FOIA open records access

[ninjaroll]

ajas requested a topic opened on open access. Full disclosure, I'm a ASAP member but I am not posting at their behest. I will at a later point post .gov resources.

ASAP has an upcoming training in Arlington, Virginia. https://accesspro.org/programs/trainingconf/2015/index.cfm#

Scott Hodes maintains FOIA blog.

Here's a blurb on access and redactions in FOIA requests for District expenditures on legal fees related to students.

Shrouded in secrecy

Illinois residents have long complained to the state's attorney general about being stonewalled in attempts to obtain legal bills, which are public record.

The Tribune obtained legal bills for all but one of the more than two dozen districts in the six-county area that spend at the highest rate per student on lawyers. Niles Elementary District 71 denied an open records request, noting that redacting the invoices would be "overly burdensome." The district's lawyer estimated that related legal bills would cost an estimated $2,000.

Some of the documents reviewed by the Tribune were blacked out entirely, except for one or two words.

Spillane, of the attorney general's office, said "very aggressive redactions" continue to be a source of complaints. "The overriding point" of the state's open records laws, she said, "is that the public should be able to see how the public's money is being spent," which doesn't always happen.

Some districts are more transparent than others, Loizzi said. "Three clients may all get the same FOIA request and respond differently." An attorney's job is to advise districts on their options for how to respond, he said.

RCFP also has an app for access specific to schools in addition to its community and FOIA trackers, automation.

https://www.ifoia.org/#!/

RCFP app schools

http://foiaproject.org/about/foia-request-data/

[ninjaroll]

NJ open access group wins against school board.  Better transparency, more detail.

http://www.nj.com/mercer/index.ssf/2015/06/nj_open_records_group_wins_judgments_against_trent.html

[LinksEtc]

Tweeted by @charlesornstein

Make it public, I say. #opengov is #opengov. FOIA reform: A bit too much transparency for journalists? nzzl.us/yRgiTuA

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"FOIA reform: A bit too much transparency for journalists?"
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2015/07/10/foia-reform-a-bit-too-much-transparency-for-journalists/

From The Washington Post's Lisa Rein comes news that the federal government is launching a six-month pilot program with seven agencies to post online documents requested under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). "So if a journalist, nonprofit group or corporation asks for the records, what they see, the public also will see," writes Rein.