International Right to Know Day, Sunday, Sept. 28: See FOIA Advocates Events map. (Spanish) Find more resources for International Right to Know Day here. (Spanish)
Environmental Transparency: A survey on open data and climate change is being conducted by the Belmont Forum E-Infrastructure & Data Management Collaborative.
United Kingdom: BBC’s Martin Rosenbaum reports on the views of Simon Hughes, the coalition minister responsible for freedom of information policy.
Legislative Transparency: In honor of Global Legislative Openness Week, Sunlight launched a global campaign to increase the release of open legislative data in accordance with the Declaration on Parliamentary Openness. “With the support of over 100 national-level CSOs, we sent letters to parliaments all over the globe asking them to open up their parliamentary data.” See blog post.
Budget Transparency: “The Open Budget Survey Tracker (OBS Tracker, www.obstracker.org) website is now live, allowing citizens, civil society, media, and others to monitor in real time whether central governments are releasing the requisite information on how the government is managing public finances,” according to the International Budget Partnership. “Using data collected by independent civil society budget experts in the countries covered, the OBS Tracker monitors and reports on whether central governments are publishing, on time, the eight key budget documents required by international standards on budget transparency.”
Open Data: A report by Travis Korte on a US event on “Creating Value from Government Data.”
India: Petition drive launched demanding selection of the chief information officer.
United States: An audit of amendments to Rhode Island’s Access to Public Records Act “shows that a number of state agencies and municipal departments, in particular the police, are apparently violating those changes to the law,” writes Linda Lotridge Levin. “In addition, enforcement of parts of the law appears to be weak or nonexistent.”
United States: In the Detroit Free Press, Paul Egan report about access to information problems in Michigan. Among other findings: “A Free Press survey found Michigan is one of only two states in which the governor has a blanket exemption from public record laws. The other is Massachusetts, which also is one of fewer than a dozen states where state lawmakers have a blanket exemption.”
Japan: Noriyuki Suzuki writes in The Japan Times about the controversial regulations to implement the secrecy law. The report begins:
With less than three months to go until the contentious secrecy law takes effect in December, Japan faces the daunting task of finding the right balance between national security and the public’s right to know.
The law will toughen the penalties for leaking state secrets, addressing criticism that Japan is too lenient on people who divulge sensitive information, including journalists. This will ease information exchanges with foreign countries.
Public opposition to the legislation remains strong amid criticism that it is vaguely worded and will thus reduce public access to information kept by the government.
Germany: The government releases its open data plan to mixed reviews, as described by Miranda Neubauer in Tech President.
European Union: The EU Ombudsman issues her Annual Report 2013. “EU ombudsman Emily O’Reilly wants more transparency from EU institutions on letting officials switch to the private sector, negotiating trade agreements, and allowing medicines onto the European market,” according to an article by Valentina Pop in EU Observer.
Canada: “Outdated government policies on sharing and managing information are choking off the fulfillment of thousands of information requests made by British Columbians every year, the CBC reported. Information and Privacy Commissioner Elizabeth Denham documented delays in a 67-page report, A Step Backwards: Report Card on Government’s Access to Information Responses.
Open Data: The benefits of the data revolution are not being shared equally, writes Rufus Pollack, founder and president of Open Knowledge.
Ghana: “President John Dramani Mahama has said transparency and open governance are critical in his administration to leverage socio-economic development,” according to an article by the Ghana News Agency. He spoke Sept. 25 at conference hosted by the Ford Foundation in New York on: “Setting the Stage for the post-2015 era, Transparency, Good Governance and Effective Institutions as the Basis for Success,” at the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly meeting in New York. The article does not indicate that spoke about the pending right to information legislation.
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