Freedom Of Information

As a child in post-World War II England, Shirley McGlade clipped a picture of movie star Jeff Chandler and put it in her wallet. That was her father, she told schoolmates--a rich American who had divorced her mother and was fighting for custody of her. "People believed me," she said. "I lived in a fantasy world."

In a case that could erect new barriers to public access to government information, the Supreme Court this week was asked to hold that corporations have a right to "personal privacy. " Fortunately, justices from across the ideological spectrum appeared skeptical that such a counterintuitive concept could be found either in the law or in a dictionary. At issue is whether the Federal Communications Commission will release information about AT&T under the Freedom of Information Act. That law provides several exemptions, including one for trade secrets and another for information that "could reasonably be expected to constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy" ?

President Vicente Fox signed Mexico's first freedom of information law, exposing the government to greater public scrutiny. The law requires all branches of government to provide copies of public documents--from government employees' salaries to details about contracts--within 20 days of any citizen's request. Federal agencies, Congress, the Bank of Mexico and courts will have a year to post public information on the Internet.

When Julian Assange talks about transparency and our right to know about our government, he has at least a fighting chance of winning over a skeptical public. He stakes out a difficult but righteous position: that the media deserve special latitude to expose government secrets. But when the WikiLeaks leader and his acolytes threaten perceived enemies, fail to condemn cyber attacks, and take on messianic airs, they surrender the high ground and hurt the cause of freedom of information they so vehemently champion.

The battle against a forest fire that killed a Fontana firefighter was marked by the use of inexperienced crews and a lack of medical equipment, a report says. Whether those problems contributed to Kenneth Enslow's death or hampered efforts to rescue him has yet to be determined by authorities investigating last August's Mendocino National Forest fire. The accident report by U.S.

Japanese bathe in information. The 24 daily newspapers available at Tokyo newsstands immerse their readers in diplomatic minutiae, political inside-baseball and economic trivia. Government bookstores bulge with vast stacks of ministerial white papers and blue-ribbon committee reports. Television news programs and talk shows jam the airwaves with incessant verbiage. Hot-selling magazines package the latest trends.

President Reagan signed an executive order strengthening the hand of companies who wish to block the release of information under the Freedom of Information Act that they consider confidential and competitive. The order comes on the heels of unsuccessful attempts by the Administration to amend the law to require advance notice to companies about the likely release of sensitive data.

A Los Angeles Superior Court commissioner Tuesday ordered unsealed transcripts of heretofore private discussions held between the judge, the prosecutor and the defense attorneys in the recently completed "Twilight Zone" involuntary manslaughter trial.

The Supreme Court, substantially narrowing the Freedom of Information Act, ruled Monday that the government may keep secret the information it gathers during routine business if the information later becomes part of a criminal investigation. Until now, government audits and routine reports had to be disclosed upon request. But after Monday's 6-3 ruling, these reports and documents will be off limits to disclosure as soon as a federal prosecutor or investigator displays interest in them.

The Supreme Court, in a broad defense of personal privacy, ruled 9 to 0 Wednesday that the press and the public have no right to see criminal records compiled by the federal government. The FBI may keep its 24 million so-called "rap sheets" confidential, the justices said, even if the records show that a public figure has been convicted of a series of past crimes.

Here's a not-so-tiny tidbit of data that's getting lost in the White House-driven public frenzy over healthcare legislation this month: The White House Democratic administration of Barack Obama, who denounced his presidential predecessor George W. Bush as the most secretive in history, is now denying more Freedom of Information Act requests than the Republican did. Transparency and openness were so important to the new president that on...

Since 1998, many federal departments have been reducing the amount of information they release to the public -- even as the government fields and answers more requests for information than ever, an Associated Press review has found. The locations of stores and restaurants that have received recalled meat, the names of detainees held by the U.S.

FALL RIVER, Mass. -- Ed Lambert, Al Lima and Mike Miozza never thought of themselves as activists, just as regular guys. Then an energy company announced plans to build a liquefied natural gas terminal in this small community on the Taunton River. The men -- the mayor, a city planner and an engineer -- had nightmare visions of gas igniting into a huge fireball on the river. They asked for government-held reports that studied the threat to the town if the plant or a tanker were attacked.

The mayor's office says it plans to keep secret hundreds of written and audio records related to the Fire Department's response to the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center. The documents include 911 calls from people trapped in the towers, radio transmissions between firefighters and taped oral histories with firefighters and emergency medical technicians recounting their experiences that day.

President Vicente Fox signed Mexico's first freedom of information law, exposing the government to greater public scrutiny. The law requires all branches of government to provide copies of public documents--from government employees' salaries to details about contracts--within 20 days of any citizen's request. Federal agencies, Congress, the Bank of Mexico and courts will have a year to post public information on the Internet.

A feisty free press has been one of Romania's key accomplishments since the bloody 1989 overthrow of Communist leader Nicolae Ceausescu, who ran a secretive and brutal dictatorship. But old habits sometimes die hard in formerly Communist countries. Eliminating censorship here was relatively easy, but building a society and a government that respect the public's "right to know" is proving to be a bigger challenge.

A UC Irvine history professor who authored a biography on John Lennon won a key victory Monday before the U.S. Supreme Court in his fight to view secret FBI files on the late singer. The court rejected an appeal aimed at killing Jonathan Weiner's 1983 lawsuit seeking the release of about 69 pages of documents the bureau collected on the rock star during the Nixon Administration. The decision, with only Justice Byron R. White dissenting, upholds a 1991 ruling by the U.S.

A UC Irvine history professor who authored a biography on John Lennon won a key victory Monday before the U.S. Supreme Court in his fight to view secret FBI files on the late musician. The court rejected an appeal aimed at killing Jonathan Weiner's 1983 lawsuit seeking the release of 69 pages of documents that the bureau collected on the rock star during the Richard M. Nixon Administration. The decision, with only Justice Byron R. White dissenting, upholds a 1991 ruling by the U.S.

The California Legislature and two credit bureaus have taken steps to give consumers access to their credit scores. The state Senate on Thursday approved a bill sponsored by Sen. Liz Figueroa (D-Fremont) that would require lenders to provide consumers with their scores, which are used widely in evaluating loan applications but which are typically kept secret from consumers.

Saying the Holocaust must be "seared in our collective memory," international leaders Friday urged all countries to open secret government files on the Nazi extermination campaign and promote education about the genocide. "We share a commitment to throw light on the still obscured shadows of the Holocaust," Swedish Foreign Minister Lena Hjelm-Wallen said as she read the final declaration from the Stockholm International Forum on the Holocaust.