Many state lawmakers attempted to curtail public notices in newspapers in 2023, but only one state made the switch

The past year was considered “pretty good” for protecting public notices in newspapers, with one notable exception, according to a report in Public Notice Monthly, a service of the Public Notice Resource Center.

“Twenty-one states saw bills in 2023 that would have significantly curtailed newspaper notice, a number that is at the high end of the normal range for these kinds of bills. The only one to pass was Ohio HB-33,” according to the report. “In total, PNRC tracked about 200 bills that had the potential to affect public notice; 50 were signed into law. Most of these new statutes will have little impact, equally divided between those that will have a marginally positive effect on government transparency and those that will slightly enhance official secrecy.”

Here is the PNRC report for 2023:

"The only consequential new laws enacted last year are briefly summarized below in roughly descending order of their impact. Aside from the bill in Ohio, all were supported by the newspaper industry.

1. Louisiana HB-650 -- This is the first statute requiring notice to be posted on newspaper websites instead of print newspapers, with the transition from hard copy to electronic set to commence in 2027. HB-650 also simplifies and standardizes the state’s fee structure, and requires official newspapers to have a website and post notices on it — free of charge until 2027 — and on the LPA statewide site.

2. Ohio HB-33 -- Inserted into the annual budget bill at the last minute, this new law made Ohio the second state to allow some local governments (i.e., municipalities, but not counties, villages or townships) to post many or most of their notices on their own website and social media feed instead of publishing them in a local newspaper or legal journal. Inexplicably, HB-33 also gave municipalities the option to publish notice on the Ohio News Media Association’s statewide public notice website free of charge. Moreover, the bill eliminated or reduced newspaper publication of several specific types of notices at all levels of government, including those relating to bids, delinquent taxes and the environment.

ONMA and newspaper publishers in the Buckeye State now face the challenge of preventing the new law from spreading to other levels of government. Unfortunately, the potential metastization has already begun with the introduction last month of HB-315, which would allow townships to completely abandon newspaper notice.

3. North Dakota HB-1197 and Oregon HB-3167 -- These are the first statutes allowing public notice ads to be published in the e-editions of official newspapers instead of print. Oregon HB-3167 additionally authorizes otherwise non-qualifying papers to provide local notice for up to 12 months in jurisdictions temporarily lacking an official newspaper. It also adds content standards to the public notice law requiring “consistent, regular coverage of local news” and at least 25 percent of “total news content” to be “locally and originally composed”.

4. Georgia HB-254 -- This one also adds a content standard (i.e., minimum paid circulation of 100) while temporarily expanding eligibility to publish notice to free-circulation newspapers when there are no papers in a county that meet the paid-circulation requirement. Most importantly for papers in Georgia, HB-254 increases publication fees by 50 percent — the state’s first fee increase in about 25 years. The bill also establishes a process by which posting a notice on a newspaper or government website, and Georgia Press Association’s statewide site, cures the failure of a print newspaper to publish timely notice submitted by a county or municipality.

5. Texas SB-943 -- Bills requiring newspapers that publish print notices to also post those notices on their own website and their press association’s statewide public notice site were introduced in four states this year. This is the only one that was approved, making Texas the nineteenth state to enact such a law.

"Every new year now poses major challenges for the future of public notice and 2024 is likely to follow that pattern. Nevertheless, newspaper notice will survive for years to come if newspapers provide effective notice to their communities and adequate customer service to their government clients, and if more publishers learn to advocate on their own behalf directly with public officials."

Trump administration sets new record for censoring or withholding government files, AP finds

An Associated Press data analysis shows that over the past eight months under President Trump, "the federal government censored, withheld or said it couldn’t find records sought by citizens, journalists and others more often last year than at any point in the past decade," Ted Bridis reports for AP. "People who asked for records under the Freedom of Information Act received censored files or nothing in 78 percent of 823,222 requests, a record over the past decade."

In 63,749 of the requests, the government said it would be illegal to release the requested information, which is double the number of such claims from the previous year. And the government said it couldn't find any records related to a request 180,924 times, an increase of 18 percent over the year before. The AP couldn't determine whether journalists were asking for records that didn't exist in those cases, or whether federal employees weren't looking hard enough.

The federal government turned over everything requested about 20 percent of the time, the analysis found. And in two-thirds of the cases where it turned over anything at all, the documents were censored. Adam A. Marshall, the Knight Foundation-funded litigation attorney at the Washington-based Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, told Bridis "Federal agencies are failing to take advantage of modern technology to store, locate and produce records in response to FOIA requests, and the public is losing out as a result."

When challenged, more than one-third of the time the government backed down and said it had improperly tried to withhold pages. But people filed only 14,713 appeals, or in 4.3 percent of cases in which the government said it had found records but wouldn't hand them over. Not fulfilling FOIA requests has been expensive for the government: it spent a record $40.6 million in legal fees last year defending decisions to withhold files. That number includes paying the winner's attorney's fees sometimes, if the government loses its case. The Trump administration said last week that it had received a record number of FOIA requests last year and that many agencies had reduced their backlogs of overdue requests.

This story is one in a series produced by the AP as part of Sunshine Week, which celebrates government transparency and freedom of the news media in the service of democracy.

Federal courts consider limiting remote access to records, a potential blow to rural journalism

Citing security fears surrounding an increase in deaths and threats to witnesses and informants, the federal judiciary has come up with new rules for sealing and sharing evidence, and is considering limiting remote access to court files, which would be a blow to rural journalists who live far from federal courthouses. The Public Access to Electronic Court Records system is widely used, even by urban reporters.

"Inmates determined to unmask a 'snitch' are . . . sophisticated, diving deep into court dockets and decoding sentencing motions filed by prosecutors for clues to who is talking. A proliferation of court records online on PACER . . . and smartphones have made it easier for criminal gangs to find files that could expose cooperators, according to judges and lawyers," reports Jacob Gershman of The Wall Street Journal.

U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan of Manhattan told the federal Judicial Conference’s criminal rules committee in April: "Anonymous remote public access to PACER is a source of much of the information that gets into prisons about who is cooperating." Federal inmates are can't access PACER themselves, but they can ask people outside the prison to search the online system and report the information back into the prison by phone, Gershman explains.

"Inmates also can ask courts for copies of their own sentencing files, and they often are pressured by other inmates to request the documents—known as paperwork—to prove they kept quiet, the judiciary survey found. In some prisons, according to judges, inmates are forcing other inmates to post the paperwork in their cells so others can come by and read them. At the moment, only the most confidential case files are treated as prison contraband, but inmates have been permitted to possess copies of other types of sensitive documents, such as sentencing minutes and plea agreements."

Close to 700 witnesses and informants believed to have cooperated with the authorities have been threatened, wounded or killed over the past three years; 61 of the murdered, according to estimates from a recent survey by the federal judiciary’s research arm.

Trump team 'scrubbing up' EPA climate-change site, restricting USDA and Interior communications

Screen grab from today of EPA site

While the Trump administration on Wednesday backed off its plan to remove climate-change information from the Environmental Protection Agency’s website, tighter restrictions are being placed on what can be published, Timothy Cama reports for The Hill. Trump spokesperson Doug Ericksen "said officials are reviewing all of the 'editorial' parts of the EPA’s website for possible changes." He told reporters, “We’re looking at scrubbing it up a bit, putting a little freshener on it, and getting it back up to the public. We’re taking a look at everything on there."

Ericksen said "scientific findings likely will need to have their work reviewed on a 'case by case basis'," Nathan Rott reports for NPR. "Any review would directly contradict the agency's current scientific integrity policy, which was published in 2012. It prohibits 'all EPA employees, including scientists, managers and other Agency leadership from suppressing, altering, or otherwise impeding the timely release of scientific findings or conclusions'."

"It also would likely have a chilling effect on the agency's ability to conduct research on the environmental issues it is charged with regulating," Rott writes. "Ericksen did not say whether such a review process would become a permanent feature of Trump's EPA."

Trump recently ordered federal agencies "to clamp down on public communications, prohibiting agency officials from most external communications, including with reporters and through social media," Cama writes. "Agency leaders have also frozen most grant and contract payments, though some communication and payment restrictions are likely to be lifted in the coming days."

The EPA isn't the only agency to be muzzled, James Hohman reports for The Washington Post. Officials from the Agriculture Department received a memo instructing them "to clear any media communications with the secretary's office," Hohman writes. After the National Park Service Twitter account retweeted two items viewed as "unsympathetic" to President Trump, the Interior Department abruptly shutdown their official Twitter account. One of the Park Service retweets "referred to the size of the inauguration crowd on the Mall, while another addressed policies that were excised from the White House website after Trump’s swearing-in." The Interior Department has since reactivated its account.  

Maine governor's handwritten notes to lawmakers not public records, staff says; others disagree

A note Gov. Paul LePage sent to
Democratic state Sen. John Patrick

An argument is brewing in Maine over whether handwritten notes Republican Gov. Paul LePage frequently writes to lawmakers are subject to open records laws, Scott Thistle reports for the Portland Press Herald. "Staff members argue the notes are personal and not public documents that must be saved and accessible to the public. But others, including the state’s archivist and attorney general, say documents created by the governor that discuss state policy or business are public records, whether handwritten or not."

Republican state Senate President Mike Thibodeau made public this note he received from LePage in June 2015: “It is apparent that the Republicans in the Senate and House have not only thrown the governor under the bus, but now want to take his executive powers. Therefore, beginning today and for the remainder of my term, all bills will be vetoed requiring a 2/3rds vote in both houses."

LePage, "who promised voters in 2010 that his would be the 'most transparent' administration in state history, now has a long record of evading, avoiding or simply ignoring the state’s open records law," Thistle writes. Brenda Kielty, the state’s Freedom of Access Act ombudsman, told Thistle, “Any government record, regardless of the form in which it is in maintained by an agency or official, can be a public record.” (Read more)

Apple chief, at center of controversy over privacy, forged his moral ideals growing up in rural South

Apple chief executive Tim Cook—an openly gay man, a champion for gay rights, and a native son of the rural South—is at the heart of a controversy, having refused to assist the FBI in unlocking an iPhone belonging to one of the San Bernardino terrorists. Cook's childhood growing up in the 1960s in rural Robertsdale, Ala. (Best Places map) forged his current ideals about right and wrong and the need for privacy, especially from the government, Todd Frankel reports for The Washington Post.

Cook was instilled with a sense of right and wrong at an early age, Frankel writes. "In the early 1970s, he was riding his new 10-speed bicycle at night along a rural road just outside Robertsdale when he spotted a burning cross. He pedaled closer. He saw Klansmen in white hoods and robes. The cross was on the property of a family he knew was black. It was almost more than he could comprehend. Without thinking, he shouted, 'Stop!' The group turned toward the boy. One of them raised his hood. Cook recognized the man as a local deacon at one of the dozen churches in town, but not the one attended by Cook’s family. The man warned the boy to keep moving." Cook said at a speech in 2013, “This image was permanently imprinted in my brain and it would change my life forever."

Tim Cook (Mashable photo)

When he was 16 "Cook won an essay contest sponsored by a rural electric company and, as part of the prize, met Alabama Gov. George Wallace, the segregationist who resisted the federal government’s attempts to integrate the state’s public schools during the ’60s," Frankel writes. Cook said in a speech that shaking Wallace's hand was "a betrayal of my own beliefs . . . It felt wrong. Like I was selling a piece of my soul.” During the same trip, Cook met President Jimmy Carter at the White House. He said the difference between the two men was impossible to miss: “One was right and one was wrong.”

In 2011, when he took over Apple, Cook began advocating "for gay rights and to change laws in states such as Alabama, where employees can be fired for being gay," Frankel writes. "He criticized states with 'religious freedom' laws that seemed to him to sanction some forms of discrimination. Last December, shortly before the fate of a terrorist’s iPhone would explode onto the national scene, he accepted the Ripple of Hope award from the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights. In his speech, Cook talked about learning to 'take a stand for what is right, for what is just.' And when the terrorist’s iPhone case erupted last month, Cook returned to that 'moral sense' he learned back in Robertsdale."

In a letter to customers, Cook "wrote that 'it would be wrong' for Apple to be forced to create a backdoor to its security system," Frankel writes. Cook wrote, “We feel we must speak up in the face of what we see as an overreach by the U.S. government” The Justice Department "has accused Apple of focusing on 'a perceived negative impact on its reputation.'" Cook responded in an interview with ABC News by saying, “Some things are hard, and some things are right, and some things are both. This is one of those things.”

Mistrust of government medicine among African Americans in Alabama blamed for rural TB outbreak

A tuberculosis outbreak mostly among African Americans in rural Perry County, Alabama—a state that did not expand Medicaid under federal health reform—is being blamed on "generations of limited health care access, endemic poverty and mistrust—problems that are common across the rural South," Alan Blinder reports for The New York Times. Dr. R. Allen Perkins, former president of the Alabama Rural Health Association, told Blinder, "There’s not a culture of care-seeking behavior unless you’re really sick. There’s not support for local medical care, so when something like this happens, you have a health delivery system that’s unprepared.” (NYT map)

As of Monday, 47 cases of tuberculosis have been reported in Perry County in West Alabama, states a press release from the Alabama Department of Public Health. Officials in Perry County, which has about 10,000 residents, have tested around 800 people for tuberculosis, whose symptoms "include cough lasting more than two weeks, shortness of breath, fever, night sweats, weight loss and fatigue. A person may be infected with the TB germ and have no symptoms."

Authorities, who said they expect the number of positive cases to increase, "said the outbreak had spread so widely and lasted so long because patients had been reluctant to disclose their contacts to public health officials," Blinder writes. "Some of that is linked to suspicions that the health officials will report illegal activity to law enforcement, but it is also connected to worries of being ostracized—or at least stigmatized—in a community as small as this one."

Mistrust of government medicine in Alabama dates back more than 80 years to a 1932 Macon County medical study involving African Americans that a federal panel later ruled 'ethically unjustified,' Blinder writes. While many people in Marion, Ala. (located in Perry County), where about 63 percent of the residents are black, said they knew little about they study, "they often said their wariness of medical professionals had been passed on through generations. Some said the dire nature of the tuberculosis warnings made them feel that they had little choice but to consult heath officials."

Another problem is that "the TB outbreak has implicitly reinforced Marion’s chronic divides of race and class, particularly because of a controversial plan to compensate people if they submit to blood screenings," Blinder writes. "With money from a federal grant, health officials in Alabama are offering residents $20 for initial tuberculosis testing, $20 for a follow-up visit and another $20 for keeping an appointment for a chest X-ray, if one has been recommended. Anyone who is found to have been infected can receive $100 for completing treatment." (Read more)

House OKs Freedom of Information Act reform bill

The House on Monday passed bipartisan legislation that "would limit exemptions under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) that now allow federal agencies to hold back information," Megan R. Wilson and Cristina Marcos report for The Hill. "The bill would also create a single online portal for people to make FOIA requests and require agencies to publicly post frequently requested records online."

The bill would "reform how agencies can redact some information using Exemption 5, which is often derisively referred to as the 'withhold because you can' statute," Wilson and Marcos write. "In practice, it is supposed to apply to 'interagency or intra-agency communication,' such as draft documents. The legislation, however, requires agencies to disclose any 'records that embody the working law, effective policy or the final decision of the agency.'"

"It also mirrors the Senate legislation in requiring that Exemption 5 cannot be used on any information older than 25 years," Wilson and Marcos write. "The measure would codify nonbinding directions from the Obama administration and the Justice Department on how to fulfill document requests with a 'presumption of openness,' in addition to improving public digital access to records released through FOIA and making oversight of the process more independent . . . Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Monday would not say whether the Senate’s version of the legislation would be placed on the calendar."

The Society of Professional Journalists applauded the move. SPJ National President Paul Fletcher said in a statement: "This legislation helps journalists and other citizens better access their government, and today’s vote proves that Congress can work together to make government more transparent and accountable. Congress doesn’t approve FOIA fixes very often, so getting this legislation through the Senate and signed into law would be a big win for transparency and helping the American people obtain the information they are entitled to see.”

Lobbyists want to use Syrian refugee crisis to block WOTUS, according to taped strategy session

Lobbyists want to use the Syrian refugee crisis to block the Environmental Protection Agency's Water of the U.S. rule, according to a leaked conference call, Lee Fang reports for The Intercept. During the conference call, "lobbyists representing a number of high-polluting industries agreed that the battle between Congress and President Obama on refugee policy will give them the cover they need to attach a legislative rider to the omnibus budget bill that rolls back newly expanded clean water regulation."

"Attaching a rider blocking WOTUS to the omnibus was potentially going to attract a lot of attention. Until now," Fang writes. "Now, lawmakers are expected to attach a provision to the omnibus bill to block Syrian refugee resettlement—a move that is bound to become the focus of any government shutdown confrontation between Congress and the White House."

"The call was hosted by the Edison Electric Institute, a trade group for major electric utility companies," Fang writes. "Participants in the call included senior officials and lobbyists from some of the largest trade associations in Washington, including the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, the American Forest and Paper Association, the National Association of Home Builders and the American Farm Bureau. The total attendance list for the call, however, is not clear given that some participants did not identify themselves or only identified themselves by first name."

Attendees at the conference call deny talking about Syrian refugees, Fang writes. Liz Thompson, director of media relations with the National Association of Home Builders, said in a statement, "The Syrian crisis has absolutely no bearing on our discussions. With only two weeks left in the legislative calendar, the purpose of the call was to have an open discussion on the options available to us, including possibly adding a rider in the final omnibus appropriations bill." Other groups refused to comment.

State Integrity Investigation ranks each state for transparency and accountability in 13 categories

The Center for Public Integrity has released its 2015 State Integrity Investigation that ranks each state for transparency and accountability. States were given a letter grade in each of 13 categories, and an overall grade. No state scored higher than a C overall, with Delaware, Kansas, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Nevada, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota and Wyoming getting Fs. (USA Today map)

A MAP SHOWING GRADES FOR ONE CATEGORY

It's important to note that in some cases, the ratings may be based too much on exceptions to the rules. For example, Kentucky got an F on public access to information, though it has a strong open-records law. The report cites exceptions such as legislative communications, the governor’s schedule, the court system and a state agency’s recalcitrance on fatal child-abuse cases. But the court system voluntarily obeys the law, and a judge has fined the agency for its recalcitrance; it has appealed. "Such examples illustrate why the report should only be the beginning of local reporting about these issues," said Al Cross, director of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues and publisher of The Rural Blog.

"When first conducted in 2011-2012, the State Integrity Investigation was an unprecedented look at the systems that state governments use to prevent corruption and expose it when it does occur," Nicholas Kusnetz reports for The Center for Public Integrity. "Unlike many other examinations of the issue, the project does not attempt to measure corruption itself. The 2015 grades are based on 245 questions that ask about key indicators of transparency and accountability, looking not only at what the laws say but also how well they’re enforced or implemented."

"The 'indicators' are divided into 13 categories: public access to information, political financing, electoral oversight, executive accountability, legislative accountability, judicial accountability, state budget processes, state civil service management, procurement, internal auditing, lobbying disclosure, state pension fund management and ethics enforcement agencies."

States ranked on their spending transparency: Ohio leads list, California at bottom

Ohio leads all states in doing the best job providing online access to government spending data, while Idaho, Alaska and California are the worst culprits, says a report by the United States Public Interest Research Group. States were graded based on efficiency of websites that allow users to view government payments, details about the goods or services purchased and other public benefits obtained.

Ohio, which received a D-minus in 2014, led all states this year with an A-plus. Indiana, Wisconsin, Oregon, Louisiana, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Florida all got an A and Iowa, Illinois, Montana, New York, Texas and South Dakota A-minus. Idaho, Alaska and California all received an F, with California at the bottom with a 34. Alabama received a D and North Dakota a D-plus. (Read more)

Appeals court nixes secrecy order in criminal case against Appalachian coal operator Don Blankenship

Blankenship in 2010 (Associated Press)

A federal appeals court has overturned a gag order in the case of controversial Appalachian coal operator Don Blankenship of now-defunct Massey Energy. District Judge Irene Berger's order "had sealed from public view most of the filings in the criminal case," Ken Ward Jr. notes for The Charleston Gazette, which was among several news-media organizations that appealed it.

The order of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals was unsigned, indicating that Judges Roger Gregory, James Wynn, and Andre Davis concurred. "Berger had entered the gag order -- without any request for such an order from either Blankenship or U.S. Attorney Booth Goodwin -- the day after an indictment was issued charging Blankenship with mine safety and securities crimes related to Massey’s Upper Big Branch Mine, where 29 miners died in an April 2010 explosion," Ward writes. "It was not immediately clear when court filings in the case would be unsealed."

To delete or not to delete: State laws vary on how long government emails are kept

How long should emails sent by state officials be saved? In some states, emails are purged after five days, while in other states those emails are kept for five years. While laws vary by state, advocates of open government say those emails should be preserved for transparency and historical value, Jenni Bergal reports for Stateline. (Associated Press photo)

Melissa Melewsky, media law counsel for the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association, told Bergal, “It’s the public’s information. The fact that it can be deleted without consequence or review—everyone should care about that. The public cannot hold their government accountable if they don’t have access to the records. It shouldn’t matter whether that record is written on a piece of paper with ink or whether it’s written on a computer screen.”

Content is the main issue in many states, Bergal writes. "An employee may be required to keep certain types of email, such as official memos or messages dealing with administrative policy, which may be retained for several years. But they also may be allowed to delete email that is deemed 'transitory,' which means it has little value after its use and nothing important in it. Transitory email can range from a 'help yourself to cookies in the break room' note to a list of staffers who participated in a meeting to drafts of a presentation."

"While states have strict retention schedules, it’s often up to the individual agency to determine how to make that work," Bergal writes. "Problems often arise when retention rules bump heads with information technology policies, which favor unclogging email boxes, deleting junk mail that can bog down the system and keeping the cost of storage to a minimum."

Tanya Marshall, president of the National Association of Government Archives and Records Administrators, told Bergal, “It’s a little bit of the Wild West. The processes that are being used are based on paper records. You often don’t see much of a process set up for electronic records. There are very few states where it’s clear to the employee what they need to do and how to manage it.”

The National Archives and Records Administration "has proposed a new approach that would designate email accounts of senior level federal officials as permanent records that would not be deleted and would save nonofficials’ emails for at least three to seven years," Bergal writes. "The idea is to shift the burden of deciding which messages should be erased or archived away from the individual user."

Frederick Frank, an attorney representing several newspapers, "said that he’s even more disturbed that there’s no way to restore deleted email once it’s purged after five days," Bergal writes. Frank told Bergal, “The potential for mischief here is very clear. That’s particularly true when an employee feels that there may be an investigation. When he is asked where his emails are, he says they were all transitory and they’ve been deleted. There’s no way to get them back from the server.” (Read more)

Small weekly in rural county where girl was killed after state agencies ignored abuse claims, finds state not following up on abuse reports

The Todd County Standard, a 2,500-circulation weekly newspaper in southwestern Kentucky is tackling a local issue that has statewide implications, indicating that state agencies created to protect children are causing more harm than help. Local officials are worried of another instance like the one that happened in 2011, when 9-year-old Amy Dye (left) was killed by her 17-year-old brother, in a case where repeated claims of suspected abuse to the state Cabinet for Health and Family Services fell on deaf ears.

"According to Todd County Assistant [School] Superintendent Ed Oyler there were 33 reports of neglect and abuse made by teachers and administration of the school system during the previous school year — 12 at the elementary schools, 17 at the middle school and four in high school — and 'little to no follow-up' was given on any of the cases," Standard Editor-Publisher Ryan Craig reports. "On the majority of the cases, Oyler points out, there wasn’t any information passed back to the school system and when the school system made inquiries — even so much as scheduling appointments with social workers only to have those meetings canceled and not rescheduled — there was no information shared."

Supt. Wayne Benningfield told the Standard, “We don’t know what the cabinet has done, what they are going to do or if they are going to be there. We never get a call back. We are told they are coming, but we never know if that happens. We just have no idea.”

Making matters even worse, school officials say the cabinet's "Department for Community Based Services has failed on at least three instances recently to protect the identity of Todd County teachers or administrators who reported abuse," Craig writes. Benningfield told him that during the past two years three parents showed up to campus knowing the identities of the people who reported suspected abuse. (Read more)

The Standard has won the general-excellence category for small weeklies in the Kentucky Press Association contest seven years in a row.

Local cops are tracking phones then denying open records requests from journalists

Some local law enforcement agencies are using technology to get detailed information about the location and use of individual phones, and when journalists file open records requests on the matter, local agencies refuse to comply, or the federal government often steps in to seize records they claim belong to them, Susannah Nesmith and Jonathan Peters report for Columbia Journalism Review.

"Here in Florida, it’s not clear just what information about the technologies is covered under the state’s strong public records law," Nesmith and Peters write. "Records requests have produced a variety of responses, many of them not especially forthcoming. But it is clear that federal law enforcement is playing a key role in maintaining a shroud of secrecy."

In response to ACLU's public requests to 37 Florida law enforcement agencies for open records "state police have claimed the records are exempt under state law; in one case, a local department refused to confirm or deny the existence of such records," Nesmith and Peters write.

"But the most remarkable response came from the Sarasota Police Department, which in May was poised to release to Michael Barfield, vice president of the ACLU of Florida, records concerning applications and orders related to the department’s use of surveillance devices," writes the Review. "However, hours before the scheduled release, the records were instead seized by the Marshals Service, which had intervened to claim the records as its own, as the Sarasota Herald-Tribune reported. The federal agency said it had deputized the Sarasota officer who created the records, and therefore they were federal property not subject to state public records law."

Scott Ponce, a Miami-based media lawyer, told Nesmith and Peters, “We deal frequently with state agencies giving copies of documents to federal agencies and incorrectly claiming that something about the transfer makes them exempt from state public records law, but I have never seen the transfer of the creator of the records.”

But Sarasota County Judge Charles E. Williams "dismissed an action brought by Barfield and the ACLU to compel the production of the records," Nesmith and Peters write. "Williams said he lacked jurisdiction because the Sarasota officer had been deputized and 'assigned to a federally created regional task force,' and the state public records law doesn’t apply to 'records maintained by [the Sarasota officer] while operating in his capacity as a sworn federal law enforcement agent.” (Read more)

Sunshine Week special: AP says administration is more secretive than ever about public records

It's becoming harder to get government files from the Obama administration, which increasingly cites national security as the reason to withhold or censor information, report Ted Bridis and Jack Gillum of The Associated Press.

In a story timed for the annual observance of Sunshine Week, which promotes the value of open government, AP reports that the administration denied or censored more often than ever records requested under the Freedom of Information Act, and did that more often than it granted records without redacting, or removing information, from documents.

"The administration cited more legal exceptions it said justified withholding materials and refused a record number of times to turn over files quickly that might be especially newsworthy," AP reports. "Most agencies also took longer to answer records requests. . . . The administration has made few meaningful improvements in the way it releases records despite its promises from Day 1 to become the most transparent administration in history."

AP said its request "for contracts with public-relations companies to promote Obama's health-care law has been pending for more than one year. Requests for files about the Affordable Care Act and the IRS's treatment of tax-exempt political groups have languished in government offices for months. Similarly, the AP has waited for more than 10 months for emails between the IRS and outside Democratic super PACs about tea party groups."

Requests for information rose 8 percent last year, but the government's response to requests rose only 2 percent, AP reports. The National Security Agency, which has come under scrutiny because of its electronic surveillance programs, reported a 138 percent increase. AP's 1,600-word story is at http://bigstory.ap.org/article/us-cites-security-more-censor-deny-records.

Sunlight Foundation writer says new Farm Bill fails the transparency test

Rick Cohen

The recently signed Farm Bill shows a weakness in transparency, opines Rick Cohen of the Sunlight Foundation., a nonprofit dedicated to openness in government.

"The Farm Bill manages to keep the recipients of the crop insurance program secret," Cohen writes. "It even ditched a provision sponsored by Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) and Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) that would have simply required members of Congress and of the president’s Cabinet who are receiving crop-insurance benefits to reveal themselves to the public," he writes. "The Senate, controlled by members of the resident’s political party, never let an amendment offered by Sen. Mark Begich (D-Alaska) and Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) that would have required disclosure of all beneficiaries of the crop insurance subsidy even come to a vote."

President Obama claimed last year that his administration was the most transparent in history, but "that hasn't been quite our take on the transparency of the Obama administration on campaign finance, lobbying, closed door conferences with philanthropists, the Social Innovation Fund, insider trading by members of Congress, bilateral aid, prosecuting whistleblowers, and, of course, the surveillance activities of the National Security Agency," Cohen writes. "In some cases, legislation that reached the president’s desk for signature, such as the STOCK Act, had been so gutted in Congress as to make the disclosure requirements weak, if not worthless. But the president has the ability to veto bills that violate his commitment to transparency and to use his bully pulpit to call out legislators for ducking into the shadows."

"With the Farm Bill’s next-to-nonexistent transparency requirements on crop insurance, the operative issue may be the connection of the campaign donors to politicians—including President Obama," Cohen writes. "Sunlight notes that in the 2012 election cycle, agricultural services industry interests contributed $42 million in federal and state campaigns. Included in the donors’ lists are various crop insurance trade associations that probably feel a lot more comfortable with keeping the identities of crop insurance recipients hidden from the public."

"In his State of the Union address, the president promised a new muscularity in the use of executive orders, a willingness to issue them when Congress proves unable to act," Cohen writes. "In the case of transparency, President Obama ought to be issuing a flood of executive orders, because his signing off on transparency-weak legislation coming from Congress, such as the Farm Bill, will serve to make his administration unbelievably less transparent than he promised in his 2008 campaign and 2009 inauguration." (Read more)

Panel to debate if federal public-affairs offices hinder or help the cause of open government

John M. Donnelly

The National Press Club will be hosting a webcast panel at 6:20 p.m. Monday to debate whether federal public-affairs offices hinder more than help the cause of open government. "Although executive branch communications offices can be useful, at times indispensable, in helping the press cover the government, reporters need to always be free to seek information in other ways," the National Press Club writes. "Yet doing so has become difficult to a degree that some say jeopardizes the access the press and the public have to information."

"Public affairs offices increasingly require that reporters conduct all interviews through the press office. U.S. departments and agencies often mandate that their employees only talk to reporters through official channels and with communications staff present," the National Press Club writes. "On the other side of the issue, public affairs professionals believe these controls are necessary to ensure that the press gets accurate information and the department or agency’s message is unified and coherent."

The free event will be moderated by John M. Donnelly, chairman of the NPC Press Freedom Committee and a senior writer with CQ Roll Call. Also on hand will be Tony Fratto, former deputy assistant to President George W. Bush and principal deputy press secretary; John Verrico, president-elect of the National Association of Government Communicators; Linda Petersen, freedom of information chair for the Society of Professional Journalists, and president of the Utah Foundation for Open Government; Kennesaw State University's Carolyn Carlson; and freelance reporter Kathryn Foxhall. For more information or to register click here.

Fear of purchasing limits and official conspiracies has ammunition flying off shelves, or even trucks

Some gun owners are making a mad dash for ammunition, out of fear that purchasing limits will be set in response to the December school shooting in Newtown, Conn., Mara Rose Williams reports for the Kansas City Star.

The increase is demand is driving up prices, and retailers are having a hard time keeping small-caliber bullets in stock, Williams reports. One store owner said, "Before Christmas, you could buy a brick of .22s — 500 rounds — for $18. Now I’m hearing people paying $60 or $70 for one."

"At Blue Steel Guns & Ammunition the ammo truck rolls into the parking lot on Fridays. Last week, a crowd of customers was waiting for the shipment, and all 60 boxes of .22-caliber and 9 mm ammunition — thousands of rounds — were gone in 18 minutes," Williams writes. “They never even made it to the shelves,” said owner Steve Brackeen. “We just had enough time to slap a price on them and sell. And we ran out before everybody in line got some.”

Another fear driving up sales is the Department  of Homeland Security’s "plan to buy more than a billion rounds of ammunition," Williams reports. "The bullets, ordered in bulk over five years, are used in the training of about 70,000 agents and officers employed by the 90 agencies included within the department."

Larry Swickard, a member of the Western Missouri Shooters Alliance, told Williams, "My understanding is these are standing, not necessarily take-delivery, orders. But the fact that Homeland Security, and the government in general, has offered no reasonable explanation for such huge purchases would be more than enough to fuel the fears of those inclined to see conspiracies behind every change in a routine.” (Read more)

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2013/03/27/4148270/bullets-flying-off-shelves-at.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2013/03/27/4148270/bullets-flying-off-shelves-at.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2013/03/27/4148270/bullets-flying-off-shelves-at.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2013/03/27/4148270/bullets-flying-off-shelves-at.html#storylink=cpy

Ala. agencies can circumvent open meeting law via serial meetings with less than quorum, court rules

The Alabama Supreme Court ruled narrowly this month that public agencies could circumvent the state open-meetings law by holding a series of meetings with less than a quorum of members -- a familiar ploy that can be hard to prevent and discover, even when state law forbids it, as the Kentucky New Era of Hopkinsville wrote today.

In a lawsuit against the Montgomery Public Schools, the Alabama high court voted 5-4 to uphold a lower court ruling. "The court ruled that although the Board of Education formed three special committees covered by the Open Meetings Act, no meeting of the committee occurred because what they discussed was going to be voted upon later by the entire Board and not the committee," reports the June issue of AlaPressa, the newsletter of the Alabama Press Association. For a PDF of the court's decision, click here.