United States: Most U.S. journalists want the government to delay the public release of documents they request. The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press has published the results of its survey of journalists on the “release to one, release to all” policy being considered by the Obama administration. (See previous FreedomInf.org report.) More than 100 self-identified journalists responded to the survey. “While a quarter of respondents supported the policy unconditionally, almost 60% support it only with conditions, such as a delay period.”
Argentina: The draft Access to Public Information bill will be discussed by the Senate during the week of Sept. 5, according to a report (in Spanish) in Telam.
Nepal: A review in Rising Nepal of the state of RTI in Nepal concludes:
In a nutshell, the most important missing part of a decade of RTI movement is less attraction of grassroots people to use the tool for their rights, justice and opportunity. It is one of the promises of RTI which has not been realized in practice. So far this is the key point that requires to be reviewed and strategic measures should be put in place to make this a weapon of citizens, especially at the lower rung of the society.
United Kingdom: New information commissioner Elizabeth Denham outlines her priorities in a BBC interview by Martin Rosenbaum. “Ms Denham particularly wants to improve the transparency of public services delivered by private companies” and “also plans to review how her office tackles public authorities with a poor track record of handling FOI requests.”
Malta: An article in The Times of Malta offers perspectives on “Has the Freedom of Information Act Worked?” from Kurt Farrugia, head of Government Communications, and Jason Azzopardi, Shadow Minister Of Citizens’ Rights, Justice And Democracy.
Farrugia says:
This government has gone a long way in opening up its doors for transparency. A lot still needs to be done. However, in the process, we have eliminated a lot of barriers and opened up government even more.
Azzopardi concludes:
Malta can always claim that, on paper, we do have an information freedom law but having such rights remain in the statute books is definitely not sufficient. Whereas, like any other law, the legislative texts can always be improved, it is a change in the government’s mentality that we need direly.
Sri Lanka: Ranga Kalansooriya, the director-general of the Department of Government Information and the coordinator of the RTI Advisory Task Force, discusses implementation of the new law.
United Nations: Lack of transparency on the “straw polls” to determine the next Secretary General, NPR reports.
United States/Ohio: A new state law established a mediation route for resolving complaints about lack of access to public records, according to an article in The Columbus Dispatch by Randy Ludlow.
Mexico: A federal commissioner chastises the governor of Veracruz for not signing a state transparency bill, according to an article in Alcalor Politico, and another in Veracruzanos (both in Spanish).
Australia: “The Australian Taxation Office (ATO) has started refusing freedom of information requests submitted via website Right To Know, citing safety and privacy concerns for its staff,” according to an ABC News report. “We are particularly concerned with the names of staff processing the FOI request being published on the website,” an ATO spokesperson said. Both sides in the spat will be represented on the newly announced Australian OGP steering committee. The Mandarin reports.
New Zealand: Prime Minister John Key gives a speech in which he says he is “comfortable with ministers proactively releasing more Cabinet papers.” Also see the web page of a government “Policy Project.” Key said:
When it comes to taking significant decisions, I expect departments to provide their free and frank advice in writing.
Written advice is fuller, allows for more nuance, and can better cover the complexities of the trade-offs we face.
It also allows ministers time for reflection and to work through a problem in stages with officials to come to better solutions.
I’m also comfortable with ministers proactively releasing more Cabinet papers, and the research and evidence that supports them, once decisions have been taken.
United States: Cass Sunstein, a former Obama administration official, writes, “In Praise of Radical Transparency,” in Bloomberg View, praising disclosure of government information and urging more of it. His column summarizes a draft academic article in which he concludes, “There is good reason for a large increase in output transparency — and for caution about input transparency.” He comments, “What most matters is what the government actually does, not who said what to whom.”
United States: The federal agency release rate for FOIA requests is much lower than the 91% claimed by Obama administration, according to an analysis by Washington attorney Tom Susman, who found that the released in full ratio is 51.84 percent and the released in part ratio is 38.76 percent.”
Scotland: The government violated FOIA by delaying the release of information on harbor porpoises, according to the Scottish Information Commissioner, says an article in The Ferret. Separately, changes to apply the law to more organizations come into force, reports Blog Now. (See previous FreedomInfo.org report.)
India: A listing of a variety of transparency apps, including OnlineRTI.
India: Read about a dispute over whether an RTI activist with 437 cases/appeals before a state information commission is an abuser of the RTI Act, as recounted in the Bangalore Mirror.
Canada: Toronto plans an event “that will provide an opportunity for people to learn about Open Government & Open Data.
Tanzania: Zanzibar, a Tanzanian archipelago off the coast of East Africa, should be covered by the proposed Access to Information bill, writes Citizen columnist Deus Kimbaba, who also says the bill needs a clause to make an ATI law override other laws.
United Kingdom: Pokemon Go players have been involved in hundreds of police incidents, the BBC learned through FOIA.
United States: “The way things stand now, obtaining open records from a government agency in Colorado and then going after said government agency if you feel as though you’ve been wrongly denied those records is tough,” according to a blog post in West Word. “Litigate or give up,” Jeffrey A. Roberts, executive director of the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition, started a recent blog post.
United States/New York: A profile of Robert Freeman, executive director of New York’s Committee on Open Government, in the Village Voice newspaper.
Open Data: Mark Headd, Technical Evangelist for Accela, blogs that the role of Chief Data Officer has started to evolve.
Increasingly, the focus of Chief Data Officers is on the internal use of data for more efficient resource allocation and improved operations. In other words, Chief Data Officers – once focused almost exclusively on making governments better producers of data – are increasingly focused on making governments better consumers of data.
Open Data/Chile: Research from the University of Manchester’s Centre for Development Informatics identifies four different perspectives that derive from OGD’s conceptual foundations.
Open Data: Andrew Su criticizes the data licensing policies of the US National Institutes of Health.
Website Accessibility: Many sites are inaccessible to persons with disabilities, writes Julia McCandless in GovTech.
Transparency Research: A World Economic Forum survey (the Global Shapers Annual Survey 2016) says that 60 percent of 26,000 millennials from 181 countries said that corruption and a lack of transparency (combined in the question) within governments is the biggest barrier to equal opportunities for all.
Open Carnival: A carnival stakeholder in Antiqua advocates for more transparency from the organizers.
Filed under: What's New