Faced with increasing push-back from the public, the media, government watchdogs and a bipartisan list of lawmakers, the Department of Justice Thursday agreed to drop a proposed regulation that would have allowed government agencies to lie to members of the public seeking records through the Freedom of Information Act.
Colorado U.S. Senator Mark Udall, a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, has been a champion in the post-9/11 era of the need to balance tough national security measures against concerns for civil liberties and privacy protections.
The Sunlight Foundation has a rundown of new rules (PDF) the U.S. Department of Justice recently proposed for Freedom of Information Act requests.
The Atlantic Wire, in one of those Ouroboros moments that crop up whenever the media covers itself, is reporting that AP correspondents have filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the Obama administration to release photos and videos of the raid last week on Osama bin Laden’s More…
Wednesday marks one year since the initial explosion on BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig sent around 200 million gallons of crude oil gushing into the waters of the Gulf of Mexico. A year on, controversies continue to surface over BP’s handling of the spill. On Friday, Greenpeace released a More…
A very broad Freedom of Information Act request for all emails and communications from professors in labor relations programs at the state’s major public universities is sparking controversy and questions about the motivation for the request.
Talking Points Memo reported Tuesday that the Mackinac Center, a conservative think More…
In an era where the word “transparency” is a favorite bell to ring, a Congressional committee chair has asked federal agencies to provide a complete list of names of every person that has made a request under the Freedom of Information Act.
The New York Times reports More…
I reported earlier that Arlington, Va., is giving up on its efforts to opt out of Secure Communities, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement program that allows ICE to check immigration status using fingerprints collected for criminal background checks. After meeting with ICE officials on Friday, Arlington’s county manager More…
Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a Syracuse University-based organization responsible for much of the non-partisan data analysis on immigration enforcement, is accusing Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials of purposefully withholding information on immigrant detainees. After TRAC requested detailed information on the enforcement process through the Freedom of Information Act, More…
Bloomberg’s long-standing Freedom of Information Act request for a look at who in the financial system took part in the Fed’s now-secret $2 trillion loan program has been granted by a second court on the basis that there exists no exemption to FOIA rules for the continued economic More…
rss