Now to the news:

Trends in Parking Ticket Appeals: First off, some local color for all you MA MuckRockers out there, as from Somerville comes this report of odd dismissal patterns for parking ticket appeals. After Watertown native Mark Pickering’s appeal of a parking citation was responded to with a rejection, plus an additional $5 fine, author Barry Rafkind filed a request (through MuckRock!) for data on the rejection rates for traffic citation appeals over the past four years. The results themselves are laid out in graphs in the article, but suffice it to say that Somerville’s appeals process has been quite inconsistent in its results for similar appeals based on such unimportant factors as whether the person appealed online or not.

Court says FOIA request cannot be used in whistleblower lawsuit: The Supreme Court ruled recently on the case Schindler Elevator Corp. v United States, setting a precedent by saying that in False Claims suits, Freedom of Information request results are not admissible as evidence because they count as public information, which is covered by the False Claims Act. After Daniel Kirk sued his former employer over a failure to correctly report the employment of Vietnam vets, his wife confirmed his suspicions with a FOI request. Unfortunately for Kirk, the Supreme Court considered the request’s results “publicly disclosed information” and so sided with his former employer.

DHS Accused of Hiding Fingerprinting Data: In response to controversy over whether the DHS is forcing local law enforcement to hand over or collect fingerprint data from illegal immigrants, critics of the department (specifically the Center for Constitutional Rights, the National Day Laborer Organizing Network and the Immigration Justice Clinic at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law) have filed a FOI request for the metadata (labeling data, list of recipients, formatting information, etc.) of emails sent by and to DHS employees concerning the fingerprinting program. As you may remember from way back, a New York federal judge has previously ruled that agencies must release metadata in FOI requests (in a case that also involved the DHS and the NDLON).

FBI, CIA Must Comply With FOIA Request: Finally, in Salt Lake city, one Jesse Trentadue has won his case against the FBI and CIA, whom he argues have deliberately withheld information and obstructed his FOI requests concerning the Oklahoma City bombing of 1995 that his brother perished in. U.S. District Judge Clark Waddoups ruled that the intelligence agencies must release all information, videos, or other such things gathered in the aftermath of the bombing, or provide evidence as to why the search for such information would be so difficult as to be exempt.

They also have a great podcast series in which Mike Webb interviews ProPublica staff.

In episode 6, Mike interviews Jennifer LaFleur about her work developing Recovery Tracker 3.0, a tool that aims to help the public tracker every stimulus dollar spent. For example, you can see how the $1,368,268,456 targeted at Middlesex County, MA is being spent, broken down by agency and department:

Or you can dive even deeper, and look at individual stimulus contracts.

In all, it’s an immense amount of financial data that LaFleur and her team made easily digestible without dumbing it down, and as she remarks in the podcast in many areas it’s more complete than the government’s own database at Recover.gov.

Mike Webb also interviewed Olga Pierce, Jeff Larson and Scott Klein for a podcast on how the former pair’s Health Care Bill Comparison News App came together, from the inception of the idea over a coffee break to finished product just a few weeks later. While the app itself is relatively simple, it’s a quick, clean way to find and understand a myriad of changes occurring in what could be the most landmark legislation of the decade, legislation that was knocked back and forth so many times there’s a good chance most of the senators voting for and against it weren’t fully aware of what they were voting on.

Jeff’s execution of the application is elegant, and as they note on the podcast, it became a hot tool while the bill was actually on the floor as both pundits and the public tried to figure out what, exactly, this monumental legislation included.

Know of other great government data resources, whether state or federal? Let me know at Michael@MuckRock.com, and we’ll share the knowledge with the rest of our community.