Search

Categories

Total Results

No Record Found

View All Results
DONATE

News & Opinion

Project.org launched to track freedom of information lawsuits

donal brown March 31, 2011

A new website by Transactional Records Access Clearing (TRAC) house at Syracuse University will provide data about Freedom of Information Act requests. The website is considering whether to provide a way for users to describe how agencies arbitrarily denied their request. TRAC says as it stands now there are no penalties for violating FOIA so publicizing “egregious” denials may provide some incentive for compliance. -db From The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, March

Read More »

California: Opposition to project in La Jolla say allegations of planning commission open meeting violation groundless

donal brown March 31, 2011

Developers who want a three-story project in La Jolla Shores say the La Jolla Community Planning Association violated the Brown Act, California’s open meeting law. The association approved the project but the president appealed the vote to the City Council, a move that the developers said should have been done by the full commission and therefore a Brown Act violation. Opponents want the developers to reduce the size of the project to make it compatible

Read More »

Is it really a transparency award when it’s given in private?

FAC March 31, 2011

President Obama collected a “transparency award” the other day for his efforts to open the workings of government to the public, but he didn’t exactly shout it from the rooftop. In fact, according to the Web site Politico, it came in a “closed, undisclosed meeting.” One attendee, Gary Bass of OMB Watch, said he was mystified the White House didn’t allow coverage, given that Obama “was so on point, so on target in the conversation

Read More »

Sunlight Foundation resists effort to cut transparency budget

FAC March 29, 2011

The Sunlight Foundation is fighting moves to reduce the budget for federal transparency programs to $2 million from $34 million. The cutback, contained in the Full Year Continuing Appropriations Act, has passed in the House of Representatives and awaits action in the U.S. Senate. Among other things, the funding underwrites Web sites that allow the public to examine and track federal spending. Examples are USASpending.gov and Data.gov. The foundation argues that the open government efforts

Read More »

Open government: Whistleblowers win challenge to law protecting them

donal brown March 29, 2011

The Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has upheld the False Claims Act (FCA) that allows whistleblowers to bring claims for the government to recover damages for fraud committed by government contractors. The American Civil Liberties Union, OMB Watch and the Government Accountability Project sued under the First Amendment and the public’s right to know to challenge the “seal” provision in the act that allows employees to file claims without exposing their identities to their

Read More »