The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has released The Foilies 2023, ignoble awards recognizing public agencies’ attempts to thwart freedom of information requests and the public right to know.
Recognitions include overzealous redactions, Glomar responses, self-owns, excessive fees, retconning plausible deniability, lawfare, and more.
The Foilies will leave you laughing - until you cry - about the state of public information in 2023. Compiled by EFF and MuckRock, are they any other unfreedom of information acts you think deserve a dishonorable mention?
Not EFF but the Hearings About Twitter were disappointing for 1A issues.
In testimony to the House Judiciary Committee about the Twitter Files, a few words about why state-funded "anti-disinformation" and free speech can't coexist
Not EFF but the Hearings About Twitter were disappointing for 1A issues.
In testimony to the House Judiciary Committee about the Twitter Files, a few words about why state-funded "anti-disinformation" and free speech can't coexist
https://www.racket.news/p/my-statement-to-congress
I just watched those today and the Democrats did not come off well.
These and the #TwitterFiles are on my to-do list. It was no surprise to me that the Global Engagement Center featured prominently in one of the recent analyses - I wrote about them vis a vis the Q/Anon conspiracy community back in 2018. Also our personal fave Newsguard gets a mention in Taibbi's testimony ::laughing with tears:: [https://judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/republicans-judiciary.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/taibbi-testimony.pdf]
BC, Canada gets a Foilie for making FOI requests subject to a $10 fee...The Canadian Association of Journalists (CAJ) has awarded B.C.’s NDP government its annual Code of Silence award for its changes to the provincial Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA). https://biv.com/article/2022/02/bc-government-wins-code-silence-award & https://thetyee.ca/News/2022/11/29/FOI-Fee-Has-Not-Sped-Up-Responses/
Have to share Canadian Advocate's work on bringing attention to these issues "The Code of Silence Award for Outstanding Achievement in Government Secrecy" https://cfe.torontomu.ca/awards/code-silence-award-outstanding-achievement-government-secrecy
Just goes to show you, 'humor is the weapon of unarmed people' (Simon Wiesenthal), taken seriously in both diplomacy / information warfare [https://www.iwp.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/20060209_RidiculeasaWeapon2.2.1.pdf] as well as social reform [https://doi.org/10.22381/RCP1920202]!