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WV High Court Protects Some Academic Records From Public Access

While West Virginia does not have an academic-freedom exemption to its public records law, that state's high court has ruled that documents that are "internal memoranda" from a university researcher's examination of the impact of mountaintop-removal mining on public health are exempt from disclosure.

The Charleston Gazette's Ken Ward Jr. reports that Alpha Natural Resources' efforts to get West Virginia University to release research documents would expose the predecisional, deliberative "'decision-making process in such a way as to hinder candid discussion' by university faculty and 'undermine WVU’s ability to perform its operations.'" The court was examining the exemption for internal governmental communications reflecting a "'public body's deliberative, decision-making process."'

Researcher Michael Hendryx has found that people living near mountaintop removal face increased risks of premature death, cancer and birth defects.

#FOIA Bill On Track For Passage

The Washington Post's Josh Hicks reports that a bill to reform the Freedom of Information Act is on track to be passed by Congress as long as House leaders put a bill passed by the Senate on the schedule; similar legislation was passed by the House several months ago: "Reps. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) and Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), who sponsored the House bill, urged their House colleagues to approve the Senate version and send it to the president. They said in a joint statement Tuesday that the measure would 'strengthen FOIA, the cornerstone of open-government law.'"

One of the key changes in the FOIA bill would limit exemption 5, which excludes from disclosure records because of attorney-client, attorney work product and deliberative process privileges. Open-government advocates say this exemption is abused by government agencies. Agencies would be required to release information after 25 years, Hicks reports.

Government Seeks to Halt Release of Gitmo Forcefeeding Videos

The Justice Department has moved to halt the plans of a federal judge "for releasing videotapes showing a Guantanamo Bay hunger striker being forcibly removed from his cell, strapped to a restraining chair and force-fed his meals," the Associated Press reports. U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler has ruled that classified information about Abu Wa'el Dhiab's detention at Guantanamo Bay, including the 28 videos of his force-feedings should be released after identifying information of government personnel be blocked out.

Florida Uses High Fees to Squelch Access to Judicial Records

Florida's 17th judicial circuit wanted to charge $132,000 to search for records pertinent to the Center for Public Integrity 's request to access procedures and policies regarding foreclosure cases. "Charging high fees for access to public information can undermine public records laws and serve as a back-door way for government agencies to avoid releasing information they want kept private," the center notes. The center is seeking reconsideration of the bill, which it says are excessive.

Newspaper Sues to Get Executive Branch to Preserve Emails

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has sued to stop the practice of Governor Tom Corbett's administration and other executive-branch agencies of destroying emails after five days, the newspaper's Bill Shackner reports. The lawyers for the newspaper argued that "the state’s practice violates the due process rights of the public seeking release of public records under Pennsylvania’s Right-to-Know Law," Shackner further reports.

In another open-records development in Pennsylvania, a grand jury judge lifted a stay blocking the release of what has been described as "as sexually-charged emails circulated among certain Attorney General staff and prosecutors during the course of the Jerry Sandusky probe," according to the Harrisburg Patriot-News' Charles Thompson.

Privacy Exceptions Increasingly Invoked Against FOIA Requests

Privacy exceptions to the federal Freedom of Information Act have been invoked to reject records requests regarding Edward Snowden, Osama bin Laden and former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, The Huffington Post's Matt Sledge reports: "Along with a 'deliberative process' exemption that allows an agency to withhold documents produced as part of a decision-making process, the government regularly cites privacy. The exemption often is used validly, to protect personnel or medical records. But other times, it papers over sensitive subjects the government would rather keep secret -- and not just Snowden."

Public Records Detail Protracted Execution of Inmate Who Lost First Amendment Fight

I am really struck that, through public records, The Arizona Republic was able to learn that Arizona death row inmate Joseph Wood was injected 15 times with drugs midazolam and hydromorphone over a two-hour period before he was finally pronounced dead. It was supposed to just take two doses to kill him. The Associated Press reported he "gasped more than 600 times over the next hour and 40 minutes." But before Wood was executed he lost his First Amendment fight to find out the details of the state's methods for lethal injections, including where it obtains its supply of the drugs or the executioners' medical qualifications. While the Ninth Circuit put his execution on hold, according to the AP, the Supreme Court lifted the stay. So Wood couldn't get access to information before his execution. But it can be obtained after the fact.

'You're an Outsider': Adoptees Push to Open Up Access to Birth Certificates

Submitted by Amaris Elliott-Engel on Sat, 05/03/2014 - 11:50

The Connecticut Post and the Danbury News-Times published my piece (DNT20140428.pdf) about adoptees who are trying to change the law so they can have access to their birth certificates.

Joan DiGiulio doesn’t know who she is.

Until the age of 45, DiGiulio didn’t know she was adopted. She only discovered her past when she went to get her birth certificate in New York City before taking a trip to Europe.

DiGiulio will turn 76 next month, but the identity of the woman who gave birth to her remains a mystery. DiGiulio said she has given up actively searching for her birth family because it just makes her want to weep.

Although her adoptive parents never treated her as an outsider, it was hard to shake that sentiment.

“You’re an outsider even though you think you’re not,” said DiGiulio, who lived in Danbury for more than 40 years and now splits her time between Florida and Southbury.

While DiGiulio concedes it’s unlikely her birth mother is still alive, she wonders if she has any biological siblings. She is also interested in her medical history, hoping it could illuminate a medical condition that affects no one in her family but her daughter.

It’s just one more longshot in a lifetime of longshots.

DiGiulio is stymied in her search because New York and Connecticut seal adoption records. Undaunted, DiGiulio and many other adoptees hope Connecticut lawmakers will soon allow access to the birth certificates of those who have been adopted.

In Connecticut, adoptees have their original birth certificates sealed and are issued revised birth certificates that list their adoptive parents as their parents. Until 40 years ago, birth certificates were open records.

Right now, a bill is pending in the General Assembly that would give adult adoptees — and their children and grandchildren — the right to access the original birth certificates. The bill would set up a voluntary procedure for birth parents to specify if they want to be contacted by their adopted descendants. Adoption agency counseling records, and court records of adoption hearings and the termination of parental rights, would remain confidential.

Time is running out, however, for the law to be changed this legislative session, which ends May 7. A compromise is on the table that would restore access to birth certificates for those adopted Jan. 1, 1983, or later. The rationale for opening some, but not all birth certificates is a form has been given to birth parents since 1983 in which they are advised when terminating their parental rights, “the child or youth, upon reaching his or her 18th birthday, may have the right to information which may identify me or other blood relatives.”

State Rep. Fred Camillo, R-Greenwich, is a co-sponsor of the original legislation to open adoptee birth certificates.

Some legislators are reluctant to support the legislation because of the earlier implicit promise to birth parents that adoption records would be closed, Camillo said.

Others are concerned that if adoptions are no longer closed, birth mothers will choose abortions instead of adoptions, he said.

Camillo argues unsealing adoptee birth certificates will help adoptees search for their birth parents and access information about their health that could potentially save their lives.

Ultimately, he said, health trumps embarrassment.

Catholic Charities, Diocese of Norwich, and Catholic Charities, Archdiocese of Hartford, submitted testimony against House Bill 5144.

In its written testimony, Catholic Charities of Norwich said lawmakers should “respect the privacy rights of biological parents who were ensured confidentiality at the time that they made the decision to place their children for adoption. Releasing this information without their consent violates fundamental fairness and privacy rights which are the foundation of our laws.”

Karen Caffrey, another adoptee, is a psychotherapist who counsels adoptees and an activist with the grassroots adoption organization, Access Connecticut.

Caffrey said her group supports the compromise bill. If the bill passes this spring, Access Connecticut will work to restore access to the birth certificates of people who were adopted before 1983, she said.

Adoption secrecy was a social experiment to protect children from the stigma of being born outside of marriage and acquiring bastard status, Caffrey said.

Karen Waggoner, of Bethel, a retiree who gave her daughter up for adoption, said women had to drop out of school when they got pregnant.

Waggoner, who grew up in Greenwich, said the stigma continues today. Waggoner, who is in the middle of helping to plan her 50th high school reunion, said she has classmates who got pregnant as teenagers and are unwilling to come to the event.

“It was a hideaway era,” she said.

Penny Palmer, a Bethel resident who grew up in Greenwich, gave up her son for adoption in 1968. Palmer said she was the only young woman she knew of who got pregnant and wasn’t sent out of town.

Today, there’s far less social scorn about children being born to unmarried parents, she said.

But in the late 1960s, not only did women go through the trauma of giving up their children, everyone around them made them feel “so horrible” for getting pregnant out of wedlock, Palmer said.

“I do understand why people don’t get over that,” she said.

For Palmer, finding her biological son turned out to be a joyful experience.

After finding him at the age of 22 in 1990, her son’s adoptive parents became part of her family, and her two younger sons embraced their older half-brother, Palmer said. He has now been a part of her life for longer than he was out of it.

Krista Bradford, a Westport resident, grew up knowing she was adopted as a baby in California. But she still had compelling questions about her identity that her adoptive parents couldn’t answer.

Finally, the need to find answers led her to careers in journalism and executive recruitment, she said. Bradford eventually tracked down both of her birth parents. She also met her siblings.

People are realizing that closed adoptions do more harm than good, Bradford said, because adoptees tend to imagine one of two extremes about their birth parents — they’re either famous, exotic royalty or celebrities, or they’re villains with loose morals.

Secrecy tends to generate shame, Bradford said. It also deprives adoptees of their sense of identity, their sense of well-being and their birth family’s medical information.

“I believe in the power of sunlight,” Bradford said.

Second Circuit Orders Release of Legal Guidance About Drone Killings

The Second Circuit has ruled that the federal government must release a redacted version of the legal guidance for the targeted killings of American citizens by drones, the New York Law Journal reports. The plaintiffs, including the New York Times, wanted information about the justifications for killing U.S. citizens Anwar al-Awlaki, his 16-year-old son, Abdulrahman, and Samir Khan by drone strike in Yemen. The appellate court reasoned that the secrecy of the legal analysis was waived because of voluntary disclosures by government officials.

AP Analysis: Obama Administration Censors Government Files More Than It Releases Them

President Barack Obama's administration had its worst year in transparency since he took office, the Associated Press reports: "More often than ever, the administration censored government files or outright denied access to them last year under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act, cited more legal exceptions it said justified withholding materials and refused a record number of times to turn over files quickly that might be especially newsworthy, according to a new analysis of federal data by The Associated Press."

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