By Rosanna Cavanagh As we ring in the New Year without a new farm bill, we put off until next year the resolution of an important right-to-know issue of significant public concern. If you eat, live near a farm, or care about animals, this bill should concern you, and so, it concerns us all. Last month, […]
By Cliff Schechtman PORTLAND, Me. — The Portland Press Herald won a landmark freedom of information case last month that will now allow the public to better evaluate how well first responders do their job. In a unanimous decision that reversed a lower court, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court declared that 911 transcripts should be […]
By James H. Smith When Connecticut legislators met in secret last session, working with the families of the victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings, they came out from behind closed doors long enough to pass legislation making secret crime scene photos and certain 911 tapes of every homicide in the state henceforth. The […]
By NEFAC Staff Let’s resolve to keep our right- to-know mission going strong in 2014. It is not too late to show your determination by making a tax deductible donation on NEFAC’s website. Here’s an overview of our activities for 2014. Make your first calendar entry at Jan. 8, the deadline for applications and nominations for […]
By Jennifer McDermott NEW LONDON, Conn. – Before it was a “Google barge,” it was New London’s mystery barge. Construction on the four-story structure began in the late spring at the Admiral Harold E. Shear State Pier near downtown New London. One of the early theories among staff at The Day and the readers who called us asking […]
By Rosanna Cavanagh Have you noticed lately that it seems we are taking a trip down the rabbit hole when it comes to citizen privacy versus the public’s right to know? The new norm has become that we citizens have no reasonable expectation of privacy (witness the NSA’s amassing of warehouses of information about us) but […]
By William J. Kole It’s journalism’s dirty little secret: Just because we have information doesn’t necessarily mean we’re going to use it. When The Associated Press asked officials in Newtown, Conn., for the tapes of 911 calls made during last December’s massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, it touched off a debate pitting privacy rights […]
By Sigmund D. Schutz As of Oct.1 newspapers lost their sales tax exemption in Maine. The sale of fuel to burn blueberry fields, lobster bait, ships stores, and dozens of other preferred groups and activities retained their sales tax exemptions. The Governor’s Office of Tax Policy gave as reason for the new tax that “generally” sales […]
By Brent Curtis The Vermont Supreme Court has ruled in favor of the public’s right to access to the criminal and internal investigations of two Rutland police officers who viewed pornography on work computers. More than three years after the Rutland Herald’s initial request for the records was denied by the city, the court’s five justices on Oct. 11 unanimously […]
By Randy Billings When the city’s controversial health inspector quietly resigned and stopped returning my phone calls, I knew something was fishy. It was unusual for the health inspector to be a voice in my stories, because the city had barred her from speaking with reporters. But when I learned she had resigned, I thought it would […]