[open-government] Question about Freedom of Information Act

Thu Dec 9 19:57:26 UTC 2010

Hi, everyone!

Thanks so much for these info. This helps a lot :)

All the documentation we have around laws and bills in Brazil is only in
Portuguese (except for some studies made by the organization Article XIX –
will try to translate our letter and to localize those studies, so we can
share with everyone).

I am also copying some people who were specifically working on this issue
during our hackathon to follow up.

Thanks again and talk soon,

Daniela

On Mon, Dec 6, 2010 at 11:25 AM, Steven Clift <clift at e-democracy.org> wrote:

> In Minnesota since the 1970s we have had the Minnesota Data Practices Act
> instead of calling in FOI. Bad branding, but the idea is that any element of
> information is open to request, inspection, copying in any format in which
> it exists
>
> What tends to still be missing is affirmative obligation to publish data
> publicly for all - either specifically or in general.
>
> The biggest countervailing concern is that government has databases with
> enormous amount of legally public information on individuals. Since in the
> U.S. there is no standard privacy regulation of public data on individuals
> (in Sweden and other places I've heard terms like "public register" that
> come with reuse regulation) there is a serious concern that the easy
> aggregated combination of this data (like knowing who has a deer hunting
> permit, a teaching license, a registered pet, etc.) will erode individual
> privacy through government complusory power.
>
> Steven Clift
> On Dec 6, 2010 6:58 AM, "Javier Ruiz Diaz" <javier at openrightsgroup.org>
> wrote:
> > Ola Daniela
> >
> >
> > in UK the government has just announced their intention to amend the
> Freedom of Information Act to include a "right to data". We are trying to
> figure out what they mean by this. Although they seem to be following quite
> closely the advice from the hacker community here in terms of data
> catalogues, etc., when it comes to legislation we don't know how they will
> behave.
> >
> > When we raised this in the OGD camp in London some people were critical
> of the need for a specific right to data as separate from information. We
> agreed we would carry on discussions on this important topic. For us it is
> very important as we need to engage with this in the coming year and also
> find little examples.
> >
> > Do you have any links to the texts for the Brazilian law?
> >
> > best, Javier
> >
> >
> > On 5 Dec 2010, at 03:10, Daniela B. Silva wrote:
> >
> >> Hi, everyone!
> >>
> >> Hope you are all very happy with hacks and projects that came/are coming
> out from the Hackathon today :)
> >>
> >> During our São Paulo event, there is a group of people working on a
> letter to present to our senators, asking them to promptly vote for a bill
> that corresponds to our Freedom of Information Act (or Access to Information
> Law).
> >>
> >> Yes, believe me, we still don't have one of those in Brazil. A bill was
> presented by our executive government in 2003, delayed until 2009 and voted
> by our House of Representatives earlier this year. Than we had elections in
> the middle of the process... and now we are waiting.
> >>
> >> The sad thing is, since the bill got to brazilian Senate, every possible
> "trick" that can be used to delay it has been used, so we are almost sure
> there is no chance it will be voted this year or not even during early
> 2011.. But the good thing is, before it was voted on the House of
> Representatives, we (hackers and open data advocates from the "Transparência
> Hacker" community) were consulted about the text, so we could adapt it to
> the open data principles – I mean, if the law passes, not only people will
> have an instrument to ask for public data, as governments will be enforced
> by law to publish data actively, timely and in open and machine readable
> formats.
> >>
> >> What we are trying to do on this letter is to demand that the bill is
> listed on the Senate's agenda as soon as possible. And also to signalize to
> our senators that, if this bill passes the way it is, with no amendments or
> exclusions of open data policies, we will have a democratic instrument that
> is not only essential, but also powerful and up to date – but maybe we need
> some comparisons for that.
> >>
> >> So, my question is: does anybody there know of countries that have open
> data principles (or maybe other sort of relevant openness principles)
> expressed on its Freedom of Information Act, or at a law that has this sort
> of federal impact? We know more about great achievements that came from
> memorandums, motions, directives and local regulations... But we couldn't
> recall any federal laws or anything comparable for open data that can be
> cited.
> >>
> >> We don't even know if this sort of comparison makes sense. Just
> brainstorming here after many hours of event! So let us know if you have any
> insights that can help :)
> >>
> >> Daniela
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> open-government mailing list
> >> open-government at lists.okfn.org
> >> http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/open-government
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > open-government mailing list
> > open-government at lists.okfn.org
> > http://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/open-government
>
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