open government

Judge orders release of report on University of California Davis pepper-spraying without names of most officers

An Alameda County Superior Court judge ordered the release of most of the report on the November pepper-spraying of U. C. Davis students during an occupy protest. The judge wrote, “The court is not persuaded that either the Legislature or the California Supreme Court intended [the law protecting officer information] to apply whenever public entities investigated law enforcement policies, procedures or actions and to preclude all public entities from disclosing the results of those investigations

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California: Shasta fire board accused of open meeting violations

A former director accused the Shasta Lake fire board of violating the Brown Act, the state’s open meeting law. The man sent a letter to the board alleging that the board failed to post agendas on its website and set arbitrary time limits for public comments. -db From The Record Searchlight (Redding), March25, 2012, by Sean Longoria. Full story  

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Federal Communication Commission outdoes CIA in secrecy

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

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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