-
Critics say federal student privacy law misused by colleges
By Claritza Jiménez Jun 1, 2010 4:13 p.m.Reports of NCAA football violations, lists of who gets free tickets to big games, and disciplinary records of students found responsible for sexual assault are among the records that U.S. colleges and universities have refused to release, citing a federal student privacy law. Last month, a Wyoming community college even went to court to stop a local newspaper from publishing a leaked internal report about a trip the college president took to Costa Rica.
Read all about it -
USDA pulls plug on some farm subsidy data
By Claritza Jiménez May 24, 2010 3:20 p.m.Identifying some individuals who receive generous federal crop subsidies without going anywhere near a farm has gotten trickier. The Department of Agriculture, which paid $15.4 billion in 2009 subsidies, is no longer centralizing the data that made it easier to pinpoint individuals who receive farm payments through their affiliation in farming corporations, co-ops and other types of business partnerships.
Read all about it -
Lobbying data is public but not reliably searchable
By Josh Israel May 14, 2010 11:45 a.m.The 1995 Lobbying Disclosure Act, requires all lobbyists to file reports with the Clerk of the House of Representatives and Secretary of the Senate and that those two offices “maximize public access” to the documents through “computerized systems.” But the searchable database of every filing by registered federal lobbyists, made available through the Senate’s Office of Public Records, has a major problem: its search engine doesn’t work correctly.
Read all about it -
More transparency sought from White House’s OMB in regulation reviews
By Jim Morris May 6, 2010 11:12 a.m.Under President Ronald Reagan in the early 1980s, the White House Office of Management and Budget became known as the place where promising new regulations died behind closed doors. So opaque was the OMB review process that a research and advocacy group called OMB Watch materialized in 1983 to “lift the veil of secrecy.”
Read all about it -
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.
Read all about it -
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.
Read all about it -
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.
Read all about it -
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.
Read all about it -
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.
Read all about it -
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.
Read all about it -
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.
Read all about it -
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.
Read all about it -
The Data Mine Launched by The Center for Public Integrity and Sunlight Foundation
By Jim Morris Feb 12, 2010 11:56 a.m.President Obama's Open Government Initiative urges federal agencies to make high-value data publicly available at www.data.gov. But agencies too often are reluctant to release information, or choose to release it in a hard-to-use format. Today, the Center for Public Integrity, in partnership with the Sunlight Foundation, launches The Data Mine, an online series that will highlight inaccessible or poorly presented information from the federal government. From the CIA to the CDC, well be looking at data that needs to be public, with regular posts on the Center's and Sunlight's websites. Well describe each data set, as well as officials plans for putting it online or not.
Read all about it
Search the Blog
Real Time Ticker
Recent Posts
Reporting we're watching
- OpenSecrets: Millionaire Freshmen Make Congress Even Wealthier
- OpenSecrets: Owner Of Collapsed Indonesian Mine is Big Donor to Congress
- Sunlight Foundation: Reflecting on Sunlight
- Sunlight Foundation: Agenda for House's Legislative Data & Transparency Conference
- Sunlight Foundation: 2Day in #OpenGov 5/20/2013
