When vetting a company or business that manufactures a product, one important resource is to submit a FOIA request to the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) for any complaints related to the company. While the CPSC provides some statistics and general information online, more specific inquiries must be done on a case-by-case basis.
Read MoreText Messages: Technology Necessitates Reassessment of What Qualifies as a Public Record
Most documents are unquestionably public records; however, electronic messages are more intangible and thus more difficult to categorize as public records. Elected and appointed officials' increasing reliance on e-mail and text messages for communication requires defining the extent to which these are public records.
Read MoreThe British Parliament Expenses Scandal: A Comparative Lesson in Freedom of Information Laws
The political scandal currently unfolding in Britain, in which numerous Members of Parliament have secretly billed taxpayers for reimbursement of their personal expenses, highlights the different approaches to Freedom of Information laws on opposite sides of the Atlantic. And interestingly, these records might not have been made public were it not for the efforts of an American journalist.
Read MoreLearn About Competitors' Prices and Business Practices by Requesting Government Contracts
Business owners can use public records requests to learn typically hard-to-find details about their competitors' prices and business practices by requesting contracts and purchase orders whenever a competitor does business with a government agency (municipal, county, state or federal).
Read MoreResearching the Outcome of Lobbying for Federal Stimulus Funds
In our last blog entry, we discussed how to research such lobbying activity - here we will cover how to learn the results of those lobbying efforts. Continue reading for several search methods to determine whether a lobbyist's efforts secured government money for their client.
Read MoreResearching Lobbyist Activity Through the Lobbying Disclosure Act Database
The Senate Office of Public Records' Lobbying Disclosure Act Database provides useful tools for searching through federal lobbyist filings to learn which companies and organizations have contracted lobbyists to advance their legislative interests or seek federal funding.
Read MoreMaking a Public Records Request to a Different State
Making public record requests to different states requires good preparation and knowledge of the process, as each state has its own laws regulating the release of public records. The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press' Open Government Guide is a resource that can help whenever you need to make a request to an out-of-state agency.
Read More911 Call Logs
One easy public records request that prospective homeowners and tenants can do to protect themselves is to contact the local police station and request a log for all 911 calls to the specific residence or apartment complex.
Read MoreUsing Hyperwords Search Engine to Assist with Internet Research
Hyperwords, a plug-in available for the Firefox Internet browser, provides several useful features to make internet research more efficient. Hyperwords works by opening a pop-up menu next to any word on a web site you select and provides options for searching a wide variety of information related to that word, all without leaving the original page.
Read MoreAppointment Calendars of Elected Officials are Increasingly Becoming Public Records
While disclosure is voluntary at the federal level, there is some early momentum among legislators to provide their daily appointment calendars on their websites.
Read MorePulitzer Prize Winning Use of Public Records
The East Valley Tribune in Mesa, Arizona, received a Pulitzer prize for its investigation of the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office (MCSO). The Tribune spent several months submitting public records requests related to MCSO operations and conducting interviews to learn more about the efficacy of Sheriff Joe Arpaio's high publicized illegal immigration enforcement program. The project provides an interesting case study on how to use law enforcement agency statistics to understand department trends and priorities.
Read MoreUsing Presidential Archives for Backgrounding
One underutilized resource available to researchers seeking information about a subject's past employment was highlighted by last week's announcement that several hundred thousand pages of material from the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush archives are now public in their respective presidential libraries. Often overlooked, these documents are useful for employment verification and fully vetting descriptions that people have made about what they did when they worked for these public figures.
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