Media update

The Sunday Times - NEW pub law will fuel rape and murder, say police
"Its 30-page report, released under the Freedom of Information Act,
recommends that the riot squad be put on standby 24 hours a day."

Scotsman - PUBLIC bodies must clean up
"SCOTLAND'S Freedom of Information Act has been in effect for eight months, however some public authorities are still struggling with compliance. Further awareness and training are essential to ensure the success of the Act in Scotland. It has been put into action to give anyone - individuals and organisations - the right to obtain." (Reg. required)

Richmond and Twickenham Times- Campaigners’ bombshell sinks report
"Yet their bid to bring the controversy to a conclusion was shattered when the objectors revealed new documents recovered from the District Auditor under the Freedom of Information Act."

Spy UK blog - Metropolitan Police FOIA - inflexible data systems
"Our amended FOIA request (attached below) to the Metropolitan Police about the number of applications and authorisations, arrests and charges, under sectioms 132 to 138 of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005 has again been rejected, on the grounds that even this cut down request, would still take more than 18 hours to comply with, just like our original FOIA request."

Green Party - Intellectual resources need to be "in the public domain"
"Proposed amendments would abolish Crown Copyright, a protection for most material originated by ministers and civil servants, and promote the Creative Commons, which offers a flexible range of protections and freedoms for authors and artists. The Party would require Open Access publishing for publicly-funded academies. Alternative compensation schemes, providing money to research the world's most pressing health problems, would also be promoted."

Local Government Internation Bureau - Open up
"A cross party group of British MEPs has urged Prime Minister Tony Blair to use the Government’s European Presidency to end the practice of legislating in secret at EU level. The leaders of all the UK political groups in the European Parliament signed the unprecedented joint declaration, calling for more open government."

The Guardian - Revenue rejects data requests
"The Freedom of Information Act doesn't impress the taxman, writes Phillip Inman.... "It is not possible to release copies of all requests and our responses as this information could be confidential, and both could contain personal information which would not be appropriate to release."

US FOIA
Logical Voice - Freedom of Information requests filed for Katrina related communications

OpenTheGovernment - 2nd annual report on secrecy
"For every dollar spent declassifying old secrets, federal agencies spent a record in 2004 of $148 creating and storing new secrets. Agency heads are shifting taxpayer dollars from efforts at declassifying pages of documents to efforts to secure its existing secrets."