04/22/16 – By John Voket
Following separate closed deliberation sessions and secret balloting April 18, both which may have Freedom of Information implications, Newtown’s Board of Ethics recommended local selectmen consider a number of violations against a current, and a former, school board member. [Read More]
By Terry Cowgill
While the freedom-of-information outlook has often been rather grim during the transparency-challenged Malloy administration, the General Assembly’s regular session finished up with some encouraging news.
And gosh knows, we could use some. Remember the “Task Force on Victim Privacy and the Public’s Right to Know,” the ill-advised government secrecy panel formed in the emotional aftermath of the Newtown school massacre? And there was the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities, which lobbied (apparently unsuccessfully) to get a slew of new FOI exemptions passed for towns and cities.
And don’t forget the disastrous Office of Government Accountability, a Malloy-inspired effort to consolidate several agencies, including three of the largest autonomous watchdog units, and essentially put them under his control. The act, which (shockingly) included the Freedom of Information Commission, was met with cries of well-earned protest from open-government advocates that grew even louder after a pair of arrogant performances on the part of the OGA’s first two executive administrators. [Read More]
Months after the Newtown tragedy, State Police released a lot of information on their investigation into the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings and gunman Adam Lanza, but they didn’t release everything, and a court battle between authorities and the media over unreleased documents has ensued.
The Hartford Courant has requested documents which are referenced in the State Police report on the Dec. 14, 2012, shootings, but which haven’t been made public. Lanza, 20, killed his mother, Nancy Lanza, at home, then fatally shot 20 children and six adults inside the school before committing suicide.
A spiral-bound book, called “The Big Book of Granny,” is among the unreleased items which had been seized from Lanza’s home. A state Office of the Child Advocate report describes it as the killer’s fifth-grade project, with a narrative related to child murder, cannibalism and taxidermy.
The Courant is also seeking a class photo [Read more]
Join host John Dankosky for a discussion on Freedom of Information issues in Connecticut, including an update on the Newtown/Sandy Hook shooting investigation.
What: Panel discussion will be recorded for air later
Where: Student Center 120
Date: Oct. 30, 2014
Time: 12:30-1:30 p.m.
Panelists:
Daniel Klau, Hartford attorney, First Amendment and Media Law specialist.
James Smith, Connecticut Council on Freedom of Information president. Encouraged Gov. Dannel Malloy to push for the release of state police information regarding the Sandy Hook investigation.
Khalilah Brown-Dean, political science professor at Quinnipiac.
Edward Alwood, journalism professor at Quinnipiac.
Sponsored by:
QU School of Communications and Connecticut Foundation for Open Government
HARTFORD — The stage is set for a showdown at the General Assembly on crime victim privacy and the public’s right to know.
On Tuesday, the legislature’s judiciary committee approved a bill that would establish new restrictions on the public’s ability to access police records such as 911 tapes and crime scene photos. It also would prohibit the release of photographs of child murder victims.
In urging his colleagues to back the bill, Sen. Eric Coleman, D-Bloomfield, said it strikes the right balance. The measure mirrors the recommendations of a legislative task force formed last year to study issues of privacy versus disclosure, after some families of victims killed in the 2012 Newtown school…Click here to continue reading.
