Another Word For It Patrick Durusau on Topic Maps and Semantic Diversity

February 22, 2019

Open Government Guide [“I Am Dorthy, the Small and Meek”]

Filed under: FOIA,MuckRock,Open Government,OpenMeetings — Patrick Durusau @ 12:58 pm

Open Government Guide

The Open Government Guide is a complete compendium of information on every state’s open records and open meetings laws. Each state’s section is arranged according to a standard outline, making it easy to compare laws in various states. If you’re a new user of this guide, be sure to read the Introduction to the Open Government Guide.  The Open Government Guide covers state laws. We also have a separate FOIA Wiki that covers the federal government.

Please note: We have not yet received the following chapters from our guide authors: Alabama, Florida, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. You can find the 2011 guides for those states here.

See something that needs updating?  Please email guides@rcfp.org, so we can fix it!

If you are asking for government records or data, the go-to guide for your efforts.

If the “sky is falling” claims of cybersecurity experts are credited (which I suspect largely are correct), then government information is more accessible than not. It’s all there for a little hacking.

Using open record laws for states or FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) for the federal government, affirms their right to decide what the public may or may not know, delays your obtaining of the information and, and, acts as a filter on what is ultimately disclosed.

An enormous amount of great work has been done using such laws, MuckRock being one of the best examples. But it’s an information lossy proposition.

If you are going to be “…Dorthy, the small and meek” and ask for information, this is your handbook. Otherwise, you may discover information the government would rather its citizens did not know.

PS: When visiting government offices, be alert for open network or USB ports. Observe the color and markings on any removable media in use.

May 4, 2018

Win MuckRock requests and swag!

Filed under: Government,MuckRock,Transparency — Patrick Durusau @ 4:23 pm

Help analyze Donald Rumsfeld’s memos and win MuckRock requests and swag by Michael Morisy.

From the post:

In January, thanks to a five-year fight by the National Security Archive, the Pentagon began releasing massive troves of former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s memos. The memos were so copious that they developed their own legendary status within the Armed Forces.

Rumsfeld himself describes them:

When I returned to the Pentagon in 2001, I continued writing the short memos that had been nicknamed “snowflakes” some years ago. They quickly became a system of communication with the many employees of DoD, as I would initiate a topic with a short memo to the relevant person, who would in turn provide research, background, or a course of action as necessary. In the digital age it was much easier to keep the originals on file so I could track their progress. They quickly grew in number from mere flurries to a veritable blizzard.

The term “snowflake” covers a range of communications, from notes to myself on topics I found interesting, to extended instructions to my associates, to simple requests for a haircut. There was no set template; some are several pages and some just a few words. They were all conceived individually and I had never considered them as a set until I started work on the memoir. I then found that when reviewed together, they give a remarkable sense of the variety of topics that are confronted by a secretary of defense.

Now you can explore the early days of the War on Terror – and potentially earn free MuckRock requests and even swag – by helping analyze what was in them, surfacing the most interesting and historically important memos and sharing the results with everyone.

MuckRock is offering prizes so jump to Morisy’s post and get started.

Enjoy!

January 18, 2017

Do You Have Big Brass Ones*? FOIA The President

Filed under: FOIA,Government,MuckRock,Politics — Patrick Durusau @ 5:20 pm

Join our project to FOIA the Trump administration by Michael Morisy.

From the post:

Since June 2015, MuckRock users have been filing FOIA requests regarding a possible Trump presidency. In fact, so far there’s been over 160 public Trump-related requests filed through the site, all of which you can browse here.

We’ve also put together a number of guides and articles on the upcoming administration, ranging from what you can and can’t file regarding Trump to deep dives into what’s already out there:

We’ve launched a new project page for users to showcase their requests, find new documents regarding the Trump administration, or get inspiration for their own requests, and we’ve created a special Slack channel for you to join in and strategize on future requests, or help share big league FOIA stories that shed light on the President Elect’s team.

We’ve had a few users join us there already and they’ve helped file some really fun requests, so we’re excited about what else the transparency community can come up with.

An effort worthy of both your time and support!

One answered, remember that availability isn’t the same thing as meaningful access.

OCR, indexing, entity extraction, in short any skill you have is important in this effort.

* No longer a gender specific reference as you well know.

PS: I’ve signed up and need suggestions on what to ask for? Suggestions?

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