Washington, D.C. transparency headlines

From Sunshine Review

This article is a list of transparency related news from Washington, D.C..

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Report It •	The Good •	The Bad •	The Ugly

Lagging in the Fight for Open Government

"Post reporters routinely file Freedom of Information Act requests to dislodge public records. Editorials warn about the dangers of government secrecy. And the newspaper is willing to sue government agencies to force disclosure of documents. It cares about the public's right to know.

So you would think that with its stature, here in the nation's capital, The Post would be the leader in fighting for transparency. It isn't."

Criminal, Other Records Available Online

"D.C. Superior Court officials will gather today to promote a Web site that gives the public access to a variety of court records, including those in civil, criminal, domestic violence, tax and probate cases."

Why Can't A D.C. Blogger Get Public Records?

"Journalism is a craft, one that anyone is free to exercise. But journalism is an unusual craft, in that its purpose and activities are specifically protected by the Constitution.

So when government agencies, businesses and courts get into the question of just who qualifies to be a journalist, things get murky very quickly. The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA), which operates Metro, has informed the excellent Greater Greater Washington blog that it is not part of the news media and is therefore not eligible to make public records requests and get a fee waiver, as reporters from real journalism outlets do."

Judge orders IRS to turn over data

"A federal judge has found the Internal Revenue Service in defiance of a 2006 court order telling it to turn over tax data to a researcher in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) case that stretches back more than 30 years.

Researcher Susan Long has fought the IRS since she won an FOIA lawsuit against the agency while a graduate student at the University of Washington in 1976. At that time, a federal judge ordered the IRS to make certain tax-data tables available to Long.

But the IRS still has not complied, and the agency petitioned the court to have the 1976 order changed so it would not have to turn over some of the information."

White House wins round in e-mail fight

"A federal court ruled today that the White House’s Office of Administration (OA) is not a federal agency and therefore does not have to release thousands of pages of documents that detail the White House’s e-mail archive practices. Those practices are the subject of ongoing litigation and a congressional investigation.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) sued the White House in May 2007 after the organization was unsatisfied with the administration’s response to two Freedom of Information Act requests for information from the White House’s investigation into potential loss of records concerning e-mails."