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In Delaware, citizens can't view emails between lawmakers and the lobbyists trying to influence them. They can't see a list of Delaware LLCs, which provide much of the state's revenue. Residents also can't see reports on police misconduct investigations, most information about the operations of taxpayer-funded universities or what exactly Delaware offered to Amazon in its failed bid to become the site of its second headquarters. "Redactions, high costs and time delays are symptoms of an illness in the freedom of information to which we are entitled," said Nick Wasileski, president of the Delaware Coalition for Open Government.
Delaware Online
Racine, Wisconsin, city officials won't say how much they're paying an outside law firm to try to punish an alderman whose fight to get public records has been sealed by a judge. They told the Racine Journal Times that the information is all part of the same big secret. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel first reported on the case in September, prompting several media organizations to call for the case — currently before the Court of Appeals — to be unsealed. Racine County Circuit Judge Eugene Gasiorkiewicz took the unusual step of sealing an entire lawsuit filed by Ald. Sandra Weidner to obtain public records about her own emails.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Fired FBI chief James Comey used his private Gmail account hundreds of times to conduct government business — and at least seven of those messages were deemed so sensitive by the Justice Department that they declined to release them. The former top G-man repeatedly claimed he only used his private account for “incidental” purposes and never for anything that was classified — and that appears to be true. But Justice acknowledged in response to a Freedom of Information request that Comey and his chief of staff discussed government business on about 1,200 pages of messages, 156 of which were obtained by The Post.
New York Post
The trial of Jason Van Dyke, the former Chicago police officer convicted in the 2014 fatal shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, may be over for now. But the fight, involving the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and a group of media organizations, continues for access to court records in the case. From the beginning, journalists had to fight for information about Van Dyke and the shooting. But the dogged efforts of independent journalists Jamie Kalven and Brandon Smith eventually led to the release of crucial information about how McDonald died and how the city and police department responded to the shooting. The Reporters Committee and a group of 18 media organizations initially became involved in the Van Dyke case to help quash a subpoena that could have required Kalven to testify about his confidential sources for his reporting on the shooting. It was only after counsel for the Reporters Committee tried to obtain court records at the county clerk’s office and was told that filings in the case weren’t publicly available that the Reporters Committee became aware of the broader access issues at hand.
Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press
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"Redactions, high costs and time delays are symptoms of an illness in the freedom of information to which we are entitled."
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