Pennsylvania legislative leaders have paid out-of-state companies $466,000 this year to conduct focus groups and public-opinion surveys. Even though the polls have been paid for by taxpayer dollars, the politicians have refused to release the results.
Politicians are afraid of only two things; being publically embarrassed and being voted out of office. Release of […]
Should adult adoptees have access to their birth records and be able to learn the identity of their birth parents?
It is a question with two sides, that of the adoptee and that of the adoptee’s biological parents.
On one hand, every child seems to have an inner need to know from where they came.
On the other, […]
Nearly two dozen North Texas cities have passed laws prohibiting sex offenders from living within 1,000 or 2,000 feet of schools, day-care centers, parks and other places frequented by children.
The attached Dallas Morning News story appears to argue that restricting the proximity of sex offenders to children doesn’t protect the little ones. To DMN […]
Marjorie Cohn, a professor at the Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego, said that a Web site that publishes photos of convicted prostitutes violates the women’s right to privacy.
“It’s an incredible invasion of the privacy of the women, with no real benefit to law enforcement,” Cohn said.
Other than reducing the number of […]
Bridge inspection reports can legally remain secret, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott’s office has decided.
Bridge maintenance is a life and death matter as so clearly proven by the recent I35 Minneapolis bridge collapse. In 1990, the Minneapolis bridge was inspected by the US Department of Transportation and found to be “structurally deficient.” In […]
In this recent story writer Frank Miele attacks the New York Times’ decision to publish classified military secrets. His argument is that publication endangered Americans and essentially amounted to treason.
The Open Records Project would agree with part of Miele’s argument but offer a caveat and some perspective.
Yes, it would seem that the […]
Presidents don’t have indefinite veto power over which records are made public after they’ve left office, a federal judge has ruled.
Some presidents might be embarrassed by their records in office. Public disclosure could tarnish their finely tuned “legacy.”
Following U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly’s ruling, the presidential legacy belongs to the people who elected the […]
Gov. Chris Gregoire has refused to reveal the identities of some people who weren’t picked for seats on the state’s new “Sunshine Committee.”
The Sunshine Committee’s job is to sort through the more than 300 exemptions to the state’s Public Records Act and prepare a report by Nov. 15 in which it will recommend that the […]
The salaries of government employees in California, including police officers, are a public record and must be available upon request.
The right to privacy argument against dislosure made by employee unions “is not a reasonable one,” the justices wrote, ending a lawsuit the Contra Costa Times filed more than three years ago against the city of […]
Aaron T. Gunn, a politically connected former teacher has avoided the sex offender registry for two years after pleading guilty to having sex with an eighth-grade student.
State Representative Chuck Espy, a Democrat from Clarksdale, was a scheduled character witness for Gunn. The judge says that during the trial, Espy patted Gunn on the back and […]