It’s been a bit of a roller-coaster ride in Laramie for open-government advocates.

First, in January a district court judge ruled in favor of media organizations that the names for the finalists for the University of Wyoming’s presidency should be public record. The university was planning a secret selection process, using the shop-worn argument that good candidates wouldn’t bother applying if their current employers knew they were looking for a job.

But the ink on the court ruling was barely dry when Wyoming House Majority Leader Kermit Brown, R-Laramie, introduced legislation that would make the finalists information secret. At a committee hearing, university officials testified that four of the eight semi-finalists for the job withdrew after the court decision. The fact that the bill went through the Minerals Committee instead of either a higher-education or judiciary committee raises questions about intent.

SPJ’s FOI Committee weighed in, with Chairwoman Linda Petersen and National President Sonny Alborado writing a letter urging the bill’s veto.

The bill passed through the legislature quickly, and Gov. Matt Mead allowed the bill to become law without his signature, on Feb. 8 due to the veto-proof majorities in the Legislature that passed the bill. There was a glimmer of hope in Mead’s warning that the Legislature should not further erode the state’s open-records law.

But it looked like the presidential search would be shrouded in secrecy. Then, as the Student Press Law Center reported Feb. 22, the university decided that it would make the finalists public.

But the law is still on the books, which means the Wyoming media may have to fight this battle again. But at least it can rely on this presidential search to show that sunlight did not scare off qualified candidates.

Frank LoMonte, the Student Press Law Center’s executive director, wants college students to help him show how flawed the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act has become.

LoMonte’s “Let’s Break FERPA” campaign calls for students to contact their schools and ask for copies of their FERPA records. LoMonte points out that FERPA not only requires the records be kept from public view, but must be provided to students and their families on request.

The point of the exercise, LoMonte says, is to show that schools use FERPA to hold back records that should be public. He expects students to just get copies of their college applications and transcripts, and not the myriad records that are usually locked up under FERPA, such as student government meeting minutes, campus crime reports and similar documents.

The law center provides a letter generator to help students write their requests, and LoMonte is expecting to hear the first reports of the campaign filter in in the next couple months. FERPA gives schools 45 days to respond to requests.

The cover story in the current edition of Quill magazine is about the battle Utah media and open-government advocates launched to beat back an assault on the state’s Government Records Access and Management Act (GRAMA). The article also tells of the legislation that came out of the public outcry, which for the most part strengthened some of GRAMA’s principles. It illustrates the need of making sure the public understands that records laws are for them, not just for journalists.

Federal News Radio reports that the National Archives, the Department of Commerce and the Environmental Protection Agency are launching a website that will allow people to track Freedom of Information Act requests, as well as see what’s been released.

FOIAonline allows people to also communicate with FOIA officers, as well as file requests and monitor where their requests are in the system. The agencies can also use the website to fill requests, posting documents online for the requester and anyone else who would be interested in them.

One of the great axioms of journalism, attributed to Chicago’s City News Bureau, is “If your mother says she loves you, check it out.”

Recently, the Chicago Tribune  demonstrated the importance of using public records to check out one of those stories that was too good to be true.

The Tribune originally wrote about Henry Wolfson, a popular substitute teacher in the Chicago suburb of Skokie, Ill., who was living in a homeless shelter. The tale inspired former students to start raising funds for the 66-year-old Wolfson, who had apparently fallen on hard times. The students raised $40,000.

But court records showed that Wolfson had received a $247,000 inheritance in 2007, and a $12,000 lawsuit settlement in 2011. Wolfson admitted in a subsequent interview that he had gambled away $180,000 betting on horse races at off-track betting parlors.

Wolfson also said he would support his students refunding the money or donating it to a charity.

But had the paper checked public records first, it would have produced a more accurate, nuanced story. Would people have donated had they known that Wolfson had a gambling problem? Maybe, but at least they would have done it knowing full well how a life-long substitute teacher ended up in a homeless shelter.

It’s easy to want to want to run with a story that pulls at the heart strings, but as journalists we need to check the facts, and public records are a great way to do it.

The Salt Lake Tribune reports that Utah Gov. Gary Herbert appointed Holly Richardson, a former state legislator and conservative blogger, as the public representative on the State Records Committee, which hears appeals under the state Government Records Access and Management Act (GRAMA). During her time in the legislature, Richardson voted for House Bill 477, which critics say would have gutted the state’s open records law. She also voted to repeal HB477 and served on a task force that looked at the open records law.

That’s the question the U.S. Supreme Court could address when it convenes next month.

The First Amendment Center reports that Rhode Island resident Mark McBurney and California resident Roger Holbert are appealing a 4th Circuit Court of Appeals decision upholding Virginia’s law limiting state records requests to state residents only.

While the odds of getting a hearing before the Supreme Court are typically slim, the pair have a chance, since the ruling conflicts with a 6th Circuit decision upholding the right of all people to ask for public records, regardless of where they live.

The pair base their appeal on the Constitution’s privileges and immunities clause, which prohibits states from treating residents of other states in a discriminatory manner.

Open government groups, including the National Freedom of Information Coalition, have filed amicus briefs in support of the appeal.

The Sanpete Messenger, a weekly located in central Utah, recently won the right to receive the name of a teenage boy who was injured in a June car crash.

The State Records Committee granted the paper’s appeal of a Utah Department of Public Safety’s denial of the newspaper’s request for accident reports naming the boy, who was struck on a rural highway  after he had wandered out of a group home. The department, which oversees the Utah Highway Patrol, said the boy’s name could not be released because it would constitute an unwarranted invasion of privacy.

During the hearing before the records committee, SPJ members Linda Petersen, Sheryl Worsley and Joel Campbell testified that such information is not private under state law, that the highway patrol uses the names of minors killed in car crashes as part of its safety presentations and that the police should not be in the position of interpreting state law.

There was a lot riding on this appeal. Had the Messenger lost, it would have set a dangerous precedent. The records committee decision maintains the openness allowed under Utah law.

NSA whistleblower goes free

After the prosecution of National Security Agency whistleblower Thomas Drake collapsed from felony-level charges to a plea bargain for a misdemeanor, Drake was sentenced to one year probation and 240 hours of community service July 15.

Judge Richard D. Bennett criticized the Justice Department for dragging out its investigation of Drake for years before dropping the bulk of the charges just days before the trial was to begin.

For a detailed account of Drake’s sentencing, check out this New York Times article.

The Government Accountability Project has also published a transcript of Drake’s statement to the press following his sentencing.

British Columbia first provincial gov to start open-data site

The government of British Columbia made almost 2,500 datasets publicly available Tuesday when it launched its open-data website.

Although much of the information was already previously available, the website makes it easier to access, according to a Vancouver Sun article.

British Columbia has also adopted an open-data license that will allow programmers to use government information without fear of being sued.

The province will also start posting FOI-requested data online here after the requester has had a minimum of four days to review the information beforehand – a caveat that will let reporters cover stories before others can gain access to the data.

For more information on this open government initiative, see this article from the Globe and Mail.

– Morgan Watkins

Morgan Watkins is SPJ’s summer Pulliam/Kilgore Freedom of Information intern and a University of Florida student. Reach her by email (mwatkins@spj.org) or connect with her on Twitter (@morganwatkins26)

N.J. court requires public officials to reveal cell phone call locations

Location, location, location.

That can’t stay secret when it comes to cell phone records, according to a New Jersey court ruling.

Public officials using taxpayer-funded cell phones must disclose the destination of the calls they make because such information is helpful to the public interest, according to the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

The court case, Livecchia v. Borough of Mount Arlington, arose after after the borough redacted the locations of calls made by public officials when it filled resident Gayle Ann Livecchia’s records request.

Livecchia and other citizens can use the phone call locations, which must now be disclosed, to find out whether government employees are improperly using their work cells.

Federal task force to evaluate gov websites

Federal CIO Vivek Kundra revealed the names of 17 people who will comprise a .gov task force that will slim down government websites and evaluate potential policy adjustments for running such Web properties in the future.

Those appointed include IT professionals from various federal offices, according to a Government Tech blog post.

This task force complements President Obama’s “Campaign to Cut Waste,” which aims to cut unnecessary expenditures.

This includes paring down the 2,000-plus federal URLs in use.

Here’s a list of 1,759 top Web domains for the executive branch, as well as a Q&A page on the project that includes a list of all task force members.

Gov demands ACLU return classified doc

The federal government wants a judge to order the American Civil Liberties Union to return a classified document that was released to the organization detailing how employees decide which Afghanistan detainees are Enduring Security Threats.

The ACLU must respond to the government’s court filings by July 29, according to the Washington Post’s Checkpoint Washington blog.

The ACLU wants to post the document, which it says was improperly classified, to its website.

The Pentagon gave the organization the document, along with several others, in compliance with a court order requiring their release. The ACLU notified the government about the Afghanistan detainee document on May 25.

– Morgan Watkins

Morgan Watkins is SPJ’s summer Pulliam/Kilgore Freedom of Information intern and a University of Florida student. Reach her by email (mwatkins@spj.org) or connect with her on Twitter (@morganwatkins26).