March 2008

• The Sunlight Foundation is looking for ideas from the public on increasing governmental transparency. March 31, 2008
• Why is it such torture for members of the public to try to view the city's public documents? March 30, 2008
• Comparing open records across Maryland, Minnesota and Oklahoma. March 29, 2008
• Sometimes open records and legal discovery overlap. March 29, 2008
• The Vermont Secretary of State takes a forward-thinking attitude about open records fees:
  "We have taken the position, actually, that we think it's wrong to charge the public" Deborah Markowitz, March 27, 2008
• "Considering how it is often used, the Freedom of Information Act might be more appropriately named the Sue Us If You Want Information Act." March 26, 2008
• Someone in Illinois is cranky about being caught erasing audio tapes of public meetings. March 26, 2008
• A judge has ruled that Virginia's FOIA laws do not apply to prisoners. Meanwhile, in Washington, another judge ruled in the opposite direction. March 26, 2008
• Education Week received a very unsatisfying response to their FOIA request of the Department of Education. March 25, 2008
• Some of the big changes to the open records law in Pennsylvania are outlined here. March 23, 2008
• The Student Press Law Center surveyed some schools districts in an attempt to learn how their funds are spent. The results here. March 21, 2008
• Henry Waxman, chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, gives some of his thoughts on open government here. March 21, 2008
• The Kansas paper The Wichita Eagle wants to know What public records are you wondering about? March 20, 2008
• The New York State Committee on Open Government has put together this handy guide for open records in New York: What public records are accessible. March 19, 2008
• FEMA has lots of records that the Louisiana newspaper The Advocate has requested, but getting them won't be cheap... March 18, 2008
• Audit: Bush Barely Cuts Backlog Of FOI Requests, March 17, 2008
• The Texas Statesman put together this list of top 2007 stories written with the help of open records requests. March 17, 2008
• As the Arizona Republic puts it: You're the watchdog. March 16, 2008
• GateHouse probe shows obstacles to getting FOIA info. March 16, 2008
• FOIA is nonpartisan, an equal-opportunity pet cause or whipping boy, depending on the situation. March 16, 2008
• Here's a different take on the press and FOIA. March 15, 2008
• Exemptions, exemptions, exemptions. Even at the federal level. March 15, 2008
• The FOIA debate is beginning to catch up with technology. March 15, 2008
• States fight to keep officials' e-mail from open-records review, March 15, 2008
• In a spot check similar to what the Sunshine Blogger Project is doing, journalists discover poor access to gubernatorial e-mail. March 14, 2008
• The Daily Times of Farmington, New Mexico, is furious over the suggestion that they are finished uncovering the truth about innapropiate spending by the Navajo nation (and possibly others). March 14, 2008
• When secrecy can make us less secure, March 14, 2008.
• Things grow increasingly childish in Missouri. March 13, 2008
• Agencies run more than a decade late on Freedom of Information requests, March 13, 2008
• The Cornyn-Leahy team have introduced more legislation about openness and transparency - this time to make it clear when exemptions are being attached to FOIA bills. March 12, 2008
• There is a call in Ohio to keep the records of foster parents open to examination. March 12, 2008
• San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom dosn't think that text messages he sent and received on his own phone about the governmental handling of an oil spill in California are public records since he didn't bill the city back for his cellphone bill. As Peter Scheer, the executive director of the California First Amendment Coalition put it:

• Are associations that receive the majority of their funding via public dollars without being governmental agencies subject to FOIA? March 12, 2008
• Store Public Records online by default and technical solutions to transparency March 12, 2008
• "At some point, local government agencies need to realize the public

• The Ohio Department of Education is putting together a database of school employee disciplinary records. March 9, 2008
• The Sunshine Blogger Project gets some attention in Kansas. March 9, 2008
• Once e-mails are on backup tapes, they are no longer public records? March 7, 2008
• Can counties copywrite public records? A court in South Carolina is being asked to make that judgment. March 6, 2008
• The National Marine Fisheries Service are unwilling to respond in full to a FOIA request made nearly one year ago. March 5, 2008
• Using FOIA to figure out why you weren't hired by the city. March 4, 2008
• Oh my gosh, 36 whole requests! March 3, 2008
• Some lobbyists are not big fans of openness. March 2, 2008
• A judge in Colorado ruled that hospital records are the public's records. March 1, 2008

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