 05, 2008 12:35 PM

112 groups sign on to whistleblower bill

Today 112 public interest groups, including SPJ, signed a letter urging Congress to pass legislation protecting whistleblowers (H.R. 985 and S. 274). The legislation would protect federal scientists who report efforts to alter or suppress research (e.g.,
posted by DavidCuillier | 1 Comments
Wednesday, June 04, 2008 1:21 PM

Efforts to keep superintendent evaluation secret costs school district $47,267.33

The price of secrecy is high, in this case $47,267.33. Here's a story forwarded to FOI FYI by Holly Fisher of SC Biz News: The Berkeley County School District in South Carolina spent more than $47,000 defending itself from a lawsuit filed by The Post
posted by DavidCuillier | 0 Comments
Tuesday, June 03, 2008 12:28 AM

Is the new and improved FOIA working for you?

On Dec. 31, President Bush signed into law the OPEN Government Act of 2007, which bolstered the Freedom of Information Act. So have the improvements helped you get public records from federal agencies? I would like to hear from you if you have submitted
posted by DavidCuillier | 0 Comments
Monday, June 02, 2008 11:45 PM

Listen up mayors and governors: Computerized pillow talk might be public

Courts are starting to send the right message to mayors and governors: If you send e-mails and text messages to your lovers on your work computers and your personal relationship could have implications for the public, then expect those messages to be
posted by DavidCuillier | 0 Comments
Sunday, June 01, 2008 10:38 PM

Florida contest-winning stories show the power of public concealed weapons permits

Congratulations to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel for winning the James Batten Award for Public Service given by the South Florida professional SPJ chapter (see information and other winners at the South Florida SPJ site). The series, by Megan O'Matz
posted by DavidCuillier | 0 Comments