Two freedom of information watchdogs, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and OpenTheGovernment.org, have released a joint report on compliance with the Freedom of Information Act by 15 major federal agencies, according to a report in the Federal Times. The study compares FOIA compliance data from FY 2008 and FY 2010, the first full fiscal year that President Obama has been in office.

From the introduction to the report:

“The results paint a very mixed picture on the FOIA front, with agencies generally processing more requests more quickly, but also increasing their reliance on the FOIA’s nine exemptions to withhold more information from the public.  Our analysis revealed an even more alarming truth:  the government’s FOIA data is flawed, making it impossible to assess key areas of progress and casting doubt on its overall reliability.”

Below are some highlights. Read the full report here: Measuring Transparency Under the FOIA: The Real Story Behind the Numbers.

• Exemptions claimed have risen by 33 percent.
• The Justice Department cited more frequent exemptions; the Department of Treasury had the most significant decline in exemptions.
• A majority of agencies had made progress in dealing with the backlog of FOIA requests, from 126,200 at the end of FY 2008 to 64,500 at the end of FY 2010.
• The overall number of requests increased by 11 percent, while compliance with requests has risen 8 percent.

Maine: Governor Paul LePage is proposing a measure to hide all working papers from public access, reports the Bangor Daily News.  The state legislature currently enjoys such protection of its working papers, or “anything written down that could contribute to proposed legislation.” The state’s right-to-know advisory committee has approved the proposal by a vote of 10 to five. Dissenting members of the committee advocate not only for the governor’s proposal to be rejected, but for the legislature to lose its current protections of working papers.

Judy Meyer, co-chairperson of the committee and managing editor of the Lewiston Sun Journal, said that ”this runs completely contrary to what the governor has said about transparency.” The governor’s deputy counsel, Michael Cianchette, argues that the proposed protection ”doesn’t cut against transparency because as soon as a bill is presented, all documents become public. This just protects the decision-making process.”

Washington, D.C.: The Washington Post reports that some top city officials in D.C. have used personal email accounts for work purposes. Speaking for Chief Financial Officer Natwar M. Gandhi, who testified at a deposition last month, Gandhi’s chief of staff said, “There may have been an issue that we wanted to discuss, but did not necessarily want it to be FOIA-able to the press and, so, we would have perhaps had a conversation on personal email.” Gandhi explained at the deposition that he used his personal email account when emailing colleagues from home, citing difficulty accessing his work account. D.C. Mayor Vincent C. Gray may also be under fire after the Post uncovered several emails he had sent to aides from his personal account.

California: In good FOIA news, a California state senator has introduced a bill that would require more transparency and ease of access to public files among government agencies. Rather than posting graphics and scans of documents, which are not keyword-friendly, Sen. Leland Yee’s bill would require public documents and data to be uploaded in user-friendly formats such as word-processing and spreadsheet files. On Saturday, a conference/”hack-a-thon” was hosted to allow software developers to create applications that can help the government open and streamline its operations. Read the story from the Central Valley Business Times.

– Abby Henkel

Abby Henkel is SPJ’s communications coordinator and a 2011 graduate of Indiana University’s School of Public and Environmental Affairs master’s program. Reach her at ahenkel@spj.org.

Win: After proposing a controversial rule change that would allow government agencies to deny the existence of national security documents, last Thursday the Department of Justice withdrew its proposal.

Potential Fail: The Tennessee County Commissioners Association is pushing county governments across the state to adopt a law that would allow elected officials to meet in private, as long as the group does not meet quorum. Bob Barnwell, president of the Association and Williamson County Commissioner, has toured the state urging local governments to adopt the law. He claims the Sunshine Law, which requires government meetings of more than two officials to be announced and open to the public, is overly burdensome. The current Sunshine Law applies to county commissioners but not to the state General Assembly, according to The Tennessean.

Win: Detroit citizens achieved a victory in open government Nov. 8 by approving a new city charter. Loopholes have been closed and the representative structure has been reworked, including new citizen advisory councils and anti-corruption measures. Read about the changes from Michigan Radio.

-Abby Henkel

Abby Henkel is SPJ’s communications coordinator and a 2011 graduate of Indiana University’s School of Public and Environmental Affairs master’s program. Reach her at ahenkel@spj.org.

FOIA requests are the bread and butter of quality reporting, but sometimes they can be incredibly annoying. Filling out the forms, hassling agencies to respond to your requests, bugging them again when they ignore your initial hassling – it can get tiring for a reporter who has three other stories to write by 5 p.m.

MuckRock, an open government tool, takes some of the pressure off of reporters by handling the FOIA requests for them.

To get your FOIA request taken care of, go the MuckRock website and type in what information you need. MuckRock staff helps with the rest, getting your request completed and providing the documents in a scanned and searchable format.

The website also provides regular updates on FOI issues on its blog.

You can also browse through the database of other FOIA requests that MuckRock is handling. It includes information on the statuses of various requests.

If a request has been completed that matches the information you’re looking for, you can check out the documents at MuckRock rather than having to file another FOIA request for the same information.

You can also see if someone else has submitted a FOIA request for the same data that’s been denied.

MuckRock was founded by journalist Michael Morisy and Mitchell Kotler, who has worked at various high-tech startup companies.

The Sunlight Foundation, which has provided grant money for the program, is among MuckRock’s supporters.

The next time you need to make a records request for a story, take a few minutes to check out MuckRock’s services first. The site could be a huge help.

– 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).

Judge hears debate on Risen’s motion to quash subpoena

New York Times reporter James Risen’s attorneys argued his case in court Thursday, fighting for his right not to testify in a CIA leak case.

U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema heard arguments from Risen’s lawyers and from the government, which sought to convince the judge that the reporter’s testimony is a key factor in their case against ex-CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling. Sterling is accused of leaking information about a CIA operation targeting Iran’s nuclear program to Risen.

Information about the operation appeared in the Risen’s 2006 book “State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration.”

Risen’s attorney, Joel Kurtzberg, pointed out that the government hadn’t shown what other available testimonies they had before subpoenaing Risen – a move that should be a last resort only, according to the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

Government prosecutors argued that the jury should be privy to information that will provide more certainty in their verdict, including Risen’s testimony.

Risen’s attorneys counter-argued that the prosecution needs to prove that his testimony is a critical, rather than simply supplemental, piece of its case in order to overcome the state shield law.

Risen has said he would testify on information that has already been published or is already known, such as the fact that his writing is accurate and that statements from an unidentified source actually came from an unidentified source. He has said he isn’t willing to reveal any confidential sources. If forced to testify, he could be jailed for his refusal.

Prior to Thursday’s court proceedings, the government responded Wednesday to a court order in which Brinkema asked the court to review Risen’s 2010 subpoena and related documents and decide whether they could be unsealed and released with certain redactions. The judge said this could better inform Sterling’s prosecution, according to Secrecy News.

In response, the government said that the 2010 grand jury proceedings involving Risen should remain secret.

For more information on Thursday’s court arguments, including how the prosecution compared the Sterling case to the recent Casey Anthony case in Florida, read this Politico article by Josh Gerstein.

Agencies with FOIA changes on agendas – will they follow through?

Several government agencies are considering changes to their FOIA regulations in the next six months, according to a Unified Agenda report released Thursday.

Whether these changes will actually come to pass, however, is uncertain.

In recent years, many of the entries agencies have provided for Unified Agenda reports have been for plans that probably wouldn’t be put into action within the next year, according to OMB Watch.

Some of the FOIA regulations listed in Unified Agenda reports have been listed multiple times over the course of several years without being completed.

While the Unified Agenda details the FOIA plans of several agencies, there may be other departments planning similar policy changes that haven’t listed them in their entries for the report because they aren’t explicitly required to include FOIA changes.

– 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).

90 candles for the GAO

The Government Accountability Office can blow out 90 candles for its birthday this month.

Since its creation in 1921, the GAO has been keeping watch over government spending. It oversees how taxpayer funds are used and how money is spent on everything from the Iraq war to NASA’s latest project.

The GAO was known as the General Accounting Office for the better part of its existence before former comptroller David Walker changed its name to the Government Accountability Office in 2004.

Check out the anniversary video the GAO has released about its long history.

State Dept. slacking on FOIA requests

Despite President Obama’s calls for government agencies to become more efficient in responding to FOIA requests, some are still lagging behind in their response times – particularly the State Department, according to the Center for Public Integrity.

CPI received notices from the State Department asking it to withdraw requests from 2007 that have yet to be completed.

The documents in question were requested by former CPI reporter Devin Varsalona for a story on how Obama and other presidents traditionally provide diplomatic postings to major donors. Many of the journalist’s requests were still unfilled when the story was published in 2008.

This isn’t the first time the State Department has been called out for being unresponsive regarding transparency issues like FOIA requests. As of March 10, the State Department still had not provided a final response to Obama’s memo on open government according to a National Security Archive study.

White House meetings not as transparent as promised

The Obama administration is supposedly in favor of transparency – but not if they’re talking about debt reduction.

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said at a press briefing June 30 that the executive branch was so serious about reaching a debt-reduction deal with Congress that it would hold meetings without notifying the press corps about them.

Carney did backtrack during the press briefing, saying that there aren’t meetings with major leaders that are kept secret even though not all presidential meetings are publicly noted.

Obama met with House Speaker John Boehner Sunday – but the White House meeting wasn’t on his public schedule. Politico writer David Rogers was the first to report the meeting on Tuesday, but Carney would neither confirm nor deny news of the meeting on Wednesday.

He also justified the secrecy surrounding meetings by arguing that reaching a solid budget deal was more important and that having up-to-date information on presidential meetings is of little concern to members of the general public, according to Politico.

– 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).

The Illinois legislature approved a bill that, if signed into law by the governor, would hurt the ability of frequent FOI requesters to get prompt responses from the government.

According to House Bill 1716, people who make more than seven requests in a week, 15 in 30 days or 50 per year to the same public body would be considered “recurrent requesters.” Their requests could take up to 21 days for a response under the new rules if the bill becomes law.

The bill also includes provisions for the addition of fees to commercial information requests that will take more than eight hours to complete, according to the State-Journal-Register.

The bill doesn’t apply to members of the news media.

Although journalists are safe from its implications, the bill encroaches upon the right of citizens to request information from their government as often as they want without facing additional obstacles to obtaining that data beyond those legally permitted by disclosure exemptions.

While the legislature may have passed this bill, there’s still a chance Gov. Pat Quinn could veto it and protect the citizens from its proposed restrictions. He received the measure on June 29.

– 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).

FOIA celebrates 45 years of openness

As children wielded sparklers and fireworks were shot off of rooftops to celebrate Independence Day on Monday, FOIA turned 45.

For four-and-a-half decades, the United States’ Freedom of Information Act has provided legal support for citizens when they asked for information the government was hesitant to provide. It has demanded that the government prove why information should be kept secret rather than force a journalist to prove why it should be disclosed.

Without FOIA, countless government injustices would have gone unnoticed.

FOIA has cast a light revealing information that would otherwise have been hidden in the shadows of government secrecy.

Implementation of FOIA isn’t perfect. There are disputes every day over whether people should have access to certain government information, especially where national security is concerned. The issue of how FOIA and technology should be used to provide searchable documents has also become a point of contention.

But with 45 years under its belt, FOIA is here to stay. It just needs some tweaking to ensure it keeps up with the fast-paced times in which we live.

Check out this article from the Sunlight Foundation also wishing FOIA a happy birthday. The National Security Archive commemorated FOIA’s anniversary as well with a Knight Open Government survey revealing some of the oldest unfulfilled FOIA requests and a list of 45 FOIA-related stories published this year.

Government mobile project launched

It’s time for government to go mobile.

At least, that’s what the U.S. General Services Administration is hoping to convince government agencies to do.

The GSA’s Office of Citizen Services and Innovative Technologies recently launched a new project called Making Mobile Gov. It aims to help federal departments collaborate on efforts to provide more government data to mobile devices like smartphones.

Government agencies will be able to use Web tools provided by the GSA program to help them create or revise their own mobile-sharing plans and to implement them successfully.

While advancing government openness to the mobile level is a great idea, OMB Watch published a June 30 blog post arguing that government agencies should first focus on making their websites more easily accessible for mobile devices before funneling the bulk of their resources toward creating cell phone apps that may not be as widely used.

– 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).

Court orders FBI to admit if it has docs requested by death row inmate

The FBI must disclose whether it has records requested by a death row inmate in Texas that could help exonerate him.

Lester Leroy Bower Jr., on death row for a quadruple homicide that occurred in Texas in 1983, alleges that three other men are the true killers, according to the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

A U.S. appeals court ruled Tuesday that the FBI must admit whether it has the records requested by Bower under FOIA because the public’s right to know overrules the privacy interests of the men who may be linked to the murders.

The FBI’s initial reaction to the inmate’s 2008 FOIA requests was to issue a “Glomar” response, which doesn’t confirm or deny whether the records exist.

A Glomar response is allowed if disclosing the existence of a record would cause harm under a specific FOIA exemption. For example, in this case the FBI argued that it could use a Glomar response because to admit whether the records exist would cause an invasion of personal privacy that is unwarranted, as supported by FOIA exemptions 6 and 7(C).

The court’s Tuesday decision doesn’t require the FBI to actually release the requested records, which may fall under other FOIA exemptions. But the FBI must disclose whether the agency does or does not have the documents.

Historically open records in Conn. must be redacted, court says

The Supreme Court of Connecticut ruled Tuesday that state agencies must redact addresses for certain officials in town assessor property logs – records that have previously been available to the public in their entirety.

The court extended a state FOIA exemption that calls for the redaction of certain public officials’ addresses to the property logs.

This court decision could also be applied to many other kinds of record logs that have historically been unredacted – a move that could hurt state transparency efforts, according to the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

The state Supreme Court reversed rulings by the state Freedom of Information Commission and a Connecticut trial court, which had ruled that town assessors’ “grand lists” of property records are required by law to be unredacted.

– 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).

Google: U.S. government biggest requester of private info

Google released transparency information showing the U.S. government to be the biggest requester of private information.

From July to Dec. 2010, the U.S. requested user data 4,601 times. Google complied with 94 percent of those requests, according to a Guardian article.

Brazil had the second-highest number of requests at 1,804, while India took third place with 1,699 requests. The United Kingdom placed fourth with 1,162 requests.

Google’s compliance rate varied by country – India had 79 percent of its requests filled, while the U.K. had 72 percent of them partially or entirely completed.

Private user information was requested more than 14,000 times in the second half of 2010 in 26 developed nations.

NYT articles scrutinize open government under Obama

Two recent New York Times articles took aim at transparency under the Obama administration.

The first piece, a June 25 story by Natasha Singer, focuses on the need for faster, more comprehensive FOIA compliance and overall transparency at the federal level.

Obama called on government agencies to become more open on day one of his presidency, yet only 49 of 90 agencies have made changes to their FOIA procedures in the two-and-a-half years since Obama entered the Oval Office, according to a National Security Archive study.

The story explores some problematic government practices regarding FOIA and methods being pursued to potentially improve the situation, such as the Faster FOIA Act.

It also looks at the still-undisclosed records regarding Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two mortgage companies bailed out by the government using taxpayer dollars, as examples of government information that should be readily available but remain private.

A June 26 NYT editorial by Geoffrey Stone, a University of Chicago law professor, questions whether Obama has been a strong supporter of transparency as president.

The verdict: Kind of, but not really.

Stone acknowledges that Obama has taken some action to scale back the Bush administration’s legacy of anti-transparency, but he also points out ways in which Obama has perpetuated it.

One open government success for Obama was his repeal of a 2001 directive by Bush-era Attorney General John D. Ashcroft that allowed the government to classify any information that might hurt national security if disclosed.

As for Obama’s transparency failures, Stone mentions a few key problems. These include the president’s lack of support for whistleblowers and his flip-flopping on the issue of a federal journalist-source privilege, which would allow reporters to better protect their sources’ identities.

When he was a senator, Obama supported the Free Flow of Information Act, which aimed to provide federal protections for journalists. As president, he raised objections to the proposed bill before it later stalled in the Senate.

SPJ has been one of many journalism organizations and news outlets calling for such a law.

– 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).