Freedom of Information Act

Background on Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Requests. Goes with Form #09.031.

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Being a poster child of digital state, Estonia is a truly right place to find answers to the question on how it should be done first when it comes to achieving a real progress in modernizing governance through the use of information and communication technologies. It seems interesting to research how this nation promotes one of the latest trends in the development of the e-government concept—open data. In this regard, the chapter aims to understand what kind of political and socioeconomic drivers and challenges Estonia faces today in the diffusion of the open data concept among various stakeholders, namely government officials, developers, businesses, journalists, academia, and non-governmental organizations and how overcomes them, especially in areas that are related to the publication and, more importantly, to the reuse of datasets by third parties in various collaborative projects and civic engagement platforms.

The exceptions regime constitutes the most crucial part of every freedom of information act. The objective of this essay is to analyze the implementation of the exemptions in the administrative practice and in the relevant case law almost three years from the entry into force the new administrative transparency regulation in Italy. The first part examines the absolute exemptions and the problems related to their delimitation, recommending a narrow interpretation. The second part of the essay focuses on the relative exceptions as well as the balancing test, highlighting the matters relating to its application and to the obligation to stare reasons. The conclusion offers some possible answers to the issues examined, suggesting an interpretation that enhances the aims of broad disclosure of the transparency regulation by aligning the domestic system with the most advanced experiences spread at european and international level.

Over the last two decades, Nigeria has been struggling to consolidate its democratic processes to ensure peaceful campaigns and free and fair polls. But electoral processes require the free flow of verified electoral information and citizen’s participation – phenomena that only free media can guarantee. As enshrined in the nation’s constitution, it is expected that freedoms of expression and press will be guaranteed during polls times and always. On the contrary, election times are often dejection time for Nigerian journalists. Hence, concerns are being raised about what factors are responsible for causing threats to journalists during poll times and how the menace can be mitigated. Drawing on the experiences of 12 journalists who were interviewed face-to-face, this chapter found aggressive journalistic practices, overconfidence, and breach of journalistic ethics responsible for threats to journalists’ safety. The chapter concludes that professional incompetence is one of the critical factors exposing Nigerian journalists to threats.

Challenging validity of Individual Master File (IMF). Goes with Form #09.057.

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The FOI Act creates, in principle, a right of access to information held by public authorities or by persons providing services for citizens; allowing citizens see a wide range of public information on any area. In reality, there is still some difficulty faced in accessing public records. In worst case scenarios, government officials simply ignore requests for information, mostly due to their lack of skills in records management -keeping, recovering, handling and conveying relevant documents. Although the FOI Act does not extensively provide for the duties and obligations and penalties of public officials in their respective capacities, the Honourable Attorney General of the Federation (HAGF) and the Minister for Justice have been saddled with the responsibility of creating guidelines for reporting and performance appraisal. These offices are also expected to submit an annual report to the National

L’Autorità Nazionale Anticorruzione con la Delibera n. 1309 del 28 dicembre 2016, pubblicata nella Gazzetta Ufficiale - Serie Generale n. 7 del 10 gennaio 2017, ha adottato le Linee Guida che dettano indicazioni operative ai fini della definizione delle esclusioni e dei limiti all’accesso civico previsti dall’art. 5, comma 2, del d.lgs. n. 33 del 2013.
L’analisi svolta nel presente contributo affronta gli aspetti portanti della riforma che ha rivoluzionato il regime di trasparenza della pubblica amministrazione e che ha introdotto nel nostro ordinamento un vero e proprio Freedom of Information Act, alla luce delle recenti Linee Guida ANAC che sono intervenute a definirne esclusioni e limiti e dei loro risvolti pratici.

In making appointments to the office of ambassador, U.S. presidents often select political supporters from outside the ranks of the State Department’s professional diplomatic corps. This practice is aberrational among advanced democracies and a source of recurrent controversy in the United States, and yet its merits and significance are substantially opaque: How do political appointees compare with career diplomats in terms of credentials? Are they less effective in office? Do they serve in some countries more than others? Have any patterns evolved over time? Commentators might assume answers to these questions, but actual evidence has been in short supply. In this context, it is difficult for the public to evaluate official practice and hold accountable those who wield power under the Appointments Clause.

This Article helps to correct for the current state of affairs. Using a novel dataset based on a trove of previously unavailable documents that I obtained from the State Department through requests and litigation under the Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”), the Article systematically reveals the professional qualifications and campaign contributions of over 1900 ambassadorial nominees spanning the Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama administrations, along with the first two years of Donald Trump. In doing so, the Article substantially enhances the transparency of the appointments process and exposes conditions of concern: not only are political appointees on average much less qualified than their career counterparts under a variety of congressionally approved measures, but also the gap has grown along with the commonality and size of their campaign contributions to nominating presidents. These conditions raise the possibility that campaign contributions are generating an increasingly deleterious effect on the quality of U.S. diplomatic representation abroad. The Article concludes by identifying and defending the constitutional merits of plausible legal reforms, including Senate rule amendments and statutory measures to regulate qualifications and enhance transparency.

This study examined administrative appeals under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) at two federal government agencies: the Department of the Army and the U.S. Forest Service. The study reviewed all provided case files for appeals received by the agencies in fiscal year 2012, which consisted of 105 appeals at the Army and 53 appeals at the Forest Service. The researcher coded each appeal with respect to the processing time of the initial request, whether a lawyer was involved in preparing the request or appeal, and the professional or situational identity of the requester (journalist, business, agency personnel, etc.).

From initial request through initial decision, the median wait time was 31 calendar days at the Forest Service and 40 days at the Army. At both agencies, a person with legal expertise assisted with nearly one-third of appealed FOIA requests. Requests from agency personnel and their families constituted the largest group of the appeals filed at the Army, while at the Forest Service the largest group of appeals came from the "other" category of requesters, including members of the general public and unidentified requesters.

Right to Information (RTI) laws, also known as Freedom of Information (FOI) laws, serve as essential instruments to provide people access to information (ATI) held by their governments. They enable people to be aware of their entitlements so that they can demand for the fulfilment of those rights. Access to information enables people to meaningfully participate in the affairs of the country. It helps citizens keep a check on governmental policies and actions and voice their concerns when their needs are not met. RTI has been acknowledged as a tool for ensuring good governance through invoking transparency. It is an underpinning of democracy and, therefore, is recognised as an essential feature of democratic societies of the world. It assists in alleviating poverty, ensures sustainable development and helps in realising other fundamental rights.

The 1966 Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) was drafted in response to demands from leaders in the press
and key individuals within Congress for greater access to government information in order to strengthen
accountability in its personnel practices, domestic and foreign intelligence gathering efforts, foreign policy
decisions, and other activities. The FOIA serves as a mechanism for the public’s right to know which in
effect threatens the government’s right to protect state secrets and other privileged information. As a result,
the process of implementing, interpreting, and applying the FOIA over time has been shaped by these
competing interests. Throughout its history, judges, agencies, Congress, and the Executive have contributed
to shaping the FOIA to support greater transparency; however, they have alternatively strengthened
government protection of information in some circumstances, particularly for intelligence-related records.

Changes to how police forces in England and Wales are working to manage their public image in an environment of heightened accountability and transparency are explored. The locus of control of information shaping the portrayal of the police in the news media is discussed, as is the impact of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. The findings from case studies of two police forces in the East Midlands are reported. The case studies indicate that UK police forces are becoming increasingly proactive, strategic and professionalized in their use of the news media. For their part, the media are dependent on the news 'fed' to them on a regular basis by police press relations units. Nevertheless, thanks in particular to their use of the FOIA 2000, the media continue to play a role as independent watchdog and reporter of police activity.

Strong arguments are made that freedom of information (FOI) laws can be particularly beneficial in young democracies while providing an important tool that safeguards basic rights. Despite the drastic increase of the number and quality of FOI laws adopted during the last few decades, press freedom around the world has fallen to its lowest level in over a decade while abuses of power and corruption continue to ravage societies around the world. This comparative study examines the outcomes of FOI laws in the context of new democracies of South East Europe. It adopts a mix methodological approach to (1) examine citizen demand for access to information and government compliance with FOI laws and (2) explore structural and political conditions that affect demand and compliance. Results from data collected in Albania, Kosovo, and Montenegro suggest that the positive outcomes of the FOI laws are highly dependent on public demand and supervisory institutions. While FOI non-compliance can be attributed to the limited administrative capacities, the failure to put in place access structures also indicates the erosion of leadership political will during the implementation phase as a consequence of the lack of public demand. This article emphasizes the importance of non-political institutions, spotlighting the critical role of civil society and the media.

Review of Robert Justin Goldstein, American Blacklist: The Attorney General's List of Subversive Organizations (2008); Ivan Greenberg, The Dangers of Dissent: The FBI and Civil Liberties Since 1965 (2010); and Tim Wiener, Enemies: A History of the FBI (2012).

Open Data (OD) pinned agencies on the horns of a transparency dilemma: Surrender valuable datasets to comply with new OD policy, or resist freeing valuable data and face criticism from the public, the media, and politicians. Agencies have developed creative data release strategies to confront this dilemma. Public administration scholars cannot afford to miss this rare opportunity to empirically examine when, why, and how agencies agree to release the most valuable resource of the 21st century—information. The study proposes that agencies carefully manipulate the type and timing of dataset release. The paper suggests that agencies sometimes adopt “data branding”, as seen on OD portals, or “data hugging”, as on for-sale sites such as the American National Technical Information Service (NTIS) site. Most agencies employ mixed strategies: “hugging” certain datasets and “branding” others. Given the value of data to agencies, incentives may offer a solution to free valuable data. A new “Agencies and Open Data” research program is proposed and the paper describes how a research team is currently constructing a large corpus of data to support this research program.

Democracy depends exclusively on the informedness of the individual citizens
-- L. Ron Hubbard

Introduction:

We live in an age when the fear of terrorism and crime mandates the restriction on personal freedom to such an extent that it threatens to strangle the very life of the democracy it seeks to protect. It is a balancing act of public and private interests, involving great risk for the body politic and its citizenry.

For democracy to function legitimately, the governed must have the ability to gather accurate and timely information about the internal workings of their nation, and the reasons behind governmental action. History is scarred with the abuses which have transpired behind the veil of secrecy–and the first step toward totalitarianism and the oppressive police state usually includes the eradication of the means to scrutinise the conduct of officials.

It is no wonder that the public asserts a widespread distrust of leaders and their organisations. Mounting corruption, selfish political manoeuvring, and precarious economies engender a troubling and rebellious malaise among citizens. The public official is potentially caught on the other side. The need to protect order can require confidentiality and swift action.

Enlightened nations have come to realise, therefore, that an informed populace is necessary for the health and future of any democratic society. The freedoms previous generations have fought and died for must be cherished and protected.

Open government is the lifeblood of democracy. Transparency and honest accountability must be maintained; public institutions must be accessible.

Currently, as a collection of nations, we stand at the brink. Civilization does face a very real threat, from the cancer of distrust brought about by random terrorist attacks, and the erosion of social virtues as witnessed in increasing crime rates.

Amid such turmoil, how do we guarantee the future and integrity of our democratic society? How do we protect the fundamental rights of the citizen? And how do we assure that those same freedoms will exist for our children?

Open Government a Curative for Public Distrust

Transparency in government was recognized as such a key element to the preservation of freedom and democracy, that in its very first session in 1946, the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 59 (I), stating “Freedom of Information is a fundamental human right and … the touchstone of all the freedoms to which the United Nations is consecrated.”

That profound sentiment continues to be reaffirmed decades later, as when the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Opinion and Expression stated in his 1995 report to the UN Commission on Human Rights, “Freedom will be bereft of all effectiveness if the people have no access to information. Access to information is basic to the democratic way of life. The tendency to withhold information from the people at large is therefore to be strongly checked.”

В 2011 г. Национальный центр законодательства и правовых исследований Республики Беларусь подготовил проект Закона Республики Беларусь «Аб доступе да iнфармацыi аб дзейнасцi дзяржаўных органаў» (О доступе к информации о деятельности государственных органов). Однако после обсуждения проекта было принято решение о нецелесообразности принятия закона. [1]

Законопроект размещался на вебсайте Национального Центра Законодательства и Правовых Исследований в рубрике "Обсуждаем законопроект", но был удален оттуда после принятого решения о прекращении с ним работы. 

Представленная здесь версия законопроекта (загруженная с вебсайта НЦЗПИ) не может считаться официальной копией законопроекта, но и обманывать вас мне резона нет. За подтверждением рекомендую обращаться в НЦЗПИ - center.gov.by     

[1] http://e-gov.by/stroitelstvo-e-gov/analiz-izmenenij-v-zakon-rb-ob-informacii-informatizacii-i-zashhite-informacii

Um direito fundamental e instrumental O direito de acesso à informação é um direito humano fundamental para a vida em socieda-des democráticas. A base deste direito é o princípio de que a autoridade pública é delegada pelo eleitor e sustentada pelo contribuinte, portanto o público deve ter o direito de saber como o poder está sendo usado e como o dinheiro está sendo gasto. Mais do que isso, o cidadão tem o direito de influenciar e participar nos processos decisórios sobre matérias de interesse público. Em um sentido amplo, podemos en-tender o acesso à infor mação pública como o direito que tem toda pessoa de receber infor mações em poder do Esta-do sobre qualquer assunto. O conceito é parte essencial das diretrizes de um governo aberto, que propõem processos e procedimentos governamentais mais transparentes. Diferentes ter mos são usados para des-crever o mesmo direito: liberdade de informação, direito à informação, direito de saber e acesso à infor mação. Todos esses ter mos se referem a um direito-chave e estratégico para a realização de muitos outros direitos humanos. artigo_Paula_Martins.indd 233

Changes to how police forces in England and Wales are working to manage their public image in an environment of heightened accountability and transparency are explored. The locus of control of information shaping the portrayal of the police in the news media is discussed, as is the impact of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. The findings from case studies of two police forces in the East Midlands are reported. The case studies indicate that, whilst police and media cooperation is not a new phenomenon, UK police forces are becoming increasingly proactive, strategic and professionalized in their use of the news media. For their part, the media are dependent on the news 'fed' to them on a regular basis by police press relations units. Nevertheless, thanks in particular to their use of the FOIA 2000, the media continue to play a role as independent watchdog and reporter of police activity.

Litigation claims are increasing in medicine but we know of little detailed analysis of those published concerning oral and maxillofacial surgery (OMFS) despite information being freely available from the NHS Litigation Authority (NHSLA) under the Freedom of Information Act. We obtained information from the NHSLA on clinical and non-clinical negligence claims in OMFS from April 1995 to August 2010, and analysed the data with outcomes and a further breakdown of subspecialty. During the period 318 claims relating to OMFS were registered. As expected, because of the high volume of patients treated, the highest number of claims related to dentoalveolar surgery and minor oral surgery. The total amount paid out was in excess of £5 million, and the highest claim (more than £300 000) during the period was for misdiagnosis of an oral cancer. Litigation in OMFS is increasing, as is the number of cases that necessitate compensation by the NHSLA. We discuss the trends and implications.

President Obama has trumpeted transparency as a major part of his reform agenda, promising an "unprecedented" degree of governmental openness and overseeing a variety of open government reforms, from changes in Freedom of Information Act policies to the creation of new websites like Recovery.Gov. Although transparency is politically popular, and the Obama Administration benefits in the short run by contrasting itself with the Bush Administration's reputation for secrecy, in the long run President Obama's rhetoric on openness in government may backfire politically. Too much emphasis on making government a fishbowl will only raise expectations about an unattainable or undesirable level of openness. Transparency has clear benefits but it also has its costs, as when, for example, the prospect of disclosure dampens internal deliberation and self-criticism by government officials. The real choice for government, then, is how much transparency, and what type, to offer over different processes. The Obama Administration has already found itself needing to make tradeoffs and place limits on transparency, and it is likely to continue to do so in the years to come. Yet members of the public, and certainly open-government activists, are unlikely to appreciate the need for making such tradeoffs, generating disappointment among the administration's supporters and charges of hypocrisy by its opponents. It remains unclear whether Barack Obama will ultimately earn the mantle of the "transparency president"-or whether the unrealistic hopes for openness in government he has raised will, when unfulfilled, only serve to reinforce public cynicism about government.

The viatical settlement industry provides an opportunity for terminally-ill consumers, typically HIV patients, to exploit a previously untapped source of equity in existing life insurance contracts to finance consumption and medical expenses. The 1996 introduction and dissemination of effecive anti-HIV medication reduced AIDS mortality, but also reduced viatical settlement prices, even holding fixed changes in life expectancy.

In this report, we take stock of English-language scholarly publications appearing during the past two decades in which scholars and researchers used FOI requests to generate data for their studies on prison and jail systems. We review these studies looking at trends in frequency over time, where they come from, what other data sources they used along with FOI, and what novel contributions FOI requests have allowed researchers to make to existing prison and jail scholarship.

Over the past several decades a number of countries have implemented Freedom of Information acts with the hope that greater transparency would assist in controlling public sector corruption. To consider the effectiveness of these acts, we analyze annual data on 128 countries during the period 1984 through 2003 using a variety of propensity score matching techniques. Overall, we find no significant relationship between the implementation of a FOI act and corruption. While this result holds for developed countries, in the developing world, enactment of FOI acts is significantly and consistently associated with rising rather than falling levels of corruption. As such, we conclude that implementation of these acts should not be seen as a panacea for the problem of corruption in the public sector.

Changes to how police forces in England and Wales are working to manage their public image in an environment of heightened accountability and transparency are explored. The locus of control of information shaping the portrayal of the police in the news media is discussed, as is the impact of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) 2000. The findings from case studies of two police forces in the East Midlands are reported. The case studies indicate that, whilst police and media cooperation is not a new phenomenon, UK police ...

Security, privacy, access, and intellectual freedom are words that are loaded with emotional meaning and context for current societal issues. How do we ensure all without sacrificing or compromising others? Balancing a government's need to control information with the individual's right to freely access government information is a global concern that must be addressed. Following 9/11, this balance was challenged by the government limiting access to information, or in many cases removing it from access entirely. Challenges to access include: 1) restricting use of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), 2) increased secrecy within the government, and 3) removal of or disappearance of government information. This article will discuss the role and efforts of libraries and librarians to ensure public access to information. U.S. legislation such as the Freedom of Information Act and the USA Patriot Act and how it challenges access are explored. Efforts to restore the balance, by both the government and by those in the academic and journalism communities, will illustrate how both sides of the scale need to be examined so we can move forward.

The Freedom of Information Act 2000 ('FOIA') came into force on 1 January 2005. It created, for the first time, a statutory right of access to information held by a wide range of public authorities. The right of access extends to all information held, regardless of how old the information is and the format in which it is held, unless one of the absolute exemptions listed in the Act is applicable, or the public interest test for disclosure is not satisfied in respect of a qualified exemption. Significantly, the Act also contains a power of ministerial veto, the effect of which is that orders to disclose information under the Act are rendered ineffective if a minister certifies that they have "reasonable grounds" for having formed the opinion that non-disclosure would not be unlawful. Prior to R (on the application of Evans) and another v Attorney General, [2] there was a lack of certainty regarding what constituted 'reasonable grounds' for the issuance of a ministerial certificate. As well as clarifying the threshold for reasonable grounds for issuing a veto, this judgment also engages in a discussion of the relationship between three fundamental constitutional principles: the rule of law, separation of powers and parliamentary sovereignty to determine the extent to which it is legally and constitutionally legitimate for a court exercising powers of judicial review to strike down a Government Minister's decision made under powers granted by Parliament to overturn an independent judicial tribunal's judgment. Thus, the decision is of interest to those seeking to assess its potential contribution to discourse on common law constitutionalism.

Security, privacy, access, and intellectual freedom are words that are loaded with emotional meaning and context for current societal issues. How do we ensure all without sacrificing or compromising others? Balancing a government's need to control information with the individual's right to freely access government information is a global concern that must be addressed. Following 9/11, this balance was challenged by the government limiting access to information, or in many cases removing it from access entirely. Challenges to access include: 1) restricting use of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), 2) increased secrecy within the government, and 3) removal of or disappearance of government information. This article will discuss the role and efforts of libraries and librarians to ensure public access to information. U.S. legislation such as the Freedom of Information Act and the USA Patriot Act and how it challenges access are explored. Efforts to restore the balance, by both the government and by those in the academic and journalism communities, will illustrate how both sides of the scale need to be examined so we can move forward.

Tobacco is a heavily pesticide-dependent crop. Because pesticides involve human safety and health issues, they are regulated nationally and internationally; however, little is known about how eScholarship provides open access, scholarly publishing services to the University of California and delivers a dynamic research platform to scholars worldwide. tobacco companies respond to regulatory pressures regarding pesticides. This study analyzes internal tobacco industry documents to describe industry activities aimed at influencing pesticide regulations. We use a case study approach based on examination of approximately 2,000 internal company documents and 3,885 pages of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency documents obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests. The cases involve methoprene, the ethylene bisdithiocarbamates, and phosphine. We show how the tobacco industry successfully altered the outcome in two cases by hiring ex-agency scientists to write reports favorable to industry positions regarding pesticide regulations for national (Environmental Protection Agency) and international (World Health Organization) regulatory bodies. We also show how the industry worked to forestall tobacco pesticide regulation by attempting to self-regulate in Europe, and how Philip Morris encouraged a pesticide manufacturer to apply for higher tolerance levels in Malaysia and Europe while keeping tobacco industry interest a secret from government regulators. This study suggests that the tobacco industry is capable of exerting considerable influence over the pesticide regulatory process and that increased scrutiny of this process and protection of the public interest in pesticide regulation may be warranted. We thank E.A. Smith and B. Skinner for critically reviewing drafts of the manuscript.

Recent years have seen the introduction of many antidepressants and antipsychotics. Typically, efficacy of these agents is based on published positive clinical trials; however, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) compiles summary reports of all pivotal randomized clinical trials, which are available for public review under the Freedom of Information Act. They are rarely accessed but may have public health utility. Thus, we assessed these reports to evaluate if the clinical data can be used for comparing psychotropics. We examined FDA summary reports of 58 pivotal trials from 10 antidepressants and 7 pivotal trials from three antipsychotics approved in the United States between 1985 and 1998. We evaluated each FDA report based on criteria derived from the recently revised Consolidated Standards of Reporting Trials (CONSORT standards) proposed by the Journal of the American Medical Association to improve randomized clinical trial reports. Overall, the FDA reports of antidepressant and antipsychotic trials adequately met 38.1% of the CONSORT criteria. Among the antidepressant reports, 36.7% adequately met CONSORT criteria compared with 49.0% among the antipsychotic reports. The proportions meeting CONSORT criteria have increased over the past 15 years; 21.0% for those approved between 1985 and 1989, 37.8% for those between 1990 and 1994, and 40.5% for those between 1995 and 1998. The large and inclusive public domain FDA summary reports may provide balanced efficacy clinical trial data. With minor changes in the preparation of reporting by using CONSORT or similar guidelines, the data would be even more valuable.

"Before the Freedom of Information Act, I used to say at meetings, ‘The illegal we do immediately; the unconstitutional takes a little longer.’" – Henry Kissinger, 1975
Diplomacy is as old as civilization.  Historically, it has not included the general public.  Recent developments in technology and the accessibility of information have revolutionized the way the public interacts with political issues, including diplomacy.  Because meetings between world leaders are suddenly visible and accessible in a way they never have been before, the public is more interested in being an active participant in the diplomatic process.  Furthermore, the ability to read documents previously limited to diplomats has had many consequences on diplomacy, including backlash from the public upon hearing of morally reprehensible actions, an altered sphere of diplomacy due to interference with trust, and further attempts at secrecy by diplomats and world leaders.

Kazakhstan could be regarded as a real poster child of new promising political and socioeconomic opportunities that technology-driven public sector reforms bring to the local economy in a typical transitional, developing, and post-totalitarian context, especially taking into account the recent advance of various digital government platforms that are promoted today administratively at different institutional levels in this Central Asian country. One of the most interesting trends in the area is an active propagation of the open data concept at almost all public and semi-public agencies officially as a watchword of transparency, collaboration, and participation in the e-government ecosystem. Open data is also beginning to be regarded as a necessary prerequisite in transforming a somewhat cumbersome public administration system that this nation once had to inherit from its Soviet past. However, what are the true drivers and challenges of the concept implementation in Kazakhstan and, more importantly, how does open data really promote openness and cooperation in government in a less collaborative quite conservative political context? In this respect, this chapter aims to answer these questions, analyzing typical drivers, strategies, and regulation policies that national authorities have recently adopted in the area. It also reviews open data-driven projects that various stakeholders from private, civic, and non-governmental sectors of economy try to promote in a wide range of human activities.

In the draft/pre-decisional report under the heading “ECT Use in the Veterans Health Administration” (p. 4), there is clear and convincing evidence of widespread use of electroshock throughout the VA system.

At least 5,009 electroshocks (electroconvulsive treatments) were used on at least 743 individuals through the VAMC network in 2009.
The report only addressed electroshock that was delivered to someone two or more times.
We have no information on how many times people were subjected to electroshock once.
In 2008 there were at least 75 locations in the VAMC network across the United States that delivered electroshock.
The report only addresses electroshock delivered through the VAMC network.
The report confirms it does not include electroshock done in private or non-contracting VA institutions.
In 2009, the VAMCs with the highest numbers of people electroshocked (30 or more people) were San Juan, Omaha, North Chicago, Kansas City, and San Antonio.
Only 15 of the 21 Veterans Integrated Service Networks (VISNs) across the country responded to the request that the report I was given addressed.
We can be sure that with any additional information, any amount of electroshock being conducted on those receiving services through a Veterans Administration Medical Centers (VAMC) reported would only increase the amount of people who were subjected to electroshock.
Because of the lack of current information and perhaps misinformation, we have no idea of how many people have been or are currently are being electroshocked.

The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act ((NAGPRA) 25 USC 3001 et seq.) was signed into law on November 16, 1990; although the regulations (43 CFR Part 10) for administering NAGPRA were not formally established for another five years.  NAGPRA is concerned with Native American human remains, associated and unassociated funerary objects, objects of cultural patrimony, and sacred objects.  NAGPRA requires Federal agencies and museums to take certain actions, within a prescribed timeframe, under the provisions of the law.  For example, summaries of unassociated funerary objects, objects of cultural patrimony, and sacred objects must have been completed by November 16, 1993.  Inventories of human remains and associated funerary objects must have been completed by November 16, 1995.  In addition, NAGPRA requires repatriation, on request, to the culturally affiliated tribes.  It also strictly limits the sale or purchase of Native American human remains and cultural objects identified in the act, whether or not they derive from Federal or Indian lands.  This paper will provide an overview of NAGPRA; the effects of the recent passage of federal regulations (December 4, 1995) to implement the law; and procedural differences in how to establish cultural affiliation with remains found before and after passage of NAGPRA.  A recent court case involving NAGPRA will be explored.  Special emphasis will be placed on the Freedom of Information Act and what is construed as a "good faith" effort when completing an inventory.