Group items tagged

businesses create political action committees, called PACs

Justice Department Director of the Office of Information Policy, Melanie Ann Pustay (pictured above), called on Congress to weaken the Freedom of Information of Act [FOIA] and strengthen the ability of the federal government to prevent the disclosure of documents deemed critical to the safety of the nation's cybersecurity and infrastructure.

In Fiscal Year 2011, agencies were faced with an increase in the number of incoming FOIA requests, which rose from 597,415 in Fiscal Year 2010 to 644,165 in Fiscal Year 2011. Notably, the Department of Homeland Security experienced a 35% increase in the number of incoming requests.

Under provisions of the FOIA, anyone may compel agencies of the government to surrender copies of federal records. According to applicable exceptions to the law, a petitioner is entitled to receive the requested documents unless the disclosure would demonstrably negatively impact national security, violate personal privacy, or unnecessarily reveal business secrets or other confidential decision-making considerations.

I will summarize how the process will work and why citizen involvement over the next few weeks is critical.

On January 23rd, the United States Senate will reconvene to begin legislative business for 2012.  After the first order of business is taken care of, Majority Leader Harry Reid w

It is also possible that PIPA never makes it to the January 24th vote, but that depends on the public weighing in with their U.S. Senators before they come back to Washington D.C.  To begin countering the $94 million spent in lobbying in support of PIPA and SOPA, more than a million Americans have contacted Congress in opposition and citizen boycotts have forced corporations to withdraw their support of passage.  Now Senators are home and away from the D.C. lobby, which is the perfect time for citizens to ask their Senators to voice their opposition to PIPA before they return to Washington D.C.  If enough Senators publicly object to PIPA, then it is likely that consideration would be delayed in order to begin negotiating a compromise.  So it is important that the public try to meet with their two Senators and their home state staff and inform them on where they stand and ask their Senators to represent the public interest by standing with them.

federal prisons that stretches across the country, hidden away on back roads. Today, it houses far more men convicted in terrorism cases than the shrunken population of the prison in Cuba that has generated so much debate.

Congress has reignited an old debate, with some arguing that only military justice is appropriate for terrorist suspects. But military tribunals have proved excruciatingly slow and imprisonment at Guantánamo hugely costly — $800,000 per inmate a year, compared with $25,000 in federal prison.