Public Records Show ... Parking Tickets Get Fixed

A New York newspaper had to sue to get records about parking tickets that got "fixed."

After going to the Court of Appeals, the newspaper got its attorney fees reimbursed.

This is what it takes to expose corruption. It's also why awarding attorney fees is so vital.

Proposed FOIA Rule Would Let Gov't Claim Records Don't Exist ... When They Do Exist

Sigh.

This is one of the reasons why FOIA is so much worse than Washington state's Public Records Act.

P.S. The Obama administration--the transparency people--are the ones proposing this hideous rule.

Hat tip to Jim for sending this story.

Op-Ed on Seattle Police Records

Prof. Tomas Guillen writes this op-ed in the Seattle Times on the Seattle Police Department's public records practices regarding incident reports.

Dep't of Licensing Hiding Records on State Cash to Tribes

The Washington State Wire writes this story on how the Department of Licensing is withholding documents about how much state money Indian tribes receive from distributions of gas taxes.

FOIA Challenges up 27%

This is interesting from the FOIA Project. Court challenges to obtain documents from federal agencies under FOIA are up 27%.

Wasn't the Obama Administration going to be so much more transparent than the previous administration?

Hat tip to Jim for sending this story.

Public Records Show ... Alleged Corruption of Rainier Nat'l Parks

The Seattle Times reports on a fishy land deal between the official running Mt. Rainier National Park and a vendor.

How do we know about this? You guessed it:

"Details of the questionable land deal came to light only recently — through Seattle Times federal public-records requests in 2010 that eventually produced several hundred pages of redacted documents."