[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

RAIN 9/27: Open Records Issues and "What? Me Worry?"



There are 17 stories in this posting

Associated Press 9/26/01
All requests for public records have to go through Siegelman's attorney
http://www.al.com/newsflash/index.ssf?/cgi-free/getstory_ssf.cgi?j3888_BC_AL--Siegelman-Records&&news&al_headlines

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) -- Gov. Don Siegelman's administration has instituted screening policies for providing reporters with public records, requiring that requests go through his legal adviser.
The change was made in the wake of disclosures about unbid contracts going to friends of the administration, but Siegelman aides said it was to streamline the process.


Ames Tribune 9/26/01
University is well-served by openness
http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?BRD=2035&dept_id=238098&newsid=2410546&PAG=461&rfi=9

by Tribune Editorial Board
Here's a story with a happy ending, sort of. For the sake of openness, we hope it remains so.
The Iowa State University Faculty Senate Executive Board met in regular session Sept. 4. Tribune reporter Liz Allen was attending. No other media were present, though the agenda had been posted and the board was discussing broad issues - declining faculty numbers, capping enrollment, declining quality, fewer teaching assistants.


Aspen Times 9/26/01
City, county building giant Web site
http://aspentimes.com/local/092601/092601b.htm

by Janet Urquhart
There'll be no need to find a parking space in the vicinity of Aspen City Hall for those who need to conduct city business one day in the not-too-distant future.
In fact, paying a parking ticket may not require a stop at the stately brick building, either. Citizens will be able to log on to the Internet to find everything from the schedule of events at the Wheeler Opera House to the minutes of a City Council meeting that took place six months ago.



Yomiuri Shimbun 9/27/01
Credit Union searched over bad-loan reports
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/newse/20010927wo24.htm

Police and prosecutors searched the offices of the nation's biggest pro-Pyongyang credit union Wednesday over allegations that it is hiding bad loans from financial authorities.


Houston Chronicle 9/26/01
State agency will halt codes for caseworkers
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/metropolitan/1062347

by Alan Bernstein
The Texas Rehabilitation Commission said Tuesday it will stop using code words in place of caseworkers' names in its letters to thousands of people who apply for Social Security disability benefits.


Idaho Statesman 9/26/01
Ombudsman records to be sealed
http://www.idahostatesman.com/news/daily/20010926/LocalNews/162683.shtml

by Wayne Hoffman
When Boise's independent police investigator talks to officers or witnesses, the interviews will be sealed in personnel files and remain off-limits to public scrutiny.
The City Council gave tentative approval Tuesday to the arrangement, which will be finalized next week after a public hearing.



Lawrence Journal 9/26/01
Cattle bankruptcy cases raise questions over bookkeeping
http://www.ljworld.com/section/stateregional/story/67642

Knight-Ridder Newspapers
Kansas City, Mo. - Court-appointed trustees complained Monday that a business partner of Missouri cattleman George Young is filtering records that could help determine ownership of cattle in five bankruptcy cases.



New York Times 9/26/01
For those with the bandwidth blues, click here to speed up
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/26/technology/ebusiness/26BIER.html

by J.D. Biersdorfer
Does it have to take so long?
The slow pace of Internet browsing is a particularly annoying deterrent, especially from home, where high-speed connections are still rare.
But it's not always the modem's fault. Getting lost within a poorly designed Web page that camouflages its contents under multiple images, prancing animations or pop-up advertisements can slow a user down just as much as waiting for a movie trailer to download over a 28.8-kilobit modem can.



New York Times 9/26/01
In investigation, Internet offers clues and static
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/26/technology/ebusiness/26SCHW.html

by John Schwartz
All investigations begin with a tip, a lead, a scrap of information as slight as the seat number passed along by a flight attendant aboard a doomed airliner on Sept. 11. But what has changed in recent years is the speed at which that information can be acted and built upon across the nation or around the world.


New York Times 9/26/01
Instinct, not a disaster plan, saves a tiny farm
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/26/business/26MNR.html

by Melinda Ligos
Last Wednesday, John E. Maloney, president of M&R Capital Management, spent the better part of his day hunkered down in the dining room of his Victorian home in Westfield, N.J., with a cellphone in one hand and a landline phone in the other, overseeing trades for clients while his 11- year-old twin sons played noisily in the room above him.


New York Times 9/22/01
Theater photo archive lost amid the rubble
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/22/arts/theater/22ARCH.html

by Ralph Blumenthal
They are not people, only pictures of people, and so may barely rate mention as collateral damage in the wreckage that has claimed so many lives. But in an office building crushed last week by the collapsing 7 World Trade Center lie some 35,000 photographs capturing some great moments on the American stage.



St. Petersburg Times 9/26/01
Opinion: Public Records are public, period
http://www.sptimes.com/News/092601/Opinion/Public_records_are_pu.shtml

Do the public officials directing Florida's state agencies think they are free to make up public records law as they go along? Do they think the public's statutory right to public records is subject to their discretion?
Apparently, the state Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles does.



Dallas Morning News 9/26/01
Collector's mad 'MAD' world
http://www.dallasnews.com/metro/stories/480444_mad_26met.ART0.html

by David Flick
James Halperin is both modest and matter-of-fact about whether he has the most valuable collection of MAD magazine memorabilia in the world.
"There's this guy in Chicago who has close to 100 original MAD magazine covers. That's pretty rare. He's certainly in the running," he said. "But if you added it all up, yeah, I probably do."



Dallas Morning News 9/26/01
Houston hospital, traumatized by Allison, on road to recovery
http://www.dallasnews.com/texas_southwest/480376_floods_26tex.A.html

by Kristen Hays
AP
HOUSTON - More than three months after heavy rain from Tropical Storm Allison crippled one of Houston's two major trauma centers, Memorial Hermann Hospital has emerged from the muck.
But bills for the staggering $433 million in damage sustained when Allison struck in June are rolling in as Hermann regains its pre-flood patient load. Officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency on Tuesday announced that $14 million in federal funds is on the way.



The Steamboat Pilot 9/26/01
Judge rules on phone records
http://www.steamboatpilot.com/section/frontpage_lead/story/10398

by Avi Salzman
STEAMBOAT SPRINGS - DEA Agent Donald Sperry overstepped his bounds when he obtained phone records under a false pretense, Justice Joseph Quinn ruled Tuesday when he decided the phone records would be inadmissible in the murder trial of Thomas Lee Johnson.



Wichita Falls Times Record News 9/26/01
Opinion: Paper thin
http://www.trnonline.com/stories/09262001/editorial/27258.shtml


Whatever the ancient Egyptians carved into stone or the ancient Romans carved into the faces of their buildings, they intended it to stay put for all time.
Unfortunately, over time people got away from speaking and reading the language of the ancient Egyptians, and whatever they'd carved into stone didn't do well at communicating.



Associated Press 9/26/01
Candidates criticize Siegelman open records policy
http://www.al.com/newsflash/index.ssf?/cgi-free/getstory_ssf.cgi?j3886_BC_AL--Records-Reax&&news&al_headlines

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) -- Republicans interested in being Alabama's next governor expressed disappointment Wednesday with a screening policy for public records set up by Gov. Don Siegelman's administration.
U.S. Rep. Bob Riley of Ashland said the general public doesn't have the time to spend in Montgomery looking at government documents and depends on reporters to do the job.
"When you cut off a reporter's ability to access information, you cut off the public's access," Riley said.


Peter A. Kurilecz CRM, CA
Richmond, Va
pakurilecz@aol.com