Want to know the annual budget for the Bulgarian Department of Transportation? . . . Assuming Bulgaria has a department of transportation.

Here's a Website that can help you find it. It's the National Freedom of Information Coalition's collection of international freedom of information laws.

And apparently the record laws in some countries can work as well as the ones we have here in the home of the free. I typed "Freedom of Information Act" into a Google News search engine on Friday. Articles from foreign news sites comprised almost the entire yield.

In a speech in February at an international conference on the right to public information, human rights advocate Diego Garcia Sayan said: ". . . more than half of the current (public records) laws worldwide were passed after 2000, showing the momentum that this new thinking has gained recently."

But the sunshine has not spread around the globe. The Carter Center, which sponsored the February conference, said:

"Numerous countries with once vibrant and robust access to information legislation are now in retreat, while the passage of new laws has slowed and implementation efforts are often insufficient. "

"Moreover, it remains unclear that the myriad benefits of the right to information are in fact reaching the most disadvantaged people and promoting the anticipated societal transformations."

-- nc

Labels: FOIA, NFOIC