Saving the Freedom of Information Act

Saving the Freedom of Information Act PDF Author: Margaret B. Kwoka
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108482740
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
The Freedom of Information Act is vital for democratic accountability. Understanding who uses it is key to re-centering its oversight purposes.

Saving the Freedom of Information Act

Saving the Freedom of Information Act PDF Author: Margaret B. Kwoka
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108482740
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
The Freedom of Information Act is vital for democratic accountability. Understanding who uses it is key to re-centering its oversight purposes.

Troubling Transparency

Troubling Transparency PDF Author: David E. Pozen
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231545800
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 329

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Book Description
Today, transparency is a widely heralded value, and the U.S. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) is often held up as one of the transparency movement’s canonical achievements. Yet while many view the law as a powerful tool for journalists, activists, and ordinary citizens to pursue the public good, FOIA is beset by massive backlogs, and corporations and the powerful have become adept at using it for their own interests. Close observers of laws like FOIA have begun to question whether these laws interfere with good governance, display a deleterious anti-public-sector bias, or are otherwise inadequate for the twenty-first century’s challenges. Troubling Transparency brings together leading scholars from different disciplines to analyze freedom of information policies in the United States and abroad—how they are working, how they are failing, and how they might be improved. Contributors investigate the creation of FOIA; its day-to-day uses and limitations for the news media and for corporate and citizen requesters; its impact on government agencies; its global influence; recent alternatives to the FOIA model raised by the emergence of “open data” and other approaches to transparency; and the theoretical underpinnings of FOIA and the right to know. In addition to examining the mixed legacy and effectiveness of FOIA, contributors debate how best to move forward to improve access to information and government functioning. Neither romanticizing FOIA nor downplaying its real and symbolic achievements, Troubling Transparency is a timely and comprehensive consideration of laws such as FOIA and the larger project of open government, with wide-ranging lessons for journalism, law, government, and civil society.

FOIA Update

FOIA Update PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Freedom of information
Languages : en
Pages : 16

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Book Description


Freedom of Information Act Guide

Freedom of Information Act Guide PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Freedom of information
Languages : en
Pages : 1146

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Book Description


Freedom of Information - One Year on

Freedom of Information - One Year on PDF Author: Great Britain: Parliament: House of Commons: Constitutional Affairs Committee
Publisher: The Stationery Office
ISBN: 9780215029430
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 156

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Book Description
The Freedom of Information (FOI) Act and the new Environmental Information Regulations came into force fully on 1 January 2005. They give people the right of access to information held by over 100,000 public authorities across the UK. This inquiry examines the first year's experience of FOI and considers the impact which it has made. The implementation of the FOI Act has already brought about the release of significant new information. The Committee is impressed by the efforts made by public authorities to meet the demands of the Act. The most commonly cited problem for requesters was delays in responding to requests. Published data show that there are many cases where the 20 day statutory response time is not being complied with, and lack of interpretation in the code of practice as to 'reasonable' time limits enables public authorities to make indefinite extensions of many months. The report identifies a number of areas where the Department for Constitutional Affairs (DCA) should improve compliance, the immediate priority being a more assertive enforcement of the law. The complaints resolution process provided by the Information Commissioner's Office during 2005 was unsatisfactory, with many delays in starting investigation of complaints, and concerns over the standard of investigation and information provided in the decisions. The Committee welcomes the Commissioner's proposals to increase efficiency and effectiveness, and would like the Commissioner to be directly responsible to, and funded by, Parliament. Another area of concern is the long-term preservation of electronic records. Records management practices in some public authorities need substantial improvement. Plans are needed to handle the rapid and significant changes in technology and the inevitable degradation of storage media. Freedom of Information has no force without a proper commitment to ensure that the information held is in a retrievable form.

Guide to the Freedom of Information Act

Guide to the Freedom of Information Act PDF Author:
Publisher: Government Printing Office
ISBN:
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 920

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Book Description
Contains an overview discussion of the Freedom of Information Act's (FOIA) exemptions, its law enforcement record exclusions, and its most important procedural aspects. 2009 edition. Issued biennially. Other related products: Report of the Commission on Protecting and Reducing Government Secrecy, Pursuant to Public Law 236, 103d Congress can be found here: https: //bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/052-071-01228-1 Overview of the Privacy Act of 1974, 2015 Edition can be found here: https: //bookstore.gpo.gov/products/sku/027-000-01429-1

Legal Issues in Libraries and Archives

Legal Issues in Libraries and Archives PDF Author: Ruth Dukelow
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781733592734
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description


The Arkansas Freedom of Information Act

The Arkansas Freedom of Information Act PDF Author: John J. Watkins
Publisher: University of Arkansas Press
ISBN: 1682260399
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 597

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Book Description
Since its first edition in 1988, The Arkansas Freedom of Information Act has become the standard reference for the bench, the bar, and journalists for guidance in interpreting and applying the state’s open-government law. This sixth edition, published fifty years after the passage of the Act in 1967, builds upon its predecessors, incorporating later legislative enactments, judicial decisions, and Attorney General’s opinions to present a synthesis of the law of access to public records and meetings in Arkansas.

Overview of the Privacy Act of 1974

Overview of the Privacy Act of 1974 PDF Author: United States. Department of Justice. Privacy and Civil Liberties Office
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Government publications
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
The "Overview of the Privacy Act of 1974," prepared by the Department of Justice's Office of Privacy and Civil Liberties (OPCL), is a discussion of the Privacy Act's disclosure prohibition, its access and amendment provisions, and its agency recordkeeping requirements. Tracking the provisions of the Act itself, the Overview provides reference to, and legal analysis of, court decisions interpreting the Act's provisions.

Baseless

Baseless PDF Author: Nicholson Baker
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0735215774
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 464

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Book Description
“Staggeringly good.” —Counterpunch A major new work, a hybrid of history, journalism, and memoir, about the modern Freedom of Information Act—FOIA—and the horrifying, decades-old government misdeeds that it is unable to demystify, from one of America's most celebrated writers Eight years ago, while investigating the possibility that the United States had used biological weapons in the Korean War, Nicholson Baker requested a series of Air Force documents from the early 1950s under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act. Years went by, and he got no response. Rather than wait forever, Baker set out to keep a personal journal of what it feels like to try to write about major historical events in a world of pervasive redactions, witheld records, and glacially slow governmental responses. The result is one of the most original and daring works of nonfiction in recent memory, a singular and mesmerizing narrative that tunnels into the history of some of the darkest and most shameful plans and projects of the CIA, the Air Force, and the presidencies of Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower. In his lucid and unassuming style, Baker assembles what he learns, piece by piece, about Project Baseless, a crash Pentagon program begun in the early fifties that aimed to achieve "an Air Force-wide combat capability in biological and chemical warfare at the earliest possible date." Along the way, he unearths stories of balloons carrying crop disease, leaflet bombs filled with feathers, suicidal scientists, leaky centrifuges, paranoid political-warfare tacticians, insane experiments on animals and humans, weaponized ticks, ferocious propaganda battles with China, and cover and deception plans meant to trick the Kremlin into ramping up its germ-warfare program. At the same time, Baker tells the stories of the heroic journalists and lawyers who have devoted their energies to wresting documentary evidence from government repositories, and he shares anecdotes from his daily life in Maine feeding his dogs and watching the morning light gather on the horizon. The result is an astonishing and utterly disarming story about waiting, bureaucracy, the horrors of war, and, above all, the cruel secrets that the United States government seems determined to keep forever from its citizens.