"Machine" developed to bolster FOIA Requests

“FOIA Machine” is a project of the Center for Investigative Reporting.  According to the Center’s announcement, the “machine” will be a service online to make it easier for citizens to acquire federal and state government records, as well as the records of 90 foreign governments that have open access laws.

The project began with a grant from the Knight Foundation.  Additional funds are being solicited on Kickstarter.  The original amount sought on Kickstarter was $17,500.  At this writing, approximately $36,000 has been pledged. Matching funds have been committed by the Reynolds Journalism Institute at the University of Missouri.  The funding period on Kickstarter ends August 16, 2013.

The FOIA Machine page on Kickstarter sets out the Center’s principles and goals, in part, as:

“We’re streamlining the complicated process of filing and tracking public record requests, putting all of the steps, rules, exceptions and best practices in one place and allowing users to track requests on dashboards, receive alerts, share request blueprints and get social support and expertise from the FOIA Machine community...

“...[W]e're asking for your help to finish development, improve design and pay for servers and data curation...

“We have 15 users currently sending real freedom of information requests through FOIA Machine, but almost 800 people are still waiting to use it. And when we launch, that number will grow...

“[The Center] has taken on FOIA Machine because we believe that journalism that moves citizens to action is an essential pillar of democracy. To correct injustices, people need to know what's really happening.  FOIA Machine is all about bringing previously hidden information to light."

When the project is ready for public participation, the Center says it will transfer the “machine”  to Investigative Reporters and Editors.

Michigan FOIA Panel on the Road

Over a three week period from mid-July to early August, representatives of the Center for Michigan, the Michigan Press Association, the Mackinac Center and the American Civil Liberties Union are conducting public panel discussions of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and the Open Meetings Act (OMA).  

Both statutes were intended to enable closer public scrutiny of government activity.  However, over the years both have been watered down in some instances and ignored in others.  There have been a number of legislative initiatives to reform FOIA and OMA recently, but nothing came of them. It's widely thought that greater citizen involvement is necessary to bring about meaningful change.

A press release announcing the panel discussions said, "Our state has valuable tools for holding public servants accountable but those tools are useless if people don’t know about them or don’t know how to use them."

The first such meeting was in Jackson.  The second will be in Grand Rapids on the Northwood University campus on July 24.  

The Traverse Area District Library in Traverse City will host the third discussion on August 1, and the fourth will be on August 7 in Troy at the Northwood University campus there.  

All are set to start at 6:00 p.m. and are scheduled to end around 8:00 p.m.

If you count yourself among the 10 percent who get things done in your community, your attendance at one of these panel discussions should be very beneficial.  

FOIA Reform Scams

I have an issue with the way news media present such rosy prospects for FOIA each year during Sunshine Week.  Year after year, optimism is based, not on new ideas to improve FOIA being enacted into law, but merely on a new bill with a short shelf life being introduced or reported out of committee.  

The ballyhoo over the Issa-Cummings FOIA implementation bill taken up by the U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee just in time for this past Sunshine Week comes to mind.  Publicizing that is like awarding a soldier the Congressional Medal of Honor for telling what he might do in combat someday.

Just as bad or worse, news organizations downplay or ignore efforts to inhibit open government.  A recent example would be proposals put forward by the Michigan State Court Administrative Office.

In RICO cases, the cast of characters consists of three types: (1) racketeers, often con artists, (2) dupes exploited as false fronts and (3) victims.  Sunshine Week works in a similar fashion.  Legislators, press and public.

Let’s hope that annual celebrations by the press of wobbly legislative hints of reform haven’t become a meaningless ritual.  If next year’s Sunshine Week is going to be any different, now is the time to start planning for it.

Open Government: The Impossible Dream?

The head of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in public testimony seven years ago admitted an arrangement between his organization and certain other federal agencies whereby formerly classified (secret) documents would be withdrawn again from public view for national security reasons.  The process for withdrawing the documents was to be conducted in secret, as well.

It was determined subsequently that upwards of one-third of the records which had been reclassified as secret didn't jeopardize national security at all.

Supposedly on the positive side, the National Declassification Center was created three years ago to oversee declassification of records throughout the government, including classified records that had been transferred to NARA.

But, in the meantime, we've learned that the government is recording information concerning our phone contacts, data from our Internet activities and to whom we send mail via the postal service.

If those examples are any indication, in terms of government abuses, the people get one step forward, then three steps back.  Sound a little like King George III?

Maybe all of us should read the Declaration of Independence again.

More evidence that AG Eric Holder neglects FOIA

Earlier this month, the Washington Free Beacon reported that the U.S. Department of Justice “...has not challenged a single instance of a federal agency withholding records from Freedom of Information (FOIA) requestors since 2009.”

The story, written by C.J. Ciaramella and published June 11, quotes a deputy assistant attorney general as saying that while DOJ’s “...Office of Information Policy gives guidance to other agencies on proper applications of FOIA exemptions, it has not determined that any of those exemptions were improper in four years.”

Citing George Washington University’s National Security Archive as a source, Ciaramella goes on to report that, since Attorney General Holder’s 2009 directive to agencies to employ a presumption in favor of disclosure, most agencies have ignored it.

http://freebeacon.com/doj-hasnt-found-one-improper-foia-exemption-since-2009/

Feds cited "privacy" for most FOIA denials last year.

The Investigative Reporting Workshop at the American University School of Communication reported June 20, 2013 that:

"[Federal] FOIA requests were denied under the privacy exemption in 2012 in more than 232,000 cases, or 53 percent of all requests, the highest level since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Privacy exemptions include 'personnel and medical files and similar files' when the disclosure of such information 'would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy' or protection for law enforcement information, the disclosure of which 'could reasonably be expected to constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.' "

The law enforcement exemption came in second at 26 percent, and executive privilege was claimed 15 percent of the time.  National Security accounted for less than one percent of the denials.

http://investigativereportingworkshop.org/blogs/exemption-10/posts/2013/jun/20/freedom-information-act-requests-and-denials-climb/

Finding Software for Municipal FOIA Applications

Do any of you readers want to describe your experiences with municipal FOIA software?  Add a comment.  Below are several examples of software that I've seen mentioned recently:

 (1)

"Welcome to Minutes-On-Demand™

In an attempt to better serve the residents of the City of Southfield [MI], we have created a searching tool that will allow you to view AGENDAS and MINUTES of City Council. Not only will you be able to look at the current meeting information but you will be able to search past meetings for specific meeting detail. Meeting Minutes will be posted once they are approved by the Council Board."  http://southfieldcitymi.minutesondemand.com/

(2)

"Sonasoft Corp., a leader in enterprise-class email archiving, announces a special no-cost email archiving promotion to help U.S. city and county governments meet the demands from the Freedom of Information Acts (FOIA) and states’ Open Public Records Laws, such as OPRA (New Jersey) and CORA (Colorado), without taxing their resources or breaking their budgets. Through this offer, city and county governments are eligible to acquire SonaVault, Sonasoft’s Email Archiving Solution, free with the purchase of Sonasoft’s professional installation and the first-year’s maintenance contract. City and county governments can lock in their savings as long as they obtain an estimate on or before July 1, 2013, which is when this promotion ends."
http://www.prweb.com/releases/email-archiving/freedom-information-act/prweb10724359.htm

(3)

"With the right technology, agencies can locate and assemble documents for FOIA requests more efficiently and effectively. The Google Search Appliance connects to any data source, such as SharePoint, SQL, and Oracle databases, and Lotus Domino and Apache servers, to search files quickly. Users can type a phrase or words associated with the FOIA request and the Google Search Appliance will immediately begin compiling data that contains the information in the query. The Google Search Appliance can search over 250 of the most common file formats, and even crawls through geospatial databases, withdrawing data in minutes."

"Once all data has been located, the Google Search Appliance compiles the information into a single PDF, making it easier to review. The Google Search Appliance can be customized for a particular agency’s needs, including setting up parameters for the system to identify documents that meet FOIA exemptions and easily redact sensitive information."  http://www.business2community.com/strategy/the-key-to-responding-quickly-and-easily-to-foia-requests-0494218