Resources

National FOIA blogs:

• The WikiFOIA Blog: State Sunshine and Open Records
• Accountable Strategies (governmental,corporate and nonprofit accountability blog)
• beSpecific (beSpacific provides: Daily law and technology news with links to reliable primary and secondary sources on topics including: e-government, privacy, government documents, cybercrime and ID theft, the Patriot Act, freedom of information, federal legislation, legal research, KM, blogs, RSS and wikis.)
• BRB's Public Records Blog (a public records access vendor)
• Common Sense Journalism (helpful tips that a budding Citizen Journalist could use)
• Depth Reporting (blog geared to reporters, but has resources useful to anyone)
• FOI FYI (the FOIA blog of the Society of Professional Journalists)
• The FOI Advocate (National Freedom of Information Coalition offical blog)
• The FOIA Blog (FOIA opinions from a DC based lawyer)
• In Broad Daylight (the Sunlight Foundation's blog by Paul Blumanthal)
• Muckraking (covers a varity of issues pertaining to open records and journalism)
• PI Buzz (a great resource for databases of FOIA contacts in various states)
• PublicSpend (Blog about how to access government records relating to contracts and business)
• The Secrecy File (Daily developments about the growing level of secrecy in the federal government and how it impacts the public's right to know.)
• Thomas Jackson Center for Freedom of Information (Dedicated to putting years of experience within the goverment to work for the cause of equal civil rights and easier access to public documents via the Freedom of Information Act.)
• U.S. Public Records (an advertising blog, but with the occasional good link or tip)

General FOIA websites:

This is a Federal How-To from YouTube:

• Arizona Model for preserving Web documents(an abstract discussing the ways/means of preserving web documents)
• Appligent Inc. (Redaction software for PDF documents)
• ASAP (American Society of Access Professionals)
• The Art of Information Access Project (an anthropological approach to FOIA)
• Citizen Access Project (open records and open meetings studies)
• Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (the CREW blog)
• Department of Justice (federal FOIA)
• Electronic Frontier Foundation (FOIA Litigation for Accountable Government (FLAG) Project)
• Find County Records (online county records search tool)
• Freedom of Information: A citizen's guide to fighting secret government (Local and national organizations that offer a wide range of resources for journalists, citizen activists, and hell-raisers from the San Francisco Bay Guardian)
• First Amendment Center (free speech)
• GODORT wiki (State Agency Databases)
• The Freedom of Information Center(laws by state)
• Investigative Reporters & Editors  (state law report cards)
• Coalition of Journalists for Open Government
• FOIAdvocates (Use of federal and state pubic records laws)
• Internet Open Records Project (An organization with the goal of making all public records available online)
• John E. Moss Foundation (information about one of the authors of the federal Freedom of Information Act)
• Judicial Watch (a conservative government watchdog group with an Open Records Project)
• National Freedom of Information Coalition (grants and conferences)
• National Security Archive (lots of good FOIA basics, scroll to bottom for some letter templates)
• Netronline (Real Estate information and Public Records research)
• Open Government Guide (legal examination of laws by state)
• Open Government Journal (a journal on Freedom of Information)
• Open the Government (they promote a varity of measures to generate transparency in the government; not FOIA-specific, but there is some useful info here)
• Public Citizen (a Freedom of Information Clearinghouse)
• Reporter's Committee for Freedom of the Press
  • Reporter's Committee for Freedom of the Press offer this Federal or State level FOIA letter generator
• Sam Adams Alliance A national libertarian/conservative organization that helps citizens promote government accountability
• Society of Professional Journalists (FOIA info specific to journalists, but useful tools for anyone. Follow this link to watch a video about their success in outing "Senator Secrecy" John Kyl)
• Student Press Law Center (letter generator)
• Sunlight Foundation  (commentary and FOIA-related news--see below for a link directly to the Sunlight Foundation's blog)
• Sunshine in Government Initiative (tracking FOIA reforms)
• Sunshine Week (round-up of sunshine week 2007)
• The John E. Moss Foundation (Father of FOIA)

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