April 2nd, 2011
Mexican FOI law improves with new provisions
By Dan Kubiske
Freedom of information laws are a growing phenomenon in the world and more needs to be done to help the forces of FOI win their battles.
In Mexico, the forces of transparency won a major victory in a key congressional committee as damaging proposals were cast aside and proposals to strengthen the law passed.
And Twitter played a role.
Improvements to Mexican Transparency Law Passed
1 APRIL 2011
A handful of potentially harmful proposals to change the Mexican freedom of information law were defeated March 30 as a key congressional committee approved a package of more positive reforms.
Although approval by several other committees and the full lower body of Congress still lies ahead, and activists are concerned about the possible opposition from some in the current government, the deletion of certain parts of the Senate-passed bill was considered a major success by Mexican supporters of freedom of information. Their effort was bolstered by a targeted barrage of Twitter messages.
The Carter Center and the Knight Foundation have been running a series of seminars and conferences around the world to promote the concept that citizens have a right to know what information their governments have.