Archive for the ‘Must reads’ Category
By Lynn Walsh | January 8th, 2018
Filed a federal Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, but ran into a few bumps? The Society of Professional Journalists wants to help.
We know the process can be challenging, frustrating and sometimes confusing. We also know sometimes your only option is to obtain services from an attorney. Now, help from a FOIA attorney is just an email away. Send the following information to foia@spj.org:
- Your name
- Your best contact information
- Copy of your original FOIA request
- Current status of your request
- How we can help
Once you send the email, SPJ leaders will work with FOIA attorneys to connect you with a FOIA expert and resources to help.
The FOIA is a cornerstone of openness in our government; it compels federal agencies to yield millions of documents relating to government operations and performance. News organizations, scholars, and public interest groups use the FOIA to report information significant to public health and safety, and good governance.
SPJ hopes that by offering this resource, more journalists will be given the assistance they need to continue working as government watchdogs.
Lynn Walsh is a freelance journalist, creating content focused on government accountability, public access to information and freedom of expression issues. She’s also helping to rebuild trust between newsrooms and the public through the Trusting News Project. Follow her on Twitter or send her an email to collaborate on a possible project.
Posted in College FOI, Constitution, court records, Courtroom access, FOI strategies and tips, FOI wins, FOIA How-To, Freedom of Information, Must reads, Open government, public disclosure, rights | Comment »
By David Schick | July 25th, 2014
Every week I do a roundup of the freedom of information stories around the Web. If you have an FOI story you want to share, send me an email or tweet me.
- The Electronic Privacy Information Center has sued the United States Customs and Border Protection to compel the agency to produce documents relating to a relatively new comprehensive intelligence database of people and cargo crossing the U.S. border.
—
David Schick is the summer 2014 Pulliam/Kilgore Freedom of Information intern for SPJ, reporting and researching public records and FOI issues. Contact him at dschick@spj.org or interact on Twitter: @davidcschick
Tags: Electronic Frontier Foundation, FOIA, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, Internal Revenue Service, IRS, personal email, reporters co, transparency, university of connecticut
Posted in court records, Courtroom access, Document story ideas, FOI strategies and tips, FOI wins, Freedom of Information, Loony denials, Must reads, NSA leak, Open government, public disclosure, Uncategorized | Comment »
By David Schick | July 18th, 2014
Every week I do a roundup of the freedom of information stories around the Web. If you have an FOI story you want to share, send me an email or tweet me.
Special congrats to the FOIA advocacy website MuckRock, they got a shout out from the Daily Show this week for one of their FOIA requests:
—
David Schick is the summer 2014 Pulliam/Kilgore Freedom of Information intern for SPJ, reporting and researching public records and FOI issues. Contact him at dschick@spj.org or interact on Twitter: @davidcschick
Tags: CIA, Edward Snowden, FOIA, Freedom of Information, Freedom of Information Act, South Carolina Supreme Court, US department of state
Posted in court records, Document story ideas, FOI strategies and tips, Freedom of Information, Loony denials, Must reads, Open government, open meetings, public disclosure | Comment »
By David Schick | July 11th, 2014
Every week I do a roundup of the freedom of information stories around the Web. If you have an FOI story you want to share, send me an email or tweet me.
- A CIA employee with the highest level of security clearance tried to get the agency to release info that was a decade old. They told him no, so he submitted a FOIA request and it “destroyed his entire career.”
- The Center for Investigative Reporting is collecting ideas on how to improve the FOIA request process. Have ideas? Fill out the form here.
- Two local activist groups file suit against a Florida county claiming that the commission skirted state open-government laws in allowing a controversial business park to go forward.
- Which U.S. agencies sprung for the extra legroom provided by first class? MuckRock obtained Agency Premium Travel Reports, which show how millions in upgrade fees were spent from 2009-2013.
–
David Schick is the summer 2014 Pulliam/Kilgore Freedom of Information intern for SPJ, reporting and researching public records and FOI issues. Contact him at dschick@spj.org or interact on Twitter: @davidcschick
Tags: Ann Arbor, Center for Investigative Reporting, Central Intelligence Agency, CIA, CIR, FOIA, FOIA lawsuit, Illinois High School Association, Virginia Freedom of Information
Posted in Freedom of Information, Must reads, Open government, open meetings, public disclosure | Comment »
By David Schick | June 27th, 2014
Every week I’ll be doing a round up of the freedom of information stories around the Web. If you have an FOI story you want to share, send me an email or tweet me.
- FOIA from the “budget” perspective answers the following questions: How much are we spending on FOIA oversight? How does that compare to the costs of litigation? How much does the government spend on FOIA administration overall.
- The FBI’s 83-page guide to Twitter shorthand. FMTYEWTK (Far More Than You Ever Wanted To Know).
- A federal judge ruled that the Freedom of Information Act trumps an Internal Revenue Service policy for handling data requests after an advocacy group, Public.Resource.Org, filed a lawsuit against the IRS to make Form 990 returns available in a format that can be read by computers so the public can more easily search them for critical information about non-profit finances, governance and programs.
- Tulsa World editorial calls for the legislature to strike down the “deliberative process” exemption. A judge recently ruled that Governor Mary Fallin was allowed to withhold 100 pages out of 51,000 concerning her state’s decision on the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare.
- The “FOIA Warriors” (Jason Leopold and Ryan Shapiro) are at it again and have filed a lawsuit against the CIA compelling the agency to release documents about its spying on Senate lawmakers who were tasked with investigating CIA torture.
—
David Schick is the summer 2014 Pulliam/Kilgore Freedom of Information intern for SPJ, reporting and researching public records and FOI issues. Contact him at dschick@spj.org or interact on Twitter: @davidcschick
Tags: Central Intelligence Agency, CIA, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Florida Supreme Court, FOIA budget, FOIA Friday, FOIA Modernization Advisory Committee, Governor Mary Fallin, Senator Patrick Leahy
Posted in Document story ideas, First Amendment, FOI wins, Freedom of Information, Must reads, Open government, public disclosure | Comment »
By David Schick | June 20th, 2014
Every week I’ll be doing a round up of the freedom of information stories around the Web. If you have an FOI story you want to share, send me an email or tweet me.
- In the above link about the document seizure by the U.S. Marshals, the American Civil Liberties Union filed an emergency motion to try and claw back those records, but the judge dismissed it.
- FOIA request reveals brutal photos of seals, dolphins, whales, and other sea life that were caught in California commercial fishing boats that use drift gillnets — one mile-long mesh nets that are intended to catch swordfish.
- The Kentucky Court of Appeals has affirmed a Circuit Court decision paving the way for public access to court records related to a public official’s job performance and the contentious relationship she had with the former president of a local community college.
- An appeals court backs a man who made an anonymous public records request. The court ruled that the city of Greenacres, Fla., could not require the man to fill out a form before obtaining the documents.
- St. Louis police records released per a judge’s order in public records lawsuit show how vice and other drug officers scalped the scalpers. Fifteen police officers were either suspended and demoted or otherwise disciplined for giving St. Louis Cardinals’ championship tickets seized from scalpers to friends and family.
- The Miami Herald questions the Department of Children & Families’ “paperless” investigation into why there were originally no records — “no reports, memos, notes, emails or smoke signals” — of the deaths of at least 30 children who were in DCF’s active case files.
- The Federal Bureau of Prisons is being sued for FOIA violations by Prisology, a non-profit criminal justice reform organization. They claim that the FBOP has been non-compliant with the law, which has required for decades the Bureau post online substantial information about its day-to-day decision-making.
—
David Schick is the summer 2014 Pulliam/Kilgore Freedom of Information intern for SPJ, reporting and researching public records and FOI issues. Contact him at dschick@spj.org or interact on Twitter: @davidcschick
Tags: adam goldstein, federal bureau of prisons, jason leopold, medium, Penn State, st. clair county, stingray, surveillance, The Associated Press, university of delaware
Posted in College FOI, Document story ideas, Freedom of Information, Must reads, Open government, public disclosure | Comment »
By David Schick | June 13th, 2014
Every week I’ll be doing a round up of the freedom of information stories around the Web. If you have an FOI story you want to share, send me an email or tweet me.
- A Circuit Court Judge will decide on whether text messages exchanged between government officials need to be released under FOIA in a lawsuit filed by PETA. The first defense the city of Norfolk, Virginia, offered was that its public employees don’t save their messages, then it said there was no way of retrieving them. Maybe their next excuse will be, “The dog ate ’em.”
- FOI advocacy groups want to close loop holes in FOIA regulations. Advocates say “agencies lack penalties for withholding information, overuse exemptions provided within FOIA and deal inconsistently and unfairly toward requesters.”
- After 10,000 requests, MuckRock files FOIA lawsuit against the CIA. You can read all about in their editorial, “Why we’re suing the CIA.”
- FOIA request filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation reveals FBI’s Next Generation Identification facial recognition program will consist of a database of more than 52 million pictures. FBI Director says he doesn’t think the agency will spy on Americans with it. (Apparently he missed the memo from the NSA.)
—
David Schick is the summer 2014 Pulliam/Kilgore Freedom of Information intern for SPJ, reporting and researching public records and FOI issues. Contact him at dschick@spj.org or interact on Twitter: @davidcschick
Tags: alaskan dispatch, CIA, city of gainesville, delaware state, FBI, FOI, Freedom of Information Act, Mother Jones, MuckRock, peta, shane bauer, university of delaware
Posted in College FOI, court records, Document story ideas, First Amendment, FOI audits, Freedom of Information, Must reads, Open government, public disclosure | Comment »
By David Schick | June 6th, 2014
Every week I’ll be doing a round up of the freedom of information stories around the Web. If you have an FOI story you want to share, send me an email or tweet me.
- How can you get open records from private colleges? Find federal agencies they report to and request records: Internal Harvard report, obtained via FOIA request, shines light on ex-researcher’s misconduct.
- Michigan House of Representatives passes bill affirming the confidentiality of gun records and keeps them exempt from FOIA. The bill codifies a 1999 Michigan Supreme Court Decision that gun records disclosure was “a clearly unwarranted invasion of an individual’s privacy.”
- Investigative Reporters & Editors have an awesome FOI podcast, aptly named FOIA Frustrations. You should listen to it.
—
David Schick is the summer 2014 Pulliam/Kilgore Freedom of Information intern for SPJ, reporting and researching public records and FOI issues. Contact him at dschick@spj.org or interact on Twitter: @davidcschick
Tags: ACLU, California Supreme Court, Chicago Headline Club, Department of Justice, Edward Snowden, Electronic Frontier Foundation, FAA, Federal Aviation Administration, federal employees surfing porn, FOIA, HB 3796, Illinois Governor Pat Quinn, Illinois Supreme Court, Michigan House of Representatives, NSA
Posted in Freedom of Information, Must reads, Open government | Comment »
By David Schick | May 30th, 2014
Every week I’ll be doing a round up of the freedom of information stories around the Web. If you have an FOI story you want to share, send me an email or tweet me.
- “You don’t start a dialogue with FOIA requests”: Students upset with University of Virginia law professor Douglas Laycock’s “defense of laws requiring governments to accommodate controversial religious views” have sent an FOI request for correspondence between the professor and organizations that oppose same-sex marriage. And more on that from Will Creeley, public advocate for the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, who suggests the FOIA request threatens academic freedom.
—
David Schick is the summer 2014 Pulliam/Kilgore Freedom of Information intern for SPJ, reporting and researching public records and FOI issues. Contact him at dschick@spj.org or interact on Twitter: @davidcschick
Posted in FOI strategies and tips, Freedom of Information, Must reads | Comment »
By David Schick | May 23rd, 2014
Every week I’ll be doing a round up of the freedom of information stories around the web. If you’ve got a FOI story you want to share send me an email or tweet me.
Wisconsin court ruling is a real danger to open records. It’s a big problem giving government officials the right to “consider the intentions of people who file open records request when deciding whether to fill them.”
The joy of public records — You can’t make this stuff up… No spoilers on this one, you just have to click it.
It took four months to redact a majority of a top-secret Pentagon report conducted to determine the damage done by the NSA documents leaked by Edward Snowden. It concluded that “the scope of the compromised knowledge related to US intelligence capabilities is staggering.”
The FOIA Project just uploaded 97 new FOIA court documents, plus case descriptions. No need to pay for a PACER account now.
Federal Appeals Court ruling says that the CIA can keep their 50-year-old internal account of the Bay of Pigs secret indefinitely.
—
David Schick is the summer 2014 Pulliam/Kilgore Freedom of Information intern for SPJ, reporting and researching public records and FOI issues. Contact him at dschick@spj.org or interact on Twitter: @davidcschick
Tags: Bay of Pigs, CIA, Edward Snowden, NSA, open government, Wisconsin Court of Appeals
Posted in First Amendment, Freedom of Information, Must reads, Open government | Comment »