Les Editions IMODEV (Institut du Monde et du Développement pour la Bonne Gouvernance Publique)
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Journalist, Terrorist or Counter-terrorist? The Perils of Investigative Journalism Post-9/11
Get PDF[extract] Freedom of information and governmental transparency require champions. Lawyers and even some politicians may fondly believe that they are the self-appointed champions. However, journalists may have at least an equal claim to a leadership role. They may be viewed as unencumbered by the special interests of their client or their political party. More positively, journalists have a special public interest role to play in informing the public
Entitlement to Public Records: Beyond Citizenship
Get PDF[extract] Nations across the globe have enacted government transparency laws, potentially enabling people to learn what those governments are “up to.” Such laws require governments to provide official documents upon request, albeit often with major exceptions allowing the government to withhold or redact many documents. Scholars have devoted much attention to analysis and assessment of these exceptions and the enforcement mechanisms for holding a government to its transparency obligations. But one conceptually significant question has received scant attention – who should be entitled to demand records under such transparency laws?The statutory answer to this question is far from uniform; indeed, on this issue transparency statutes can differ quite dramatically. Within the United States, some state governments reserve the right to request records to their own citizens. A few even bar segments of their citizenry, such as incarcerated felons, from invoking their freedom of information laws. Internationally, India limits access to its own citizens. By contrast, the Freedom of Information Act governing access to United States Government records, allows any non-foreign-state requester to obtain records. The European Union (“EU”) and Canada appear to adopt a middle ground that focuses on “physical presence” so that not only citizens, but permanent residents, can access government records
The Norwegian Freedom of Information Act – A not so Transparent Act ?
Get PDF[extract] According to a recently published report, Norway and Finland are the two most open Nordic countries. Norway, which has been part of the Open Government Partnership since its creation in 2010, is undoubtedly one of the most open governments in the world. Not only has Norway dedicated itself to improving openness and transparency, but it has achieved one of the highest degrees of information integrity.
Towards Increased Citizen Participation in Europe: Impact of Current Developments on Political Decision Making and Democracy
Get PDF[extract] At the moment we witness an interesting trend in Europe. New elements of direct democracy have been introduced at the national level in the nation states and at the EU level since the 1990’s. At the national level the new direct democracy elements include an increased number of national referenda, introductions of citizens’ initiatives and a generally increased involvement of the People in formulating constitutional revisions. Many reasons can be provided for this development for instance an economic and political crisis; reestablishment of democracies in East and Central Europe; a reaction to EU integration; direct democracy as a tool and strategy for upholding the nation state in EU integration; the EU searching for more democratic legitimacy; and competition between the EU and the nation states for democratic legitimacy.At the EU level an EU citizens’ initiative has been introduced with the Lisbon Treaty. This can be seen as an attempt to make the EU decision-making process more democratic.It has also been put forward that the development at the national level and at the EU level viewed together could be seen as a competition for democratic legitimacy between the member states and the EU. The development towards more direct democracy elements at all levels seems to indicate an increased democratisation of the European decision-making processes. However, whether this is really true naturally depends on the impact of the new initiatives. In this paper we analyse the impact of the introduction of one kind of direct democracy instrument namely citizens’ initiatives. We analyse the impact of citizens’ initiatives in a number of European nation states and the impact of the EU citizens’ initiative. Accordingly, we show synergies between the national level and the EU level. The impact will primarily be measured as the success rate of the citizens’ initiatives meaning the amount of initiatives brought to the national parliaments subsequently becoming a legislative act as a result of the initiative procedure. The reason for this is mainly that it is easy to measure such an effect and that the data is generally accessible. However, as we shall return to, citizens’ initiatives can have other kinds of impact than concrete legislation.
From The Right to Transparency to Open Government in a Digital Era. A French Approach
No full texthe right to transparency in public administrations has ancient origins. Indeed, it was a one of the foundational principle of the French Revolution, and constituted a revolt against the practices of the old regime, by providing a high level of opacity, particularly in regard to the financing of public activities. Under the old regime, it was impossible to clearly distinguish the finances of the King from those of the State. The absence of a real budget under the Monarchy illustrates the financial mess that was prevalent at the time, and it also reveals the absence of transparency within the Kingdom of France. In the absence of a public budget, kings were not accountable. The only budgetary and accounting documents that existed within the nation at that time, and which could not be regarded as real budgets or accounts, were prepared solely for the king and his council’s use rather than for the public
Academic Freedom, the Presumption of Openness, and Privacy
Get PDF[extract] There is, at least in large principle, freedom of information in the United States, a presumption that government and its functions will be and should be open to the public. This means that many government documents ranging from budgets to extraterrestrial life investigations to arrestees’ mugshots are available to anyone who makes a request for them. The idea is that robust openness gives citizens the ability to learn exactly what government players are doing and, as the documents may sometimes reveal, why.There are groups with interests that compete with such openness, however, including those professors and researchers whose salaries are paid by the government. These scholars work in public colleges and universities; they are, therefore, public employees and subject to freedom-of-information laws. This essay focuses on public information within the academy – and the effect that such openness has on academics’ First Amendment-based academic freedom. Academic freedom gives many of them rights within reasonable limits to research what they want, to learn what they want, and to teach as they choose. In that way, these government players have a constitutional layer of privacy-related protection for their educational interests that seemingly competes with a presumption of openness.Given the strongly ideological interests behind many requests for academic information, and given the tempering effect on academic expression excessively open access could have, the essay focuses on the threat to academia when states or government or courts are too willing to expose certain academic information. It argues that information privacy law and related Supreme Court concerns about thought investigation could well help shift judicial perception back toward the importance of academic freedom
Interest Convergence and the Role of Citizens as Defenders of Privacy
Get PDF[extract] In February of 2016, the United States Government asked a federal court to order Apple, Inc. to create software that would enable the government to bypass a security feature on the cell phone of one of Syed Farook, one of the killers who went on a shooting rampage in San Bernardino, California, in December of 2015.Apple versus the United States government, including agencies, such as the FBI, the NSA, and the Attorney General, offers unlikely adversaries. Until Apple, Inc., began encrypting the software in its cell phones, government access to phone transmissions was relatively easy to obtain. But the adoption of “technological architectures that inhibit the government’s ability to obtain access to communications, even in circumstances that satisfy the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirements,” created this stand-off, and the Government’s particular fear of “going dark,” where the Government would have no information about communications, has exacerbated it. Perhaps more importantly, until several years ago, there were few incentives by private companies to stand on the side of privacy protection. Companies routinely acquired and aggregated user information. Companies like Google, Axiom, AT&T, Verizon, Facebook and others would come by user information naturally. That information was valuable. Until recently, there was no incentive to protect or maximize privacy. Now, private companies have an incentive to protect privacy. Whether the incentive is pecuniary, with privacy now a brand, or moral or political, many of the larger companies are aligning with Apple in its fight against the government. This paper suggests the alignment may be explained in large part to interest convergence. The late Professor Derrick Bell advanced this theory as an explanation for societal change in segregation after WWII, helping to explain Brown v. Board of Education as a shift favoring the majority Whites as well as the minority African-Americans. This paper further argues that interest convergence can be utilized to promote privacy for the average citizen, while still allowing the government to fight crime effectively. The means creating settled expectations about how companies will assist governments in crime interdiction, labeling – like food ingredients – what companies do with the information they receive and how they approach personal privacy. Interest convergence will lead to gradations and distinctive types of privacy. Gradations can include limited disclosures of information, and archetypes can include informational, locational and structural privacy. Above all, because the advancing technologies will keep advancing, the government will have to work with companies or by itself to adapt or new technological architectures. Citizens will rely more and more on education and favorable alignments with companies. Reliance on the Fourth Amendment, unless the ‘third-party rule’ is significantly adapted to the 21st century, will continue to offer little support.