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Federal Communication Commission outdoes CIA in secrecy

donal brown March 22, 2012

Data showing  responses to federal Freedom of Information Act requests indicate that the Federal Communications Commission is the most secretive government agency, even outdoing the Central Intelligence Agency. The FCC is rejecting FOIA requests at the rate of 48 percent dwarfing all other government agencies. The CIA by contrast rejects requests at the rate of 0.7 percent. -db From The Daily Caller, March 21, 2012, by Josh Peterson. Full story    

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Despite court order University of California withholding report on pepper-spraying of protesters

donal brown March 22, 2012

Experts on open government say that the University of California is violating the law in withholding portions of a police report on the pepper-spraying of Occupy protesters at UC Davis. Members of a task force investigating the November incident said they did not want to release parts of the report until the entire document was finished sometime in April. -db From the San Jose Mercury News, March 21, 2012, by Matt Krupnick. Full story  

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Fact checking fell short on ‘This American Life’ program on Apple factory abuses in China

donal brown March 19, 2012

When the producers of the radio program “This American Life” were told by Mike Daisey that it would not be possible to talk to Daisey’s  interpreter to check the facts of his account of labor abuses by Apple factories in China, the producers should have ignored Daisey’s reassurances and  taken other steps to verify the facts, writes Craig Silverman in a commentary for the Poynter Institute. The producers ended up running a retraction of the

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Sunshine Week: Obama administration wants to extend exemptions under Freedom of Information Act

donal brown March 15, 2012

The Obama administration is asking Congress to grant new exemptions to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), to keep secret selected information about cybersecurity, government computer networks, and certain industrial plants and pipelines. The FOIA already allows the government to withhold information that would hurt national security, invade personal privacy, reveal business secrets or compromise decision-making in certain areas. -db From the Washington Post, March 13, 2012, by Associated Press. Full story    

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