India: Human Rights Watch calls on the government to “promptly and thoroughly investigate threats and attacks on so-called right-to-information activists.”
Pakistan: Nudrrat Khawaia reports in The Daily Pakistan: “Despite well-publicized promises, the government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) has yet to undo the widely criticized amendments to the Khyber Pukhtunkhwa Right to Information Act 2013.”
Mexico: Ximena Puente de la Mora, president of the National Institute for Transparency, Access to Information and Data Protection (INAI) describes proposals to amend the law in an El Universal commentary article. Also see INAI press release, article in El Financierio and another in El Economista (both in Spanish).
United States: The FOIA Ombudsman @FOIA Ombuds starts a Twitter contest on FOIA trivia, with some others contributing their own questions.
United States: “Public access to scientists’ email increasingly politicized,” according to an article in PhysicsToday by Steven T. Corneliussen, a media analyst for the American Institute of Physics.
South Africa: “I am always surprised at how little business seems to care about transparency,” begins an article by Alison Tilley is the head of advocacy and special projects at the Open Democracy Advice Centre.
Trade Transparency: Maira Sutton of the Electronic Frontier Foundation writes, “More Closed-Door Meetings, a New Chief Transparency Officer, and Growing International Opposition to the Deal: What’s Going on with the TPP.”
EU: The EU should require companies operating in Africa to disclose the taxes French economist Thomas Piketty says, according to Reuters.
United States: The FOIA Files is a collection of media articles in which the FOIA was used, maintained by Sunshineingovernment.org.
New Book: “The Rise of the Right to Know – Politics and the Culture of Transparency, 1945–1975,” by Michael Schudson, ISBN 9780674744059, has been published by Belknap Press.
Open Data: Johns Hopkins University’s new Center for Government Excellence is developing an open data portal requirements resource to serve as a “set of sample requirements to help governments evaluate, develop (or procure), deploy, and launch an open data web site (portal).”
Right to Be Forgotten: The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and other media and journalism organizations has written to the independent French data protection agency urging it to rescind its order that Google search delistings required under the European Union’s “right to be forgotten” rule include domains not just in France or Europe, but around the world, according to a press release.
United Kingdom: The Information Commissioner’s Office is monitoring the Ministry of Justice following concerns over the timeliness of their responses to freedom of information (FOI) requests., the ICO announced.
Transparency Research: Stephan Grimmelikhuijsen and Jyldyz Kasymova have published an article comparing transparency in The Netherlands and the United States. Abstract:
Government transparency has become a widespread value of democratic governance, yet theory suggests that various forces shape transparency differently in consensual and majoritarian regimes. As a result, transparency may achieve different goals in different democratic regimes. Presented here are the results of a study comparing the Netherlands and New Jersey. Results reveal that ideas about information disclosure in the two jurisdictions are distinctly different. They suggest that in a majoritarian democracy transparency is needed to empower interests that are not represented in the decision-making process, whereas in a consensual democracy a wider range of interests is already represented in decision-making, and thus there is less need for transparency as a means to empower citizens. This implies that despite its universal application, there is no “one size fits all” solution for government transparency.
World Bank: The Bank’s second draft Environmental and Social Framework was praised by a Washington-based NGO, the Bank Information Center, for recognizing the importance of stakeholder engagement and information disclosure by including a stand-alone safeguard on the subject. “Stakeholders will now have the opportunity to input on the development of the Stakeholder Engagement Plan (SEP) prior to it being finalized, “ BIC said. “However, we find it a major flaw that this draft removes or omits all minimum requirements for timing of information disclosure, for specifics on what to disclose, and for meaningful consultation with project stakeholders,” according to a BIC statement.
India: An article in The Daily Pioneer about a recent forum begins: “The benefits of Right to Information (RTI) Act are yet to trickle down to the rural hinterlands.”
US: The FOIA Advisory Committee issues the results of a poll of FOIA officers.
Bangladesh: A discussion about the RTI Act, as reported by The Daily Sun.
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