FOI as Human Right: The authors of a new book say the time may be right for the United Nations to explicitly recognize the right of access to public documents and governmentally-held information. “It could even be possible… to initiate the creation of an explicit convention-based right of everyone to access official documents and information, modelled against the background of provisions found in existing regional conventions in particular, national constitutions,” according to Mariya Riekkinen and Markku Suksi. The authors teach at the Department of Law of Åbo Akademi University in Finland. The book is “Access to information and documents as a human right.” (Full text here)
United Kingdom: Actor Michael Sheen warns that the government’s plans to curb the FOIA are a “full frontal attack,” The Telegraph reports. “Sheen, who has portrayed former Prime Minister Tony Blair on screen, said the public’s right to know should ‘transcend the political rivalries and jostling that make up the daily cut and thrust of the Westminster bubble.’ ”
United Kingdom: The Oxford Mail publishes a special issue on the campaign to preserve the Freedom of Information Act.
United Kingdom: An article in History Today by Andrew Lownie makes the connection between FOI and the writing of history. “Documents are the lifeblood of historians,” he begins. After making a variety of suggestions, he ends with, “If our history is to be written accurately, we will have to have all the records made available – not just those a government department believes we should have.”
Open Data: Open Knowledge and the Open Definition Advisory Council announce the release of version 2.1 of the Open Definition. The definition “sets out principles that define openness in relation to data and content” and continues to play a key role in supporting the growing open ecosystem.
India: “Madhya Pradesh government departments appear to be least bothered about opening up on details of its functioning, schemes and administrative set-up, as required under the proactive disclosure rule of the Right to Information (RTI) Act, a web research conducted by a local law student has found,” according to a Hindustan Times article.
United States: The 2015 State Integrity Investigation is a comprehensive assessment of state government accountability and transparency. “The project uses extensive research by reporters in each state to grade and rank the states based on existing laws and analysis of how well they are implemented. See graphic.
United States: Police Body Worn Cameras: a Policy Scorecard, a report from The Leadership Conference, covers policies at 25 cities. The report, however, does not provide information on the effect of state FOI laws on access video footage.
United States: Lawyering in Secret and the Government’s FOIA Bogeyman, an article by Brett Max Kaufman, a staff attorney in the ACLU’s Center for Democracy.
United States: An advocacy article for FOIA reform by Sara Christiansen.
United States: “The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs released a beta version of Vets.gov, and it’s the future of federal government digital development,” writes Luke Fretwell in Gov Fresh.
OGP: An article by the National Democratic Institute says the OGP summit changed the open government conversation by broadened its scope to include engagement with other parts of government including the judiciary and subnational governments.
Corrected Link: Here’s the proper link to a report by Gabriella Razzano and Steven Gruzd of the South African Institute International Affairs making the case for more African countries to join the OGP: A Next-Generation Peer Review: What Does the Open Government Partnership Have to Offer?
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