Category Archives: Freedom of Information

New York Times: Alaska to Release Sarah Palin’s E-Mails

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"The news media have descended here en masse to sift through the trove, with many organizations sending teams of reporters and database specialists to comb the documents and post them online. ... some news organizations are setting up elaborate systems for scanning them and inviting the public to help search them online. MSNBC.com, ProPublica and Mother Jones magazine are working with a research company to create an online database of the documents. ... The New York Times and other news organizations intend to assemble their own searchable online databases of the documents, and some, including The Times, were asking readers Thursday to help reporters sift through the voluminous correspondence in the coming days. "

Telegraph: Councils spend £100m on taxpayer-funded credit cards

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"This newspaper has obtained details of credit card spending at 186 councils across Britain using Freedom of Information laws. Over the past three years, documents show these councils have spent more than £40 million using the taxpayer-funded cards, which suggests total council spending of about £100 million at all local authorities."

WSJ.com: WSJ Jet Tracker

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"The Wall Street Journal filed several Freedom of Information Act requests with the Federal Aviation Administration for the entire Enhanced Traffic Management System database, which contains flight records for aircraft that flew in the U.S. under instrument flight rules. The Journal analyzed the flight data for non-commercial jet aircraft traffic for a four-year period, 2007 through 2010. ... The Journal has included in the flights database an estimated cost to operate each flight. The estimates are based on per-hour cost figures for each model of jet, provided by Conklin & de Decker Aviation Information, an industry consulting firm used by some public companies to provide aircraft-cost estimates for regulatory filings."

BBC News: Local spending survey blocked by government

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"The BBC's attempts to collate this spending data largely avoided some obstacles placed in the way of alternative research being carried out by other media. ... Local Government Chronicle (LGC) was pursuing a similar survey. But it appears to have asked for what's called Revenue Account information ... DCLG instructed councils not to provide this data, on the grounds that it is intended for future publication by the Office for National Statistics."

Kent Online: Council webcasts aren’t a ratings winner

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"Audience figures for live webcasts of meetings at County Hall show many are being watched by fewer than 100 people. ... An analysis of data released to the KM Group under the Freedom of Information Act shows 5,766 people watched committee broadcasts as they happened between April 2010 to March this year. ... KCC spends about £20,000 a year streaming live meetings and making them available on its website to view later."

Press Gazette: Northumbria Police reveals one per cent of crimes

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A Northumbria Police spokeswoman said: “The introduction of a series of crime mapping systems, with the latest national system launched in January 2011, negates any suggestion that we withhold crimes from the public. The numbers, categories and locations of crime are available for everyone to see.”

Daily Mail: Royal Mail refuses to tell customer where its post boxes are

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Odd, especially since this data is already in the public domain: "A radio presenter who wrote to Royal Mail asking where his nearest post boxes were received an astonishing reply to say: 'Sorry, it's a secret'. ... The extraordinary two-page reply went on to claim that, as Royal Mail is a publicly-owned company, there was a 'significant public interest' in keeping the information private."