FoI footnotes

Posted by Martin Stabe on 23 October 2006 at 17:22
Tags: Freedom of Information, Journalism

The BBC’s Martin Rosenbaum has some sage advice for journalists: Always read the footnotes in government reports.

In particular, Rosenbaum refers to the footnotes in the report commissioned by the government from Frontier Economics to assess the impact of various proposed changes to the Freedom of Information Act’s fees regime (PDF).

Based on calculations contained in this report, the Government is justifying its proposal to change the FoI fees regime on cost grounds. Journalists and activists, however, have argued that the main effect — and some suspect the purpose — of any change in fees policy would be to eviscerate the open government legislation, particularly as a useful tool for journalists.

Buried deep in the footnotes, though, Rosenbaum has spotted some strange cost assumptions “which seem to be entirely arbitrary and have important consequences for their calculations” — like pricing ministerial and private office time at £300 per hour and arbitrarily doubling the cost assessed for internal discussion.

Update: Maurice Frankel, director of the Campaign for Freedom of Information, has an opinion piece in the Telegraph today about the proposed changes.

Journalists concerns over FOI proposals

Posted by Martin Stabe on 17 October 2006 at 18:28
Tags: Freedom of Information, Journalism

This afternoon, I spoke with Martin Rosenbaum, the head of the BBC’s Freedom of Information unit. I asked him how he thought the Government’s proposed changes to the FoI fees regime would affect the BBC’s journalism.

One of the strange ways that blogging has transformed the journalist-source relationship is that sometimes sources report interviews before the journalists file their stories.
Rosenbaum’s reply is now up on his blog, Open Secrets — and it’s not good news. If the Government proposals come into effect, he writes, it “would dramatically curtail the use of FOI by the BBC”.

No wonder the Society of Editors is planning to lobby against the proposed changes next week.

Another blogging journalist concerned about the proposals is FoI campaigner Heather Brooke. She notes that the report (PDF) by Frontier Economics, the company commissioned by the Department for Constitutional Affars to study the costs of FoI implementation, “is more an indictment of the inefficiencies that have grown up in the culture of secrecy rather than a criticism of openness”.

Steve Wood of the UK FOIA Blog notes that the brief Frontier Economics were given by the DCA was very narrow. The company was asked only to consider the impact of four options, all of which would have made submitting FoI requests more expensive.

“[T]he DCA approach has been very much ‘find us some evidence to support what we want to do’ rather than indepedently research then suggest the options based on the evidence”, he writes before asking a few questions.

Call for blogger support of FoI motion

Posted by Martin Stabe on 12 October 2006 at 16:24
Tags: Freedom of Information, Journalism

Steve Wood, who runs the excellent UK Freedom of Information Act Blog, is trying to organise support for the cross-party Early Day Motion against the Government plans to introduce fees for FoI requests.

Wood is encouraging bloggers to use MySociety’s tool WriteToThem.com to encourage their MPs to support EDM 2699.

A similar motion in 2004, Wood notes, appeared to have an important role in beating back the even harsher fees regime proposed in 2004.

(via Martin Rosenbaum’s Open Secrets)

MySociety to build Freedom of Information archive

Posted by Martin Stabe on 28 September 2006 at 16:01
Tags: Freedom of Information, Journalism

MySociety, the group of pubic-interest web developers behind such acclaimed projects as TheyWorkForYou.com, intend to build a Freedom of Information Archive, “a searchable, readable, googlable user-created archive of FOI requests and their responses.”

When it launches next year, this resource will be invaluable for journalists.

The FOIA Archive was proposed by journalist and FOI campaigner Heather Brooke, who writes on her blog, Your Right to Know, that one of the inspirations for it was the National Security Archive, a non-profit organisation based in Washington which is consistently one of the heaviest users of the US Freedom of Information Act.

While this initiative seems absolutly in the spirit of open government, it is not inconceivable that government departments might attempt to obstruct the archiving of their responses to FOI requests by citing Crown Copyright. Hopefully they will recognise this as the legitimate news-dissemination excercise that it is, even if it isn’t being run by a traditional news organisation.

One of the suggestions that was considered but rejected in MySociety’s call for proposals that led up to today’s announcement — perhaps to the relief of regional newspaper editors — was WriteToYourNewspaper.

Journalists campaign for Freedom of Information

Posted by Martin Stabe on 13 March 2006 at 12:56
Tags: Freedom of Information, Journalism, United States

Journalists in the United States are currently observing “Sunshine Week“, with news organisations across the country campaigning to raise awareness of their local Freedom of Infomation and open government laws.

The annual initiative, named for the Sunshine Act (Florida’s FoI law), is organised by a coalition of media companies, journalist associations, press freedom organisations and other civil society groups.

It’s the 40th anniversary of the US federal government’s Freedom of Information Act, but the American regional newspapers are also focusing on government secrecy and problems with FoI in their state governments and local authorities. There is, of course, a blog tracking the Sunshine Week coverage.

At the Society of Editors conference last year, journalist and FoI campaigner Heather Brooke, the author of the guidebook and blog Your Right to Know, advocated organising a similar event here in support of Britain’s young Freedom of Information Act and other open government laws.

Brooke says plans for a UK version of Sunshine Week, tentatively titled “Spotlight Week” are progressing slowly as Brooke and the Society of Editors hope to build support and funding from Britain’s notoriously competitive media organisations. Two national broadsheets are understood to have given early support to the project.

It’s unfortunate the proposal hasn’t come together in time to conincide with the American version: It would have been a good time for British journalists to campaign for open government. The FOIA appeals system is creaking under the weight of the backlog of unresolved cases at the Information Commissioner’s Office and there are political rumblings about the potential imposition of per-request fees under both the UK and Scottish versions of FOIA. Both issues threaten the utility of the British FoI laws to reporters.

A non-attributable, on-the-record background briefing

Posted by Martin Stabe on 9 March 2006 at 17:16
Tags: Freedom of Information, Journalism, Times

In the Times City Diary, Martin Waller recounts being invited to an “on-the-record, off-camera briefing” by Hazel Blears, followed by “a non-attributable on-the-record background briefing” by Home Office officials:

I’m lost. You can talk to her, but not take pictures? You can quote them, but not say who they are? Then you can’t talk to anybody? Which bits are we allowed to mention? And what has this to do with open government?

I’m lost too. Can the man from the ministry enlighten us confused hacks?

A Home Office spokesman confesses that the word “background” — which is more or less synonymous with “off-the-record” to Sir Humphrey  — slipped into Waller’s invitation in error.

So what’s a “a non-attributable on-the-record briefing”?

Apparently, it’s when Home Office civil servants explain “something of a highly technical nature” — about police pensions, in this case — to a gaggle of puzzled hacks. The Home Office was happy for these technical details to be quoted verbatim, but not to have them attributed to the civil servants by name.

As for Blears’ “on-the-record, off-camera briefing”, it was a fully attributable meeting with the minister. No problem with tape recorders or notepads — just the snappers and TV crews were out of lock. Maybe Ms Blears was afraid they would steal her soul.

New FoI exemptions by stealth

Posted by Martin Stabe on 6 March 2006 at 14:17
Tags: Freedom of Information, Journalism

One of the great weaknesses of the UK Freedom of Information Act is that one of its provisions makes it possible for the Government to add to the already-long catalogue of reasons to deny requests for information through new legislation.

According to section 44 of the FOIA, public bodies do not have to grant any requests for information that is specifically barred from disclosure by law.

According to a review conducted last year by the Department for Constitutional Affairs (PDF), there are 210 statutory provisions that prohibit disclosure of particular types of information. And nothing prevents the Government from adding to that already-long list with new legislation. Indeed, according to the DCA review, seven new secrecy provisions were enacted between 30 November 2000, when Parliament passed the FOIA, and 1 January 2005, when it came into force.

Now Steve Wood of the UK FOIA Blog has spotted another example: Section 43 of the Public Contracts Regulations 2006, which came into force on 31 January, includes provisions tightening up the commerical confidentiality of public tenders.

Journalists should beware the gradual evisceration of the Freedom of Information Act through laws that expand the Section 44 exemption.

Watchdog still struggling with FOIA appeals

Posted by Martin Stabe on 6 March 2006 at 12:22
Tags: Freedom of Information

The backlog of unresolved Freedom of Information Act appeals at the Information Commissioner’s Office now stands at 1,373 cases, Heather Brooke reports on the Your Right to Know blog.

Figures released in response to a parliamentary question last week show that the Richard Thomas’s office is failing to keep up with the growing mountain of FOIA appeals. In January, the Commissioner received 183 new appeals, but closed only 84 cases. In an interview with the BBC last month, Thomas said the ICO needs more staff to deal with the backlog.

More public bodies now covered by FoI

Posted by Martin Stabe on 24 February 2006 at 19:23
Tags: Freedom of Information

The Constitutional Affairs Secretary has added a number of new organisations to the  list of  public bodies covered by the Freedom of Information Act

Steve Wood at UK FOIA Blog has the full list, which includes the British Transport Police Authority, the Independent Regulator of NHS Foundation Trusts and the Gaelic Media Service (in respect of information held for purposes other than those of journalism, art or literature).

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Investigative blogging

Posted by Martin Stabe on 24 February 2006 at 17:12
Tags: Blogs, Freedom of Information, Journalism, United States

In a development that highlights the potential of bloggers to support reporting done by journalists, a blogger has used the US Freedom of Information Act to obtain documents relating to the orders Donald Rumsfeld gave on 11 September 2001, the Guardian reports.

Thad Anderson, a law student who blogs at Outragedmoderates.org, obtained orders written by Rumsfeld aide Stephen Cambone in the hours following the terrorist attacks. The released items confirm earlier reports by journalists that Rumsfeld had that afternoon ordered the miltary to establish whether a link could be found the attacks could be linked to Saddam Hussein as well as Osama Bin Laden.
In addition to posting about the the documents on the blog, Anderson uploaded the documents to the photo-sharing site Flickr.