Australia: John McMillan retired July 31 as Australian Information Commissioner to take up his new role as Acting New South Wales SW Ombudsman, the information office says. “With the functions of the three commissioners that make up the Office of Australian Information Commissioner now in the hands of a single acting commissioner, Timothy Pilgrim’s ‘in folder’ will be heavily loaded with important matters,” writes Peter Timmins in his Open and Shut blog.
Bulgaria: The Access to Information Programme releases the English translation of its annual report Access to Information Programme in Bulgaria 2014. The fifteenth AIP annual report contains an analysis of the proposed draft amendments to the Access to Public Information Act (APIA), an analysis of the results from the 2015 AIP audit on active disclosure of public information online by the executive bodies, analyses of the access to information cases referred to AIP for legal help and consultation during 2014 and an overview of the developments in the FOI litigation in 2014, including summaries of cases in which AIP provided court representation. For the first time, the AIP annual report contains no recommendations for legislative amendments. The group published a Concept Paper on Amendments for the Access to Public Information Legislation in the beginning of 2015.
Myanmar: A group of 40 civil society representatives from across Upper Myanmar agreed to form an Upper Myanmar RTI Working Group and to select members to join the central RTI Working Group, which is coordinating advocacy on this issue nationwide. The participants July 23 unanimously endorsed the joint statement which was adopted at a November 2014 workshop on this issue, according to a press release from the Centre for Law and Democracy, a Canadian-based organization consulting with the Myanmar groups with the support of International Media Support.
United States: See a list of administrative deadlines for all agencies, prepared by FOIA Advisor.
United States: “America classifies way too much information – and we are all less safe for it,” a commentary by Tom Blanton, director of the National Security Archive at George Washington University, in The Washington Post.
Open Government Partnership: Chile, Romania and Indonesia will join the OGP Steering Committee, having prevailed in a recent election among governments to elect new representatives to the 22-member committee, which is evenly divided between government and civil society members. Sierra Leone and Tunisia also ran. More details on the rotation result. A vacancy in the civil society side was created Alvin Mosioma’s resignation last month. A civil society search committee recommended that Fernando Straface, co-founder, and since April 2010, the Executive Director of CIPPEC (www.cippec.org(link is external)), a top think tank in Argentina. His areas of expertise include good governance, public sector reform/evaluation and civil society. See more in OGP announcement.
Scotland: “Scotland’s councils are rejecting nearly one in four of the requests they get from taxpayers asking how they spend public money,” reports the Sunday Post based on a study by Strathclyde University.
United Kingdom: The BBC’s Martin Rosenbaum reports a big increase in complaints to the information commissioner about Cabinet Office slowness.the Cabinet Office took control of government policy on freedom of information, removing it from the Ministry of Justice.
United States: The Freedom of the Press Foundation announces that it filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Justice Department over “unpublished rules for using National Security Letters and so-called informal “exigent letters” to conduct surveillance of journalists.”
United States: Legal Fellow Kristin Bergman of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press writes, “Obtaining government officials’ business emails should be easier.”
Employment: Access Info Europe announces a few job openings.
Music Transparency: “Perhaps the biggest problem artists face today is that lack of transparency,” wrote musician David Byrne in a New York Times op-ed in which he says record companies should open the “Black Box” and disclose what happens to streaming revenues.
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