Author: Margaret B. Kwoka Publisher: Cambridge University Press ISBN: 1108482740 Category : Law Languages : en Pages : 273
Book Description
The Freedom of Information Act is vital for democratic accountability. Understanding who uses it is key to re-centering its oversight purposes.
Author: Margaret B. Kwoka Publisher: Cambridge University Press ISBN: 1108604552 Category : Law Languages : en Pages : 273
Book Description
Enacted in 1966, The Freedom of Information Act (or FOIA) was designed to promote oversight of governmental activities, under the notion that most users would be journalists. Today, however, FOIA is largely used for purposes other than fostering democratic accountability. Instead, most requesters are either individuals seeking their own files, businesses using FOIA as part of commercial enterprises, or others with idiosyncratic purposes like political opposition research. In this sweeping, empirical study, Margaret Kwoka documents how agencies have responded to the large volume of non-oversight requesters by creating new processes, systems, and specialists, which in turn has had a deleterious impact on journalists and the media. To address this problem, Kwoka proposes a series of structural solutions aimed at shrinking FOIA to re-center its oversight purposes.
Author: John J. Watkins Publisher: University of Arkansas Press ISBN: 1682260399 Category : Law Languages : en Pages : 597
Book Description
Since its first edition in 1988, The Arkansas Freedom of Information Act has become the standard reference for the bench, the bar, and journalists for guidance in interpreting and applying the state’s open-government law. This sixth edition, published fifty years after the passage of the Act in 1967, builds upon its predecessors, incorporating later legislative enactments, judicial decisions, and Attorney General’s opinions to present a synthesis of the law of access to public records and meetings in Arkansas.
Author: Michael Schudson Publisher: Harvard University Press ISBN: 0674915801 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 279
Book Description
Modern transparency dates to the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s—well before the Internet. Michael Schudson shows how the “right to know” has defined a new era for democracy—less focus on parties and elections, more pluralism and more players, year-round monitoring of government, and a blurring line between politics and society, public and private.
Author: Temitope Olodo Publisher: Lulu.com ISBN: 1447802152 Category : Education Languages : en Pages : 162
Book Description
On the 27th of May 2011, Nigeria Freedom of Information Bill was sent to Nigeria President, His Excellency Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, who subsequently assented to it in 24 hours; thereby ending a long, tortuous journey that started on December 9, 1999 when it was first gazetted. It was the oldest legislation in the works in Nigeria's legislative history. Today, the Freedom of Information Act 2011 gives every Nigerian the right to request for information from a public institution. You don't have to explain why you need the information and you can even go to court to compel the institutions to comply. Can Nigeria public institution deliver this immense task? Will the Act help to reduce corruption? Can pressure groups use this new law to ensure transparency and dividends of democracy? This book provides the necessary guide on how to apply the new FOI Act...
Author: Paul Gibbons Publisher: ISBN: 9781783303540 Category : Freedom of information Languages : en Pages : 224
Book Description
This book provides a comprehensive guide to the practical management of freedom of information compliance, including interpretation of the Act as well as the Environmental Information Regulations.
Author: Nicholson Baker Publisher: Penguin ISBN: 0735215774 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 464
Book Description
“Staggeringly good.” —Counterpunch A major new work, a hybrid of history, journalism, and memoir, about the modern Freedom of Information Act—FOIA—and the horrifying, decades-old government misdeeds that it is unable to demystify, from one of America's most celebrated writers Eight years ago, while investigating the possibility that the United States had used biological weapons in the Korean War, Nicholson Baker requested a series of Air Force documents from the early 1950s under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act. Years went by, and he got no response. Rather than wait forever, Baker set out to keep a personal journal of what it feels like to try to write about major historical events in a world of pervasive redactions, witheld records, and glacially slow governmental responses. The result is one of the most original and daring works of nonfiction in recent memory, a singular and mesmerizing narrative that tunnels into the history of some of the darkest and most shameful plans and projects of the CIA, the Air Force, and the presidencies of Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower. In his lucid and unassuming style, Baker assembles what he learns, piece by piece, about Project Baseless, a crash Pentagon program begun in the early fifties that aimed to achieve "an Air Force-wide combat capability in biological and chemical warfare at the earliest possible date." Along the way, he unearths stories of balloons carrying crop disease, leaflet bombs filled with feathers, suicidal scientists, leaky centrifuges, paranoid political-warfare tacticians, insane experiments on animals and humans, weaponized ticks, ferocious propaganda battles with China, and cover and deception plans meant to trick the Kremlin into ramping up its germ-warfare program. At the same time, Baker tells the stories of the heroic journalists and lawyers who have devoted their energies to wresting documentary evidence from government repositories, and he shares anecdotes from his daily life in Maine feeding his dogs and watching the morning light gather on the horizon. The result is an astonishing and utterly disarming story about waiting, bureaucracy, the horrors of war, and, above all, the cruel secrets that the United States government seems determined to keep forever from its citizens.
Author: Matthew Burgess Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1317645197 Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 164
Book Description
Freedom of Information: A Practical Guide for UK Journalists is written to inform, instruct and inspire journalists on the investigative possibilities offered by the Freedom of Information Act. Covering exactly what the Act is, how to make FOI requests and how to use the Act to hold officials to account, Matt Burgess utilises expert opinions, relevant examples and best practice from journalists and investigators working with the Freedom of Information Act at all levels. The book is brimming with illuminating and relevant examples of the Freedom of Information Act being used by journalists, alongside a range of helpful features, including: • end-of-chapter lists of tips and learning points; • sections addressing the different areas of FOI requests; • text boxes on key thoughts and cases; • interviews with leading contemporary journalists and figures working with FOI requests. Supported by the online FOI Directory (www.foidirectory.co.uk), Freedom of Information: A Practical Guide for UK Journalists is a must read for all those training or working as journalists on this essential tool for investigating, researching and reporting.
Author: Margaret B. Kwoka
Author: Margaret B. Kwoka
Author: John J. Watkins
Author: Michael Schudson
Author: Temitope Olodo
Author: 
Author: Paul Gibbons
Author: Nicholson Baker
Author: Matthew Burgess
Author: Patrick Birkinshaw