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Consumer Group: Electricity Price-Gouging Feared Until Bids Made Public
By Jim Morris Apr 29, 2010 1:26 p.m.Enron Corp.'s manipulation of the California energy market in 2000 and 2001 is notorious. Electricity bills soared and blackouts affected hundreds of thousands of people as contemptuous traders with Enron, a power wholesaler, delighted in their scheme. Tapes of traders released in 2004 contained infuriating nuggets like this: "Just cut 'em off... They should just bring back f------ horses and carriages, f------ lamps, f------ kerosene lamps."
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Civil rights groups want details on immigrant fingerprint program
By Claritza Jiménez Apr 29, 2010 9:42 a.m.As Arizona turns up the heat on illegal immigrants, civil rights groups are demanding the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) release details about a rapidly expanding federal program that helps local police identify illegal immigrants for potential deportation. The Center for Constitutional Rights and two other groups filed a lawsuit on April 27 attempting to force ICE to turn over data about its “Secure Communities” program after failing to get the information through a Freedom of Information Act request.
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Local officials say they’re in the dark on dangerous freight rail traffic
By Jim Morris Apr 16, 2010 11:07 a.m.Sixty-two cities in the United States have been deemed "high threat urban areas" by the Department of Homeland Security, meaning they’re susceptible to attack by terrorists targeting railroad tank cars loaded with chlorine gas or other deadly poisons. Under a 2007 law, freight rail companies were ordered to analyze their operations in these and other areas and select the "safest and most secure practicable" routes for hazardous cargo.
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Treasury department holding back on details of mortgage modification program
By Claritza Jiménez | Apr 14, 2010 2:18 p.m.Just how effective is the Obama Administration’s effort to help homeowners stave off foreclosure? It’s hard to know, in part because detailed data that could provide part of the answer is not available to the public.
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New Gov’t Contractor Integrity Database Will Be Off-Limits to Public
By Claritza Jimenez Apr 5, 2010 2:07 p.m.For the first time, the government will centralize information detailing whether a contractor was terminated, disbarred or suspended from a federal contract or grant, in addition to any civil or criminal convictions linked to contracting work. The FAPIIS database will track any administrative agreements that a vendor signed to avoid getting suspended or disbarred, and will show “determinations of non-responsibility,” when a contractor showed a lack of integrity or poor performance.
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Gov’t Database of Bad Doctors Blocks Public From Seeing Names
By Jim Morris Mar 23, 2010 10:50 a.m.In the mid-1980s, incompetent and negligent doctors were moving freely between states, with state licensing boards and hospitals largely oblivious to lawsuits or disciplinary actions in other locations that might have flagged bad providers.
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Description of Citizenship Database Available – If You’re Willing to Pay Nearly $112,000
By Nick Schwellenbach Mar 18, 2010 10:22 p.m.After taking nearly four years to respond to a Freedom of Information Act request, the U.S. immigration agency is demanding $111,930 for records that describe what is in a government database of claims for U.S. citizenship – not the actual database itself.
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Public Blocked From Key Parts of U.S. Dam Inspection Data
By Jim Morris Mar 15, 2010 12:26 p.m.In the middle of the night on Nov. 6, 1977, the Kelly Barnes Dam near Toccoa Falls, Georgia, gave way, unleashing a wall of water that killed 39 people. In a report, federal investigators blamed the failure on a combination of factors, including heavy rains and a breach in the 38-year-old earthen dam’s crest that had been followed by progressive erosion.
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Farm Subsidies Still Missing from USDAs Data-Rich Website
By Jim Morris Mar 5, 2010 noonFarm subsidies have a way of inciting people. Here, in the words of the Environmental Working Group, is why:
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Pentagon Weapons Test Report Harder to Get Since 9/11
By Nick Schwellenbach Feb 26, 2010 1:52 p.m.Until Sept. 11, 2001, a little-known but indispensible annual report by the Defense Department gave the public a window into whether the tens of billions of taxpayer dollars spent each year led to weapons that work. Then, the reports by the Pentagons director of Operational Test and Evaluation were pulled from the website.
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GSA Tracks Contractors Work in Database Off-Limits to Public
By Jim Morris Feb 23, 2010 3:50 p.m.Given the half-trillion dollars spent on federal contracting every year, its comforting to know that the U.S. government has a massive database that tracks contractors past performance.
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Ten Million CIA Documents Require In-Person Visit
By Jim Morris Feb 19, 2010 1:42 p.m.The Central Intelligence Agency maintains more than 10 million pages of declassified, post-World War II documents, covering everything from the birth of the CIA to the collapse of the Soviet Union. The documents are publicly available - assuming one is willing to drive to the National Archives complex in College Park, Maryland, sit at one of four computer terminals in the library, and print dozens, hundreds, or thousands of pages.
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FDA Lags USDA in Accessible Food Safety Data
By Jim Morris Feb 15, 2010 5:13 p.m.Salmonella in peanut butter. E. coli in cookie dough. Tainted Serrano peppers. Fetid Chinese seafood. All these recent problems fell within the domain of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which shares food inspection responsibilities with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The USDA inspects meat, poultry and some egg products while the FDA monitors everything else. Food-safety advocates say the USDA is more forthcoming about its inspection activities and are prodding the FDA to do better.
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OSHA Workplace Samples: Millions of Records Out of Reach
By Jim Morris Feb 12, 2010 12:16 p.m.An estimated 49,000 Americans die prematurely of work-related exposures to toxic substances every year. Mindful of this sad fact, and having served as director of health standards for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Dr. Adam Finkel filed a Freedom of Information Act request with OSHA in 2005, seeking the results of millions of air and wipe samples taken at workplaces around the country. Finkel planned to analyze the data and eventually post it on the Web in a format that would allow users to learn the types and quantities of compounds to which they or others may have been exposed at specific businesses during specific periods. He and other researchers, he reasoned, might spot trends that could lead to better enforcement.
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