Recent focus on the fees and expenses charged to clients by private equity firms has caused a ripple on the public records pool as these firms work to keep what they charge public pension funds under wraps. The Wall Street Journal has reported on its efforts to obtain fee and expense data and the resistance the paper has met. This is not the first, nor will it be the last battle that plays our around whether this type of information is in fact secret under trade secrets exemptions contained in state open records laws. Read the WSJ story here.
PACER Restores Access to Missing Federal Court Records
Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER), the publicly-searchable online database of federal court records, today announced that access has been restored to search case information in four appellate courts: the U.S. Courts of Appeals for the 2nd, 7th, 11th and Federal Circuits. Access to those court records had controversially been removed with little public notice on August 10th.
Read MoreCalifornia City and County Financial Data Online
The California State Controller has posted a new data tool that will help researchers with an interest in municipal finance. The new By the Numbers tool is drawn from the Controller’s annual financial transaction report compiling municipal revenue, spending and asset information. The tool allows comparisons between cities and also allows raw data export and will come in handy for researchers looking at city and county budgets.
Office of Government Information Services Resolves Disputes, Guides Requesters & Agencies through FOIA Process
Established by the OPEN Government Act of 2007 and opened in 2009, the Office of Government Information Services (OGIS) oversees federal agencies’ compliance with FOIA, serving as a mediator between citizens requesting records and the agencies responsible for furnishing them. A glance at OGIS’ case logs shows that they address the full variety of roadblocks one might encounter in the FOIA process.
Read MoreFOIA Nets Letters from Companies that Didn't Want Records Released
The Wall Street Journal has turned a tried and true Freedom of Information Act tactic on its head with some interesting results. In an instance reported in today's Journal, the paper used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain letters written by companies and individuals who wrote to the Federal Aviation Administration requesting that their private jet flight plans be excluded from public flight tracker databases.
Read MoreDigital Public Library Launches
The Digital Public Library of America was launched today. Led by Executive Director Dan Cohen, the DPLA may very well become the modern answer to the Library of Alexandria -- the ancient world's most extensive knowledge center. At present, the library contains over two million items in multiple formats (texts, pictures, movies, etc.) drawn from the collections of multiple partner institutions including the New York Public Library, the Smithsonian Institution and the Minnesota Digital Library.
Read MoreStorm Feed Captures, Archives Congressional Tweets
LegiStorm continues to expand its impressive collection of House and Senate documents with its most recent addition causing a mini-storm of its own by capturing, archiving and making text searchable all Capitol Hill tweets and press releases. In so doing, the StormFeed service caught a few Capitol Hill staffers by surprise since their tweets, not all of which were strictly official, became word searchable and accessible as a whole, as opposed to on a feed-by-feed basis. (More on this from the Washington Post's Al Kamen.) In the meantime, keep an eye on LegiStorm as the service rolls out new products on a fairly consistent basis.
Update: San Jose Appeals Ruling on Access to Gov. Officials' Private Devices
As expected the City of San Jose has appealed a Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge's ruling on the applicability of the California Public Records Act to communications contained on private devices maintained by elected and other government officials. (For background on the ruling, see our entry here.) The City is basing its appeal on a number of arguments ranging from the practical (i.e., applying a search requirement across an entire city workforce would be overly burdensome) to the purely legal argumentative (e.g., individual government officials are not governmental entities as defined under the California Public Records Act.)
Read MoreAccessing Education World Records
Records maintained by educational institutions are little understood and often overlooked. Long the bastion of student journalists, school-based records are often erroneously believed to be completely off limits due to student privacy restrictions. While it is true that more and more colleges are brokering degree verification through the National Student Clearinghouse (which requires a student release in most instances) and student transcripts are generally private, there are a number of education-related records that are available upon request.
Read MoreMajor CA Public Records Decision on "Private" E-mails of Governmental Officials
A Santa Clara County (CA) Superior Court judge has issued an opinion that could have wide ranging effect on how governmental and elected officials communicate about public business. If the opinion stands up on appeal, officials will be obligated to turn over public records that are stored on their private handheld devices (as text or other electronic messages) and in their private (non-governmental) e-mail accounts.
Read MoreHospital Inspection Reports Now Online
The Association of Health Care Journalists has launched a new site allowing any member of the public to conduct a search for certain federal inspection reports related to acute-care and critical access hospitals since January 1, 2011. This is, of course, a welcome development in terms of access to this data which was formerly accessible only by submitting a FOIA to the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS)
Read MoreCalifornia Public Records Act Expert Terry Franke Shares Insights
The Sacramento Bee has run a very informative interview with Terry Franke -- co-founder and general counsel of Californians Aware. Among his insights: California's court created deliberative process exemption has resulted in more documents being marked "draft" in order to create a presumption that supports withholding. So, rather than simply arguing that releasing a record would interfere with an elected or other government official's ability to reach a decision without undue negative influence (i.e., the "deliberative process"), Franke notes that governments now go out of their way to label documents as drafts so as to protect them from release. Read the full interview here.