FOIA
cmonforton | July 13, 2016Advocates for government transparency, including journalists and watchdog groups, were pleased to witness President Obama signed the FOIA Improvement Act. He did so on June 30 without fanfare. After it was signed into law, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (RCFP) commented:
“The signing marked the culmination of open government advocates' battle to reform part of FOIA ahead of the law's 50th anniversary on July 4th.”
And Open the Government.org called it:
“...a herculean effort on the part of Congressional leaders, staff members, and open government advocates who have been…
oracknows | November 5, 2015I've been at this blogging thing for more than a decade now. Looking back on those years, I find it incredible that I've lasted this long. For one thing, I still marvel that there are apparently thousands of people out there who still like to read my nearly daily musings (or, as George Carlin would call them, brain droppings) after all these years. More importantly, being a public advocate for science is a rough business, as I've documented over the years. Back when I first started out, I was completely pseudonymous and anonymous. I kept my real name relatively secret. It was less than five…
egrossman | December 9, 2014“Too many oil and gas industry workers are being hurt or killed on the job,” said Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health, David Michaels in remarks delivered to the more than 2,000 people who gathered last week in Houston for the 2014 OSHA Oil & Gas Safety and Health Conference. As part of efforts to address industry safety issues, the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has announced a new effort to improve the safety of workers employed in the oil and gas industry.
Described as an “alliance,” the initiative involves a two-year agreement…
kkrisberg | August 1, 2014For 17 years, Salvadora Roman deboned chickens on the processing line at Wayne Farms in Decatur, Alabama. In particular, she deboned the left side of the chicken — a task she was expected to perform on three chickens each minute during her eight-hour shift. Because of the repetitive movement and speed of the processing line, Roman developed a chronic and painful hand injury that affects her ability to do even the most basic household chores. About three years ago, she was fired from the plant for taking time off work to visit a doctor for the injury she sustained on the line.
“My hand started…
cmonforton | July 2, 2014They wanted to keep these words secret:
"two" ..... "two miner operators" ......."worn by the miners. Both" ......."right miner" ......."left miner"
They are the phrases the Labor Department’s Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) initially redacted from a document requested by Mine Safety and Health News (MSHNews). (You can see the before and after versions here.) It's not only redaction overkill, but it's made worse coming from the Administration that “pledged to make this the most transparent Administration in history.”
The document with the redacted terms is a citation…
cmonforton | August 28, 2013President Obama's regulatory czar, Howard Shelanski, has been on the job for a month. During his confirmation hearing Shelanski expressed his commitment to transparency. He suggested it was one of his key priorities within the White House's Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) which is housed within the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). As noted, however, by CPR scholar Sidney Shapiro and his colleague James Goodwin, OIRA has a long history of secrecy with respect to its role in the centralized review of agencies' regulatory activities. Many in the open-government…
lborkowski | December 26, 2012While we’re on vacation, we’re re-posting content from earlier in the year. This post was originally published on July 4, 2012.
By Liz Borkowski
While the adoption of the Declaration of Independence is the most important anniversary that the US celebrates on July 4th, this date is also the anniversary of the Freedom of Information Act. President Johnson signed the FOIA on July 4, 1966 – although he apparently wasn’t happy about it, and refused to hold a signing ceremony.
The National Security Archive — which is not a government agency, but a nonprofit based at the George Washington University…
cmonforton | November 7, 2012Hurray! The Presidential election is over. Let's hope this means that Obama Administration officials will come out from under their beds and embrace their regulatory authority to issue some strong public health and environmental regulations. At the Labor Department (DOL) there's much work to do to expand workers' rights, ensure workers' lives and health are protected, and improve the information provided by its agencies. Leave a comment with your ideas for immediate action by the Labor Department.
Here's my short version of my wish list for major DOL activities for the next 6 months:
MSHA…
lborkowski | July 4, 2012While the adoption of the Declaration of Independence is the most important anniversary that the US celebrates on July 4th, this date is also the anniversary of the Freedom of Information Act. President Johnson signed the FOIA on July 4, 1966 – although he apparently wasn’t happy about it, and refused to hold a signing ceremony.
The National Security Archive -- which is not a government agency, but a nonprofit based at the George Washington University (where I work) -- looked back at the history of FOIA on its 40th anniversary in 2006, and reported:
Documents from the LBJ Library show that…
cmonforton | October 6, 2011It's been 8 weeks now since two 17 year-old workers lost legs in an industrial auger while employed at a grain handling facility in Kremlin, Oklahoma. One of the young men remains in the hospital, but may be released soon to a rehabilitation facility. When I first wrote about this horrible incident, I noted that the safety rules governing young agricultural workers were more than 40 years old, the Labor Department was trying to update them, but proposed revisions were stalled (for 9 months) at the White House's Office of Management and Budget (OMB).
The young worker and farm safety…
sb admin | June 23, 2009I've often suspected that some federal agencies apply very broad definitions to the exemptions provided under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Now, thanks to one diligent journalist I can judge for myself whether the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) is an offender.Â
Ellen Smith of Mine Safety and Health News requested records from MSHA and the Solicitor's Office (SOL) about its legal determination that the haulage road on which coal-truck drive Chad Cook, 25, died, was under MSHA jurisdication. MSHA had made a gross error in 2005-2006 when it concluded that the…
sb admin | June 4, 2009Of the many disturbing and damaging policies instituted during the G.W. Bush Administration, high on my list is abuse of FOIA. It started with the post 9/11-Ashcroft memo, which was institutionalized into downstream agencies, and reconfigured and rejustified over Mr. Bush's remaining 7 years.  In the public interests, one journalist sought to find out how the Labor Department's FOIA practices were "evolving" under G.W. Bush's non-disclosure philosophy.Â
In March 2005, Mine Safety and Health News (MSHN) received an anonymous tip, urging the editor, Ellen Smith, to request…