AFSCME Information Highway

Source: Better Government Association and National Freedom of Information Coalition

Freedom of information laws are only as good as the response mechanisms built into the laws themselves. After all, if citizens can't take action to enforce their right of access shy of filing suit, what good are FOI laws?
When it comes to responsiveness measures, not much good at all.

The Better Government Association (BGA) and the National Freedom of Information Coalition (NFOIC) have united to review the recourse afforded citizens in the public records laws of all 50 states, and the conclusions make for some relentlessly depressing reading.

The tools available to citizens to enforce their rights under state FOI laws are, with rare exceptions, endemically weak. The haphazard construction of state public records laws has resulted in an information gap that significantly affects the citizenry's ability to examine even the most fundamental actions of government, the study found.

States failing FOI responsiveness (also available in PDF)

Posted by Info Center at 2:22 PM in Freedom of Information | Permalink

Source: Patrice McDermott and Emily Feldman, OpenTheGovernment.org, 2007

From the press release:
Government secrecy saw further expansion last year despite growing public concern, according to a report released today by a coalition of open government advocates. The Secrecy Report Card, produced annually by OpenTheGovernment.org in order to identify trends in public access to information, found a troubling lack of transparency in military procurement, assertions of executive privilege, and expansion of "sensitive" categories of information, among other areas.

In 2006, the public's use of the Freedom of Information Act continued to rise. Agency backlogs are significant; the oldest FOIA request in the federal government has now been pending for more than 20 years.

Posted by Info Center at 5:04 PM in Freedom of Information | Permalink

Source: Melissa Maynard, Governing, Vol. 20 no. 10, July 2007

… The Taurus case is part of a modest but growing revival of interest around the country in open-government issues and sunshine laws. It reverses a clear trend toward secrecy that prevailed at all levels from 2001 to 2005, stimulated by the actions of the federal government and fueled by concerns about terrorism and identity theft. "We've been getting governors and mayors who think they're running little White Houses," says Charles Davis, director of the Missouri-based Freedom of Information Coalition. They had support from Washington in their efforts. In the wake of 9/11, the federal government created an exemption to the Freedom of Information Act that preempted state sunshine laws. Under the Homeland Security Act, state governments were forbidden to release "critical infrastructure information" in the name of national security. But while exemptions to state open-meetings and -records laws continue to be proposed by the hundreds, the pendulum has begun to swing back in the direction of access. State-level freedom of information coalitions are proliferating and becoming more influential, especially in states that have relatively weak anti- secrecy laws on the books.

Posted by Info Center at 11:03 AM in Freedom of Information | Permalink