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Sunday, November 23, 2008

2006 Daggett County election

Election-related documents usually include voter registration cards, voter rolls and records of campaign contributions.

I never thought a police report would be related to an election. But that's life in American politics.

The report below is from the Uintah County Sheriff's Office. It discusses one episode in the investigation into the 2006 Daggett County Sheriff's Election.

— NC

UintahSheriffreport.pdf

Labels: Candidates, Police

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

So you wanted to be president, huh?

Don't peel off those "I Voted" stickers yet. There's one more campaign to decide.

What's going to be my first Freedom of Information Request to President Obama?

That's right. I'm not going to waste time. Come Jan. 20, as soon as Obama lowers his right hand and takes his left one off the Bible, I'm putting an FOIA request into the mailbox or fax machine and sending it to a federal agency in the Executive Branch.

Congratulations on reaching the White House, President-elect Obama. My colleagues and I will be bothering you a lot to find out what's going on in there.

The question is what to request? Here are some ideas I'm kicking around and some suggestions from others. But I would like your ideas and input. Type them here or e-mail me at ncarlisle@sltrib.com.

— NC

— A detailed accounting of expenses incurred during the presidential transition. How much does it cost to change the letterhead, anyway?

— Rick Blum, coordinator of the Sunshine In Government Initiative, suggested requesting the "names of organizations and individuals participating in meetings to craft the new administration's energy task force." This is something Dick Cheney refused to disclose when he convened an energy policy. Blum says the new administration may form a similar body. Wouldn't you like to know if there's a representative from the oil shale or waste disposal industry, Utah?

— Travel expenses and reimbursements for former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Mike Leavitt. This is a Utah angle that the Obama administration might even rush for us given the then-former secretary suddenly finds himself in the "other party." Leavitt's had a little trouble with travel.

— Ellen Smith, the managing editor of Mine Safety and Health News, recommended requesting a 2003 Department of Labor report on the Martin County Coal impoundment failure. Smith says the Bush Administration prematurely stopped the investigation into a disaster that was larger than the Exxon Valdez oil spill. This topic might not be so far removed from Utah's own concerns about mining and industrial waste safety.

— The FBI file for late Utah Gov. Calvin Rampton. I've been meaning to send this anyway. Dead people can make for interesting reading.

Photo by The Associated Press.

Labels: Candidates, FOIA

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, September 29, 2008

Ask the candidate

A columnist for The Capital Times of Wisconsin offers a good set of open-government questions voters can ask candidates this season. The complete column can be found here, but I've pasted a sample below.

Do you favor disclosure of communications between the White House and agencies regarding administrative decision-making and information disclosure?

What are the appropriate limits of executive privilege in the disclosure of information?

Federal law protects only corporate whistle-blowers who reveal financial abuses. Should the law be expanded to protect the rights of private-sector workers who report violations of public health and safety laws?

How can we ensure public access to health and safety information?

At the state and local levels, government still throws up many obstacles. Problems include overcharging for records, delays in responding to open records requests, problems getting police and prosecution information. Legislators provide information about bill drafts to some interest groups while withholding information to other groups or members of the public, and they are
trying to limit access to court records online.

Meanwhile, local officials abuse laws allowing closed meetings, particularly when discussing economic development. Ask your local representatives about policies regarding closed meetings for economic development.

— NC

Labels: Candidates, FOIA, Open and Public Meetings Act, open records

Monday, September 15, 2008

Green sunshine

Here's a column that asks how transparent Sarah Palin would be as vice president.

Meanwhile, count me among those who had no idea the Green Party candidate for president visited Salt Lake City earlier this month. But when I found out, after the fact, I sprung to action.

I e-mailed the Cynthia McKinney campaign and immediately asked what I've asked other presidential campaigns: What are your views on the Freedom of Information Act and have you ever filed an FOIA request?

The McKinney campaing called me within 15 minutes!

A spokesman told me McKinney favors an open government and pointed out McKinney, while she represented Georgia in Congress, sponsored two bills which would have made records public: The Martin Luther King, Jr., Records Collection Act and the Tupac Shakur Records Release Act.

As you can guess, the Shakur Act would have released documents concerning the death of the rap star. The King Act would have released early documents relevant to the King assassination. Neither bill passed committee.

The spokesman did not know, off hand, whether McKinney had ever filed an FOIA request but said he would find out and get back to me. That was 11 days ago. Hey, she may be a minor candidate but she's still a politician.

— NC

Labels: Candidates, FOIA

Sunday, September 14, 2008

Secretive Sarah

A story in Sunday’s New York Times, doesn't hold out much hope for Sarah Palin being an advocate of open government.

The story can be found here.

Let me quote from the pertinent part:

"Interviews show that Ms. Palin runs an administration that puts a premium on loyalty and secrecy. The governor and her top officials sometimes use personal e-mail accounts for state business; dozens of e-mail messages obtained by The New York Times show that her staff members studied whether that could allow them to circumvent subpoenas seeking public records.

Rick Steiner, a University of Alaska professor, sought the e-mail messages of state scientists who had examined the effect of global warming on polar bears. (Ms. Palin said the scientists had found no ill effects, and she has sued the federal government to block the listing of the bears as endangered.) An administration official told Mr. Steiner that his request would cost $468,784 to process.

When Mr. Steiner finally obtained the e-mail messages — through a federal records request — he discovered that state scientists had in fact agreed that the bears were in danger, records show.

'Their secrecy is off the charts,' Mr. Steiner said."

-- dh

Labels: Candidates, secrecy

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

'Indicators of growing secrecy'

The OpenTheGovernment.org has released its annual report on government secrecy.

For a PDF of the full report, click here. A press release with a short summary is below.

But in a sign that maybe things aren't so bad at the local level, there's an interesting story in The Washington Post about expenses submitted by Sarah Palin during her time as Alaska governor. The article represents a good use of public records.

-- NC

Press Release

Contact: Amy Fuller or Patrice McDermott, 202-332-6736

Report: Continued Expansion of Federal Government Secrecy Seen in 2007

WASHINGTON, Sept. 9, 2008 — Government secrecy increased across a wide spectrum of indicators in 2007, according to a report released today by a coalition of over 70 open government advocates. At the same time, the 110th Congress has moved toward increasing openness and accountability.

The findings of the 2008 Secrecy Report Card, produced annually by OpenTheGovernment.org to identify trends in public access to government information, include:

• Almost 22 million FOIA requests were received, an increase of nearly 2 percent over last year;

• The 25 departments and agencies that handle the bulk of FOIA requests failed to make a dent in their backlogs, although they received the fewest requests since reporting began in 1998; and

• The number of original classification decisions increased slightly after dropping two consecutive years, and the number of derivative classifications increased by almost 13 percent.

• According to Patrice McDermott, Director of OpenTheGovernment.org, “These trends indicate that citizens will have to wait even longer to know what their government is doing.” The report also cites indicators of growing secrecy, including:

• The government spent $195 maintaining the secrets already on the books for every one dollar the government spent declassifying documents, a 5 percent increase in one year.

• 18 percent of the requested Department of Defense (DOD) acquisition funding is for classified, or “black,” programs. Classified acquisition funding has more than doubled in real terms since FY 1995.

• $114.1 billion of federal contract funding was given out without any competition. On average since 2000, fully and openly competed contracts have dropped by almost 25 percent

• Federal surveillance activity under the jurisdiction of the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has risen for the 9th consecutive year—more than double the amount in 2000.

“The current administration continues to refuse to be held accountable to the public,” said McDermott. “In recent years, polls have shown that a growing number of Americans believe the federal government is secretive—terrible news for our democracy. Until we restore openness and accountability to the federal government, it will be impossible to win back the
public’s trust.”

Labels: Candidates, FOIA, secrecy

Monday, August 25, 2008

The new administration will have mail

Leftover work for the next president:

— Iraq

— Economy

— Find lost e-mails

OK, so the last item won't receive as much attention as the first two, but according to a White House memo, the next commander in chief will play a role in a mini-drama over the Bush Administration and e-mails.

Here's a briefing on the dispute that will water the mouths of political junkies and techno geeks. Here's my condensed version:

The federal government is suppose to archive its e-mail. The Bush Administration has had trouble doing this, it says, because of technical problems related to converting to new technology. A couple groups sued to force the archiving.

In the middle of all this, a federal judge ruled the White House Office of Administration did not have to respond to requests under the Freedom of Information Act, even though the White House itself does.

Now, we are hearing there is a plan to recovery up to 225 days of e-mails from 2002 and 2003 but the recover will run into 2009, leaving the issue for the next president.

-- nc

Labels: Candidates, FOIA

Monday, July 28, 2008

Irony: 'Bob Barr Blackout Watch'

If you're a regular reader of the comment boards on SLTRIB.com, you're probably anti-Mormon, anti-gun, want every Hispanic to return to Mexico (even if the person's family immigrated from Guatemala four generations ago), livid at the Democrats, livid at the Republicans or you just like reading all the messages from people who fall into one of these categories and wonder what bunker these crazies live in.

You've probably also seen comments like this one.

At July 29, 2008 9:10 AM , tyrannicide said...
Tribune's Bob Barr Blackout Watch: It's been 64 days since the Libertarian Party nominated Bob Barr as its presidential candidate, but the Salt Lake Tribune has yet to report this news in its print edition.

This poster has been railing on the newspaper for not reporting on Barr's candidacy. I can't speak for the entire Tribune, but I get the point. And I like the tenacity shown by "tyrannicide."

But here's the funny thing, I'm waiting on some Barr news, too. No, not in the news pages. Barr is on the list of presidential candidates who haven't responded to my inquires about stances on the Freedom of Information Act.

I'm also waiting to hear from the campaigns of John McCain, Barack Obama and Ralph Nader. The only candidate to respond has been the Chuck Baldwin campaign on the Constitution Party ticket.

McCain and Obama receive lots of press inquiries, so I'm not offended they're choosing to blow me off. Nader keeps himself busy always.

But, and "tyrannicide" should back me up on this, Barr obviously isn't busy with reporters' questions and should have replied by now.

— NC

Labels: Candidates, FOIA

Monday, July 21, 2008

Subpoena City

A subpoena from the Davis County Attorney's office, made public today by KSL, is demanding the station turn over "edited and unedited versions of interviews with Mark Walker, Richard Ellis and Greg Curtis."

Davis County and Weber County prosecutors are handling an investigation into an allegation that Walker, a former state legislator, promised Ellis a job and a big pay increase if he would drop out of the state treasurer's race.

The interviews were conducted on June 23 on the Doug Wright radio program and on July 10 by TV reporter Richard Piatt.

We at The Vault will be closely watching the case, as a government request for TV and radio out-takes is generally considered akin to asking for a print reporter's notes.

-- mdl

Labels: Candidates, Crime, KSL, secrecy

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Constitution, FOIA party

Any half-ass reporter can tell you what the major-party presidential candidates say about a topic. Let's get to the other guys.

Here's what Chuck Baldwin, the Constitution Party candidate for president, says about the Freedom of Information Act.

From: mary@baldwin2008.com
Subject: Chuck Baldwin on FOIA
Date: July 14, 2008 4:53:30 PM MDT
To: ncarlisle@sltrib.com

Nate,

Chuck Baldwin strongly believes government should be transparent and devoid of secrecy, except in matters concerning bona fide national security issues. Never having filed a FOIA request, Baldwin maintains Americans who do seek information from government records and departments have the right to expect information in a reasonable amount of time.

Baldwin believes that excessive secrecy is not beneficial for the country and it encourages deceit. Chuck Baldwin would work to make the FOIA less cumbersome, with elected officials and governmental agencies acknowledging that they operate as employees of the American people and have no overiding right to hide matters relating to the operation of their governmental offices.

With estimates showing that upwards of 400,000* new secrets are created each year just at the TOP SECRET level, and estimates that the government has billions of pages of classified material, Baldwin espouses accountability that can only be achieved when government knows it cannot hide behind “classified” documents.

If you'd like any further clarification, let me know.

Sincerely,
Mary Starrett

Baldwin 2008

* This footnote is mine. That figure originated with a report from the Information Security Oversight Office for the year 1995.

Meanwhile, I'm still waiting for the McCain and Obama campaigns to reply to my requests to give or clarify their positions on FOIA.

--nc

Labels: Candidates, FOIA

Monday, July 14, 2008

Dear Senator Obama:...

Of the two major presidential candidates, Barack Obama is the only one for whom I can find a position paper on the Freedom of Information Act and open government issues.

The paper, which you can find here, offers the following on FOIA.

...Barack Obama would restore the tradition of free information by issuing an Executive Order that information should be released unless an agency reasonably foresees harm to a protected interest.

Well, OK. But agencies are already supposed to release information unless it falls under numerous exemptions. Obama's position paper does not define a "protected interest."

Shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks, then-U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft issued a memorandum that seemed to expand what one would call a "protected interest." The memo has been much maligned in the FOI world while some have said the directives are necessary to maintain national security. Would Obama rescind the memo?

On Thursday, I sent this e-mail to the Obama campaign.

I have read the Senator's position paper on the Freedom of Information Act. Can you please tell me what the candidate considers a "protected interest." Would he rescind the John Ashcroft memo restricting documents under FOIA?

Also, has Senator Obama ever filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act or a state record law? If so, what was the senator's experience?

I am not working on a deadline but would appreciate a response in the next week. Thank you.

I asked whether Obama has made FOI requests because . . . well, I just couldn't resist. I'll let you know what he says.

-- nc

Labels: Candidates, FOIA

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Richard Nixon: Saint of Open Records

This op-ed by historian and researcher Michael Dobbs is a great lament for more openness in American government and a fantastic explanation of why voters should ask candidates about transparency issues. But it's the last few paragraphs that blew me away!

Of all the U.S. presidents Dobbs has experienced, he credits Richard Nixon for his willingness to place historical records in the public domain. Nixon?

The guy who during Watergate refused to disclose just about anything, fired investigating attorneys general like they were Billy Martin and used the executive branch to try to intimidate The Washington Post out of doing its job? That Nixon?

The black and white photo, courtesy of Utah State Archives, is Nixon (center) campaigning in Utah in 1968 with Sen. Arthur Watkins and Gov. George D. Clyde .

-- nc

Labels: Candidates, FOIA

Monday, June 9, 2008

Grudging disclosure -- but disclosure

Dozens of newspapers, including this one (read the story here) participated in a project this past weekend that shined light on earmarks in Congress.

And this gave me an opportunity to fill a gap in the public record.

Utah Rep. Jim Matheson complied grudgingly. His staff handed over the names of defense contractors that would benefit from the pet projects he is seeking. But they wouldn’t part with the information easily.

For many this may seem a bit confusing. Isn’t the government supposed to operate in the open?

When your representative sponsors a bill that would spend your tax dollars, the proposal is public. Anyone can read the bill, attend the committee hearings and watch the vote.

But when your representative seeks an earmark that would spend your tax dollars, that process is largely clouded in secrecy. Congress doesn’t release earmark requests, and even when projects are funded, the information is limited.

About 100 elected officials have opened up on their own, releasing lists of what pet projects they support.

The only one from Utah is Rep. Jim Matheson, but even in releasing his earmark requests, his office originally excluded the intended recipients of his defense earmarks. Defense earmarks are different from most other requests because they can easily reach into the millions of dollars, generally go to private companies and often these companies are big campaign contributors.

Still Matheson provided more information than the rest of the delegation.

Click below to see Matheson’s original earmark requests.

Matheson%20Earmark%20Requests2008.pdf

Reps. Chris Cannon and Rob Bishop refused to release their requests. So did Utah Sens. Orrin Hatch and Bob Bennett. They said making the information public may offend companies or local governments that don’t ultimately get the money they seek, and they don’t want to deal with the angry phone calls. They also said releasing their earmark requests puts them at a competitive disadvantage because other members of Congress will know what they asked for.

Matheson spokesman Alyson Heyrend said at the time: "Congressman Matheson has said from day one that his requests are based on the merits of the project and the overall benefits to Utahns. He's comfortable sharing that with the public."

This quote appeared in The Salt Lake Tribune on March 30. Two months later, and after repeated requests, his office followed through, providing the information on the defense contractors. Though they were still working to identify the company connected with the third project listed below.

Here is the info:

1. L-3 Communications would receive $7.3 million to develop a handheld video reciever known as the ROVER, which can help with surveillance and picking out military targets.

2. The Mathematical Science Research Institute would receive $3 million to support its TranSim driver’s training program, which is a simulator the military can use to train drivers of heavy equipment.

3. An unidentified company would receive $5 million for a system that would identify and locate electrical signals of interest for air and ground commanders. It is part of the Senior Scout program. Previous defense earmarks have gone to L-3 Communications.

4. Ceramatec would receive $3 million for an alternative pain medication delivery system.

5. Cyberkinetics would receive $2.2 million to fund a technology that allows a human brain to interface with a computer.

6. Kennecott would receive $5.8 million to develop a copper-rotor induction motor that could be used in weapons of the future.

7. LiveWire Test Labs would receive $5.3 million to develop arc fault circuit breakers that would help eliminate intermittent electrical faults that cause in-flight problems.

8. EDO Corporation would receive $3.5 million to fund the development of a new navigation system for ships.

Matheson has received $25,000 in campaign contributions for his current reelection campaign from L-3, Ceramatec, Kennecott and EDO, according to financial disclosure forms.

-- mc

Labels: Candidates, secrecy

Friday, June 6, 2008

The Candidates and FOIA

With the two major parties looking as though they have chosen their nominees for president, I'm going to use this blog in the coming months to write about their stances and histories on open government issues.

But we start today not with John McCain or Barack Obama. The Baton Rouge (La.) Advocate on Thursday has an article about how Gov. Bobby Jindal helped sink open records reform in the Bayou State.

Jindal has been discussed as a running mate for McCain. Jindal (Seen above in camoflauge as apparently he likes to hide himself, too.) has says he wants more transparency in Louisiana government, The Advocate reports, but favors a bill in the state legislature which would seal more records in the governor's office.

--nc

Labels: Candidates

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