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Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Obama in the Land of Lincoln

A couple months ago, I emailed some journalists and open records advocates in Illinois -- my native state, by the way -- to ask about Barack Obama's history with open government.

None of them knew anything on the subject. Not good, colleagues.

Then I sent a similiar email to similiar people in Arizona asking about John McCain. I received the same answers -- or non-answers.

I also emailed people who monitor open government issue at the federal level to ask about the candidates' voting history in the U.S. Senate. Yep, you guessed it. No one knew much.

Let's also note no one replied by writing: "Oh, man, you're not going to believe what this guy did/did not do to completely stifle pubic access!"

Obama, however, also has a voting history in the Illinois Senate. Here's what some of my research found.

When he was still in the Illinois General Assembly in 2003, Obama filed a bill creating a statewide roster of government employees designated as record custodians. It also would have created a $1,000 fine for any public official who acts "in bad faith" to delay processing a record request. The bill did not pass.

Also in 2003, Obama filed a bill requiring hospitals to make quarterly reports about such information as staffing and infection rates. The bill included protections for whistleblowers.

Yet still in 2003, Obama was among a unanimous Senate that voted to make it easier for someone to have their attorney fees paid if they sue because a record request was denied.

In 2004, Obama chaired a Senate committee which pushed for a bill creating a nursing workforce database. Obama’s committee introduced an amendment specifically stating the database was subject to Illinois’ record laws. The amendment and the bill passed.

— NC

Labels: Candidates

Monday, October 27, 2008

Tell it to the judge

You may be occupied with elections, the World Series and investigations into carbon monoxide alarms*, but there was another big story last week at the Ogden courthouse.

The Sierra Club received a favorable ruling in its open records lawsuit against the city of Ogden.

Before I start receiving e-mails from the Drill, Baby, Drill crowd, it's not that I'm rooting for the Sierra Club. The issue here is a public records case making it into a courtroom.

Utah has little case law on its public record laws, and that can lead to confusion on all sides about what documents are available to the public.

Regardless of who prevails in Sierra Club v. Ogden, the case has the potential to clarify what the government in Utah has to tell people.

— NC

*I had to give some credit to an investigation with my byline on it. Come on.

Labels: GRAMA, open records

Sunday, October 19, 2008

Hinckley and the FBI

Below you can find a PDF of the Gordon B. Hinckley FBI file. Here's what it took to get it:

I filed the Freedom of Information request the morning after Hinckley died. Such FBI files are supposed to become public upon the subject's death. (Check out the Evil Knievel file sometime.)

A few weeks later, FBI headquarters replied with a letter saying... You ready for this?... it needed proof Hinckley was dead!

My original letter included the URL for Hinckley's obituary in The Tribune, but apparently the house that J. Edgar Hoover built isn't so keen on 21st Century technology... or television or radio or large newspapers — all of which devoted coverage to Hinckley's death. Instead, the FBI instructed me to send a death certificate or a hard copy of an obituary.

Wanting to vent, I called the FBI office in Salt Lake City. The chief division counsel at the office (he had nothing to do with the letter from headquarters) was sympathetic and helpful. In passing, he mentioned: "We helped with security for the funeral."

So, to recap: The FBI wanted proof of death for someone whose funeral it attended.

I sent another request — this time with hard copies of some obituaries. From there, I called the FBI's FOIA processing center every few weeks inquiring about my request's status.

By the way, I learned last week The Tribune has other old FBI files dealing with various aspects of the LDS Church. I'm pushing for us to scan them and post them here on The Vault, just like the Hinckley file.

— NC

Hinckley-FBI.pdf

Labels: FBI, FOIA, LDS Church

Saturday, October 18, 2008

Writing from records

The envelope arrived Monday. The return label indicated it was from Air Combat Command -- but it was thin.

Too thin, I thought, to contain the 178-page report I'd been told to expect "any day." Another bureaucratic form letter, no doubt, probably something like: Dear Mr. LaPlante, Thanks for your Freedom of Information Act Request. Screw you.

I almost kicked myself Tuesday when I called up The Air Force Times online. Somehow, The Times had obtained the records I'd been waiting on for seven months. Worse, they were first out the gate with a story about an investigation into something that happened in my backyard -- an accidental strafing at the Utah Test and Training Range that nearly killed two soldiers.

My thoughts shot back to the envelope on my desk at work. I did Mach II to the office. Sure enough, the letter contained a CD which, in turn, held the 178 page report -- in pdf form.

Duh!

Air Force Times - 1, Matthew D. LaPlante - 0.

There's nothing good about getting scooped. But it does present a challenge: "Now that the story's out there, how can I improve on it?"

With 178 pages to work from, the possibilities were endless.

Like a kid into a jigsaw puzzle box, I dove into the reports. Picking out a piece here and a piece there, I first sought to build the border -- the better to understand the big picture. From there, I began working inward, connecting piece to piece until the story emerged.

There is a point in puzzle building when you find the piece that brings everything together. For me it was this: During the investigation, both soldiers mentioned that the sports utility vehicle in which they were driving "exploded" just as one of them was reaching down for the radio.

A mundane action that would have been lost in the tides of thousands of other mundane actions was now deeply seared into their memories. "That's it," I said aloud. "That's my piece."

A few hours later, this photo ran at www.sltrib.com:

Along with this story.

Labels: FOIA, Hill Air Force Base

Friday, October 17, 2008

Carbon monoxide and alarms

Utah's medical and public safety community has been educating the public about carbon monoxide for years, but I never heard any concern about the alarms designed to safeguard people.

That changed in early August when I heard about a notice concerning the same kind of alarms found aboard a houseboat in which eight people were poisoned. The alarms' manufacturer had issued a notice saying the devices may not sound for low concentrations of carbon monoxide.

Then I learned about a Coast Guard study finding problems with alarms. I got curious.

With support from my editors, I started digging into carbon monoxide alarms. Here's the other documents I used to investigate:

— A preliminary report from the National Park Service. Rangers investigating the June poisoning at Lake Powell discovered there had been a notice concerning the alarms.

— Consumer Product Safety Commission's Website. Type a product name into site's search engine and you can find related documents.

— Consumer Product Safety Commission database. This is a database of consumer complaints, documented problems and deaths and injuries caused by products. The data is maintained by the National Institute for Computer-Assisted Reporting.

— Assorted studies. The investigating agency or firm was usually nice enough to provide me a free copy.

I also have Freedom of Information requests pending to a few federal agencies. Follow-up stories might be coming.

— NC

Labels: FOIA

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Over-protection

Utah County record keepers might want to look north and find out what its big brother is doing.

The Utah County Attorney's Office has denied a request from Hilarie Orman, of the Spanish Fork News, to review two police reports. One is a report on a trespassing case. The other case is from a motorcycle crash. They're not exactly the crimes of the centuries.

Yet the attorney's office claims both reports meet the definition of a "protected" record under the Utah Government Records Access and Management Act. There are legitimate grounds for classifying a record as protected, but I can't figure out how Orman's desired reports would enter that category.*

Where police reports are concerned, GRAMA allows for the protection of ongoing cases. Both of Orman's cases are closed.

Government bodies also can protect records which, if released, would threaten someone's safety. That would have to be some trespassing case and motorcycle crash if that were the issue here.

Orman is not giving up. She has filed an appeal with the Utah County Commission in the hope it will order the sheriff's office to release the records.

The county commission can review a case decided by the State Records Committee. The committee decided police reports are public records and ordered the reports released.

— NC

* I am not an attorney and frequently remind myself of that.

Labels: GRAMA, State Records Committee

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Happy returns

Here's what makes a reporter happy: Having a record request finally pay off!

The file I'm holding is from the FBI. Zoom to read the subject line and you'll figure out why I'm particularly proud of this one.

The Tribune will publish an article about the contents this weekend.

— NC

Photo by Paul Fraughton of The Tribune staff

Labels: FBI, FOIA

Friday, October 10, 2008

Order in the court — if you can find it

It took a while, but the Uintah Basin Standard finally figured out why the attorney general raided the local school district.

Click here to read the Standard's article. What it took to get the story highlights some deficiencies in Utah's system for disclosing search warrants:

The Standard's Geoff Liesik learned about the raid in late August, but nobody was willing to tell him what the attorney general was investigating. So Liesik went looking for the search warrant, which is suppose to say why authorities are investigating someone and what they seized.

But nobody would even tell Liesik in which court the warrant was filed. Liesik even sent a records request to the attorney general asking for the location of the warrant, but the office denied his request, saying the warrant had been sealed by a judge. The attorney general did not say which one.

But applications for secrecy orders are public records, too. But, again, Liesik did not know in which court to look for the application.

Meanwhile, this was all creating a lot of work for Liesik, who is the newspaper's only full-time news reporter.

Liesik told me he was thinking to himself: "I'm going to fight this fight and go around in circles with [the attorney general], and they're going to file charges or send out a press release saying they are not going to file charges and all this work is going to be moot."

Then a breakthrough: Nancy Volmer, the public information officer for Utah District Courts, found the secrecy application filed in 3rd District Court in Salt Lake City. The courts eventually release the application, thereby disclosing some details of the attorney general's investigation.

— NC

Labels: court records, GRAMA

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

FOI in a recession

Tax revenues are declining across the United States -- and that might impact whether state and local governments provide information to the people.

In Illinois, there's doubt whether the state will finance a counselor who was to help citizens fight for records.

Here in Utah, records management may take a hit at the Utah Department of Corrections. Bruce Bailey, who was director of records at the department and had a role in responding to requests from journalists and citizens, sent an e-mail Wednesday saying his position was eliminated.

In a separate e-mail, department spokeswoman Angie Welling confirmed Bailey's post is one of 35 full-time positions the department plans to eliminate. Welling added:

I can assure you that the Department remains committed to transparency and openness, and we will not allow this commitment to slide as a result of the proposed changes. We're confident that we will continue to be responsive to records requests and we will see no fundamental change in our dedication to meeting these needs.

— NC

Labels: GRAMA, jail/prisons

Monday, October 6, 2008

SLC records committee agenda

The Salt Lake City Mayor’s Records Appeals Board hears records cases involving that city's government. For an official agenda and information about accommodations and attending electronically, click here.

The Salt Lake City Mayor’s Records Appeals Board will hold a public meeting 10 a.m. Tuesday, Oct. 7, in Room 542 of the City & County Building, 451 S. State St.

Agenda:

Convene in open meeting for the purpose of reviewing the appeal by Roger Bryner in regards to a denial of records by the Salt Lake City Attorney’s Office.

Approx. 10:30 a.m. Meeting will adjourn to go into a closed meeting pursuant to the provision of UCA, Section 52-4-205(1) of the Open and Public Meetings Act.

Approx. 11:00 a.m. Reconvene in public meeting

Approx. 11:05 a.m. Adjourn

— NC

Labels: GRAMA, SLC

State records committee agenda

For the official agenda, information about accommodations, electronic attendance and submitting written comment, click here.

The State Records Committee will hold a meeting on 9:30 a.m. Thursday, Oct, 9. The meeting will be held in the Courtyard Meeting Room, the Archives Building, 346 South Rio Grande Street (450 West), Salt Lake City.

Committee business and three hearings have been scheduled:

* First Hearing – Jim Garside vs. Salt Lake City. Mr. Garside is appealing the denial of a copy of a joint defense agreement between Salt Lake City and Big Cottonwood Lower Canal Company.

* Second Hearing – Steve Onysko vs. Environmental Quality. Mr. Onysko is appealing the denial of documentation of communications about him and his work in the Division of Drinking Water at Environmental Quality.

* Third Hearing – Mark Haik vs. UDOT. Mr. Haik is appealing the denial of records relating to a city street map prepared by the Utah Department of Transportation in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Transportation.

* Approval of the August 14, 2008, meeting minutes of the State Records Committee

* Appeals received: A summary of cases reviewed for a hearing during the month will be presented to the Committee.

* Adjournment – Next meeting scheduled – Thursday, November 13, 2008

— NC

Labels: GRAMA, SLC, State Records Committee

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Trust a banker

I've been trying to decide whether this clip gets funnier or scarier with each failed bank. Meanwhile, as Congress continues pondering a bailout for the financial sector, an interesting debate has emerged over whether bankers like George Parr are giving us too much information.

Click here, here, and here for some good primers on this. In short, some think accounting rules, designed to provide transparency, go too far in stating liabilities and escalate concerns about banks.

And yesterday the Securities and Exchange Commission eased the "market to market" accounting rules. Here's hoping it stops the banking sector from, as Parr said, looking "as stupid as it actually was."

— NC

Labels: Corporate America

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