Thursday, January 21, 2021

When FOIA Goes to Court: 20 Years of Freedom of Information Act Litigation by News Organizations and Reporters


A good liar is like a chameleon. 

In a new study, researchers have identified a strong sign of fibbing: mimicking the body language of the person they’re lying to. “A liar and a copycat,” the title of the new study now published in the Royal Society’s Open Science journal, could later lead to applications of the theory in criminal justice, New Scientist reported on Friday.

How to spot a liar, according to science


Security vendor Malwarebytes hacked through Office 365 and Azure access


Recognising China. How it was done.

It is almost 50 years since Australia and China agreed to enter into diplomatic relations. The path to agreement had its complications and soon after I retired from DFAT I set about refreshing my memory and that of others involved at the time. The result of this research was published in “Quadrant” in March 1998 and is repeated here without change (though many named here have since died). It offers an inside view of what took place. Continue reading 


‘I don’t hold a hose, mate’: for overseas students Morrison’s ‘hands-off’ approach was writ large

From June last year, the Morrison Government increased the number of offshore student visas even though it knew these people had little to no chance of entering Australia while the pandemic rages around the world. Why would it do this? 

Continue reading 


When FOIA Goes to Court: 20 Years of Freedom of Information Act Litigation by News Organizations and Reporters

“In 2020, news organizations and individual reporters filed 122 different Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuits to compel disclosure of federal government records—more than any year on record according to federal court data back to 2001 analyzed by the FOIA Project. In fact, the media alone have filed a total of 386 FOIA cases during the four years of the Trump Administration, from 2017 through 2020. This is greater than the total of 311 FOIA media cases filed during the sixteen years of the Bush and Obama Administrations combined. This report focuses on news media “FOIA litigants” (a.k.a. “FOIA plaintiffs”). These include both traditional news organizations and alternative news sources when their primary purpose is to be a news source. The FOIA Project’s analysis found that since January 1, 2001, the news media has filed a total of 697 separate FOIA cases in federal court. Looking at these cases reveals 374 distinct plaintiffs, 117 news organizations and 257 individual reporters. A few key FOIA litigators rise to the top. The top ten filers make up less than three percent of all plaintiffs, yet they accounted for 281 of the 697 FOIA cases-40 percent of the total suits filed. To view the list of ‘Top 10’ FOIA litigators as well as a more expansive list of rising stars in the FOIA litigation community, view the FOIA Project’s full report at the link below. Using the FOIA Project’s unique dataset of FOIA cases filed in federal court, this report provides unprecedented and valuable insight into the rapid growth of media lawsuits designed to make the government more transparent and accountable to the public. The complete, updated list of news media cases, along with the names of organizations and reporters who filed these suits, is available on the News Media List at FOIAProject.org.”

 

Everything We Know About The Mysterious Dark Helicopters That Have Been Circling Los Angeles The Drive

 

Here Are 4 Better Responses to the Capitol Riot Than Expanding “Domestic Terror” Crackdowns Jacobin

 

A New Film Details the FBI’s Relentless Pursuit of Martin Luther King Jr. Smithsonian


Is there a philosophy of neuroscience and if so, what is it? — there will be several posts about this at the Brains blog this week


“If I believed the election was stolen, and if I had satisfied myself that my belief was well founded, then I would believe that resisting the outcome, even with force, would be reasonable” — Alec Walen (Rutgers) on the philosophical issues involved in blaming and punishing Trump’s insurrectionists


“‘Call me a slut’ could mean ‘Remind me that I am merely human, trapped in a body and subject to its animal cravings.’” — Kim Kierkegaardashian on the ethics of dirty tallk


Why does scientific fraud happen and what can we do about it? — Liam Kofi Bright (LSE) looks at the problems and a possible solution from W.E.B. Du Bois


“Saying ‘hello’ to strangers is a moral matter, and we cannot breezily disregard the pull to be social as mere etiquette: to ignore a stranger would be to do something wrong” — so argues Kimberlee Brownlee (UBC)


Improving philosophy class with discussion cards — Kaija Mortensen (Randolph College) explains


“Perpetrators of this fraud commit to something so disturbing that it becomes necessary to hide it even from themselves” — Luvell Anderson (Syracuse) on the varieties of racial fraud

PLUS: Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Social Philosophy Course