▶ Make your nominations for the 2021 FOILIES! The annual unaward for the worst FOIA officials is back, and MuckRock has teamed up with Electronic Frontier Foundation to once again hand out the downer distinction. This one’s for the record office or officer in your life that just never gets you what you want, the mayor who has made it his mission to block your release, and the other government goons that just don’t follow the law of the land. Get your suggestions in by Friday! You can learn more on MuckRock.
▶ ICYMI: NY police are still defying release of disciplinary records. In June, New York repealed section 50-a of the Civil Rights Law, granting access to police disciplinary records. MuckRock partnered with the USA TODAY Network New York, the Brechner Center for Freedom of Information and Syracuse University journalism students to file more than 600 records requests with more than 400 police agencies in hopes of creating a searchable, first-of-its-kind database with disciplinary records from across the state. But in much of the state, police agencies have declined to provide the documents without a fight. Read the update, co-published with the Democrat and Chronicle and Gannett newspapers across New York, from our project.
▶ The courts reverse course on earlier wins for FOIA requesters. Federal courts made a few important FOIA decisions last month. Farm Market ID, an agribusiness company, was denied the release of previously-accessible information on individual farmers (you can read more about from Dan Nosowitz in Modern Farmer). Nina Pullano in Courthouse News wrote about the pre-Christmas decision out of the Second Circuit that will keep confidential data on suicides by firearms. And the American Civil Liberties Union has filed a FOIA lawsuit to push for the release of FBI materials on its ability to access encrypted devices.
▶ Mark Schlefer, who helped write FOIA, passes away at 98. One of the drafters of the original federal Freedom of Information Act has died. Mr. Schlefer began to push for the FOIA in the early 1960s after the U.S. government claimed that its rationale for denying building on the Mariana Islands was confidential. Read more from The Washington Post.
▶ What's your #WTFOIA? You've got transparency tales of woe. We want to hear them. Tell us about the FOIA foolery and frustrations you went through this year.
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