What’s New
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25 March 2015
Civil Society Presses Ghana on RTI Law After IMF Deal
A civil society coalition on March 24 urged Ghana’s parliament to pass a right to information bill, saying access to information is especially important in light of a new agreement between Ghana and the International Monetary Fund. The appeal comes in the wake of a new bailout package that appears to generally encourage the government […]
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25 March 2015
Article 19 Urges Sri Lanka Not to Limit Human Rights
Sri Lanka’s draft constitutional amendment on freedom of expression and the right to information should be broadened “to make sure that constitutional rights are available to all, not just citizens,” according to Article 19, the London-based free expression group. In a March 23 statement, Thomas Hughes, Article 19 Executive Director, said: According to international law […]
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24 March 2015
Groups Allege Azerbaijan Violating OGP Principles
Three major international nongovernmental organizations have accused the government of Azerbaijan of seriously damaging the ability of civil society organizations to engage in the Open Government Partnership process, using a new OGP process that could lead to the government’s OGP membership begin declared “inactive. The accusations are the first made under a new OGP “response policy” […]
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24 March 2015
Albania to Disclose Data About Telephone Surveillance
Albania’s General Prosecutor’s Office has agreed to disclose statistical information on telephone surveillance. The move was applauded by the nongovernmental organization NGO Res Publica welcomed the decision. The disclosed document, operational surveillance measures were authorized in relation to 689 cases and concerning 3,140 individuals in 2014, as opposed to 3,112 individuals in 2013 and 2,315 […]
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24 March 2015
RTI Bill in DR Congo Put on List for Senate Consideration
The Senate of the Democratic Republic of the Congo has put a bill (in French) on access to information on its agenda, according to media reports confirmed by local activists. Senator Moses Nyarugabo offered the bill and passage ahs been pushed by groups, especially the Collectif 24, a nongovernmental organization that coordinated a civil society effort […]
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23 March 2015
Issa Says Banks Rejected FOIA Bill Compromise
Major banks last year rejected a compromise proposal to resolve their concerns with freedom of information act reform legislation, according Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), to one of the leading House sponsors of the bipartisan legislation that died in the final days of Congress. Issa described the proposed deal at panel discussion on “Fixing FOIA” March […]
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19 March 2015
Mexican Senate Approves New Access Legislation
The Mexican Senate on March 18 approved a new access to information bill. The final bill does not include 77 of the 81 last-minute amendments urged by the government which had aroused strenuous objections, according to the Alejandro Gonzalez, the Executive Director of a Mexican civil society organization, Gestión Social y Cooperación (GESOC.) Gonzalez had […]
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19 March 2015
FOI Notes: United Nations, United States, Brazil, Pakistan, World Bank, Open Data
FOIA Implementation: A working paper, “Right to Information: Identifying Drivers of Effectiveness in Implementation,” by Stephanie E. Trapnell and Victoria Lemieux, describes the World Bank’s multi-faceted approach to measuring implementation. United Nations: The UN Statistical Commission’s initial assessment of the still provisionally proposed indicators for an access-to-information target in the UN’s new Sustainable Development Goals. The first […]
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18 March 2015
Proposed Changes to Mexican FOIA Law Still Worrying
By David Mora The author works for Article 19 in Mexico. On Feb. 19, Ana Cristina Ruelas of Article 19 wrote here on the contradiction of Mexico holding Open Government Partnership’s lead chair while the Mexican President pressed the Senate for regressive regulations in the General Transparency Law currently on discussion. In that entry, we […]
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17 March 2015
CIC Concedes Defeat in Political Parties Case
India’s Central Information Commission on March 16 said it can’t enforce its 2013 order that the six major political parties are subject to the Right to Information Act. A three commissioner panel concluded the CIC could not impose penalties or compensatory damages on the parties, or otherwise compel compliance with a decision it defended as still […]
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17 March 2015
White House Cements Exemption From FOIA
The White House Office of Administration on March 17 officially exempted itself from the Freedom of Information Act, relying on a seven-year-old court decision. The Office of Administration amended its regulations, relying on a judicial decision from 2009 in which U.S. District Judge Coleen Kollar-Kotelly dismissed a government watchdog’s lawsuit seeking records on missing White House […]
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13 March 2015
Proactive Disclosure Lags in US, Archive Audit Finds
Only 40 percent of US government agencies systematically post online the records released through Freedom of Information Act requests, according to an audit done by the National Security Archive. The Archive team audited 165 federal agencies and found only 67 with online libraries populated with significant numbers of released FOIA documents and regularly updated. Proactive […]
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12 March 2015
Ugandan Magistrate Orders Disclosure by Government
In a major first victory under the Ugandan Access to Information act, a magistrate ordered the government to disclose information about the procurement of equipment to fight forest fires. The requester was Edward Sekyewa, Executive Director of the Hub for Investigative Media. The decision has not been adequately reported by the media, according to an […]
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12 March 2015
With Mexican Summit Ahead, OGP Subcommittees Busy
The next Open Government Partnership Global Summit meeting will likely be held during the last week of October somewhere in Mexico. In the meantime, the OGP Steering Committee, subcommittees and staff are developing plans and policies and dealing with finances and organizational issues. At a subcommittee meeting March 11, representatives from Malta and Turkey were […]
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12 March 2015
Positives and Negatives Seen in Review of Georgia FOI
Positive changes in terms of access to public information in Georgia were seen immediately after the parliamentary elections of October 2012, but the level of access to information was gradually decreasing in a number of state entities, according to a new report by the Institute for Development of Freedom of Information. IDFI has been monitoring […]
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12 March 2015
FOI Notes: Open Data, World Bank, FOI Research, Mexico, US, India, Construction Transparency
United States: The FOIA Project is conducting a poll on the “worst FOIA failure,” with six candidates. Awlaki Memo FBI Drones Snowden Damage Secret Surveillance Bay of Pigs History Kennedy FBI File Open Data/FOI: Reflections by Lauranellen McCann urges attention to the civic role of technology, not just the proliferation of tools. Looking back at […]
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12 March 2015
Department of State Email Preservation Rate Hovers under 0.000061%
By Lauren Harper and Nate Jones This column appeared March 11 in Unredacted, a blog from the National Security Archive, the publisher of FreedomInfo.org. Harper and Jones are Archive staff members. Today’s Department of State Office of Inspector General report has some scary numbers on the number of emails the Department actually preserves. Hillary Clinton […]
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11 March 2015
US Agencies Improve Slightly in ATI Scorecard Ratings
Eight of 15 major U.S. agencies improved their scores on an “Access to Information Scorecard,” according to a report by a nongovernmental organizational, which reported that federal agencies “are still struggling to effectively and consistently implement public disclosure rules.” The report was the second comparative study by the Center for Effective Government and it concerns […]
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11 March 2015
Government is Open in Rhetoric and Secret in Reality
By Umar Cheema The author is an investigative reporter for the Pakistani newspaper The News, where this article first appeared March 10. ISLAMABAD: The PML-N government is determined to promote transparency in rhetoric but has been found building walls of secrecy in reality. The Ministry of Law, Justice and Human Rights has denied the citizens’ […]
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11 March 2015
Women Disadvantaged on Access to Info, Study Finds
Guatemalan women “face deep inequities in exercising their fundamental right of access to information,” according to a study (in Spanish) from The Carter Center’s Global Access to Information Initiative. At a Feb. 18 stakeholders meeting, participants developed recommendations in response to the findings. The study was carried out in five government departments and Guatemala City. […]