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open government

California Legislature’s feel-good resolution on openness

FAC March 23, 2014

The state Senate voted unanimously last week to honor “Sunshine Week” by declaring its “long tradition in support of open government and access to government records,” but in an editorial the San Francisco Chronicle observes that words aren’t always accompanied by action. The paper cites two current examples in which the Legislature turned its back on transparency. Democrats and Republicans were both culpable. Full story

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In California, a clearer look at gifts to public officials

FAC April 26, 2013

The toughest financial disclosure rules for public officials have little effect if the press and public can’t easily gain access to the information. Now the California Fair Political Practices Commission and a non-profit called Code for America are trying to bridge the information gap. By digitizing required disclosure data from California judges into spreadsheet-readable form, then plotting the results on a chart, the project created a picture of who’s giving and who’s taking gifts and

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A sawbuck to look up a court file?

FAC March 21, 2013

Gov. Brown’s budget proposal for California includes a hefty fee for individuals, news media and others who want to inspect court records. The plan would impose a $10 charge for looking up documents, a service now provided for free. The courts now charge $15 to check out a record if a member of the public keeps it for more than 10 minutes. The new plan would exempt fees for people looking up their own cases,

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When ‘open government’ isn’t

FAC March 17, 2013

The rise of websites and apps that ease access to government information shouldn’t be confused with transparency, says guest columnist Evgeny Morozov in a New York Times op-ed. Morozov, author of “The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom” and “To Save Everything, Click Here: The Folly of Technological Solutionism,” says the term “open government” doesn’t necessarily mean the public can readily obtain information to hold government accountable. Instead, the term increasingly means that

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Government’s dangerous crackdown on whistle-blowers

FAC March 17, 2013

In a New York Times op-ed, two esteemed First Amendment advocates argue that the Private Bradley Manning case underscores a grave threat to the press and public — no matter what you think of Manning’s judgment when he released volumes of documents to WikiLeaks. While attorney Floyd Abrams argues that Manning acted carelessly, Harvard law professor Yochai Benkler asserts that Manning behaved much like Daniel Ellsberg, who famously released the Pentagon Papers — secret documents

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