In an instance reported in today’s Journal, the paper used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain letters written by companies and individuals who wrote to the Federal Aviation Administration requesting that their private jet flight plans be excluded from public flight tracker databases.  The letters were written in 2011 to comply with a then FAA policy requiring a letter citing a “valid security concern” in order to have flight plans excluded.  The letters cited everything from the security concerns of former Washington Redskins coach Joe Gibbs (overly aggressive autograph seekers) to those of several defense contractors.

While “FOIAing the FOIAs” (i.e., requesting copies of letters of request) is done routinely in public records research, this is the first instance we have seen where a news agency has requested someone’s request to keep information private.

This may be the last time we see something like this since state and federal agencies typically don’t request that individuals establish the grounds for withholding information and the FAA’s precedent setting move in this area was shutdown by Congress shortly after it was started.

The Wall Street Journal story and correspondence released by the paper here.

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At present, the library contains over two million items in multiple formats (texts, pictures, movies, etc.) drawn from the collections of multiple partner institutions including the New York Public Library, the Smithsonian Institution and the Minnesota Digital Library.

Developers can use the DPLA’s API to create apps and users who create an account can create lists and save items from their searches.

The DPLA also allows users to access its collection with a timeline feature and has developed a number of exhibitions including one on the Bread and Roses Strike of 1912.

We expect many more good things to come from this undertaking.

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In the meantime, keep an eye on LegiStorm as the service rolls out new products on a fairly consistent basis.

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The City is basing its appeal on a number of arguments ranging from the practical (i.e., applying a search requirement across an entire city workforce would be overly burdensome) to the purely legal argumentative (e.g., individual government officials are not governmental entities as defined under the California Public Records Act.)

One small irony in all of this, as reported in the San Jose Mercury News, is that San Jose has had one of the most forward-looking city policies in this area requiring that messages stored on private devices but concerning public business be kept in perpetuity by the city.  The local policy only applies to 30 or so officials (top electeds and their staffs) and not the entire city staff, however.

We’ll update this as the case proceeds.

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• Building inspection reports (is my dorm safe/did the people who built the dorms do a good job?)

• Cafeteria and food service records (why is the dorm food so awful/is the contractor serving the dorm food following appropriate food safety protocols?)

• Campus crime records under the Clery Act (Much more on the Clery Act from this Department of Education Handbook.  And, for a lot more on the types of records universities keep on crime, check this resource guide.)

Also note that records requests are not necessarily limited by whether the institution that possesses them is public or private.  College accreditation reports, for instance, are available for any university that accepts federal student aid. And, many athletic department records (e.g., student athlete graduation rates, AD budgets) are available under the Student Right to Know Act which contains if-you-take-federal aid- you-have-to-turn-over the records stipulations.  To sum up: The most access will be granted at a public university but private institutions that accept federal grant money are also covered (albeit less universally) by certain freedom of information release requirements.

For a lot more information on this subject check with the Student Press Law Center.  The Center’s site contains a number of tutorials on accessing records inside education world along with sample request letters.

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Up to this point, governments have successfully argued that they can’t be held responsible for computer equipment and servers they don’t control and, with very limited exceptions, have ignored requests demanding their employees turn over e-mails and texts from their personal accounts or devices.

The Santa Clara County ruling by Judge James Kleinberg basically says a public record is a public record no matter where it is stored.

Here’s a link to the full opinion, via the First Amendment Coalition.

Here’s a link to an Orange County Register story on the ruling.

Another California case to watch involves an appeal of a February Alameda County Superior Court ruling that requires the University of California to turn over records related to how much it invests in two individual venture funds.  The university system had previously disclosed overall returns generated by the funds but not more detailed information on its investments.  The appeal is based on the theory that UC should not be required to abet a “reach through” public records strategy designed to advance the requestor’s (in this case the Reuters news service) financial interest. The Daily Californian (UC Berkeley’s student newspaper) has more  on this story here.

We’ll update the status of both cases as they work their way through the courts.

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This is, of course, a welcome development in terms of access to this data which was formerly accessible only by submitting a FOIA to the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).

As with any data-set, there are limitations (all nicely summarized on the AHCJ site) and exclusions (again, all nicely summarized on the AHCJ site.)

When you are on the AHCJ site, also follow this link to get a linked list of which states publish their hospital inspection reports electronically.

There were multiple media stories on this site but this one from the Pew Charitable Trusts Stateline Service did a wonderful job covering the story and is worth a read.

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Read the full interview here.

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For something a little closer to home for this blog, read this story about Jackie Clarke, a fish merchant in Ballina (County Mayo) Ireland who collected over 100,000 items related to the Irish struggle for independence.  Among the items: an original copy of the 1916 Easter Proclamation.

As Clarke’s work shows, private collections are a useful, if somewhat offbeat, resource for records.  Often these collections have name or subject searchable finding tools and contain files about people the donor collector came into contact with or employed at some point in the past.  Of particular interest for opposition researchers:  the public papers of retired elected officials.

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Dreyfus was a French patriot who, despite being railroaded and then wrongly imprisoned, returned to French military service in World War I.

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For more detail on the Dreyfus affair, see this article in The New York Times.