TB Woman’s Identity Kept Secret

A Santa Clara County resident infected with a dangerous strain of tuberculosis flew back to the United States earlier this month without alerting authorities of her illness – potentially threatening fellow passengers and people at Stanford Hospital’s emergency room with … Continued

England Discovers Open Records

The British gave America the basics of government and a history of societal organization dating to the Magna Carta. However, the United Kingdom has no equivalent of the US Bill of Rights. American concepts such a freedom of speech, freedom … Continued

States Lose Attempt to Keep Offender Teachers Secret

Friday the Sarasota Herald-Tribune published a searchable database from a nationwide list of 24,500 teachers who have been punished for a wide array of offenses. The SHT requested the information from the Florida Department of Education and then waited for … Continued

Identity of Contaminated Clinic a State Secret

Twenty patients of an oncology clinic in the Dallas area were sickened by medical syringes contaminated with bacteria. The bacterium, called Serratia marcescens, can cause fever and chills but generally responds to antibiotics. Some of the Dallas-area patients became so … Continued

Pennsylvania Refuse to Release Polling Results

Pennsylvania legislative leaders have paid out-of-state companies $466,000 this year to conduct focus groups and public-opinion surveys. Even though the polls have been paid for by taxpayer dollars, the politicians have refused to release the results. Politicians are afraid of … Continued

Adoption Records Might Become Public

Should adult adoptees have access to their birth records and be able to learn the identity of their birth parents? It is a question with two sides, that of the adoptee and that of the adoptee’s biological parents. On one … Continued

Texas Cities Unwelcome to Sex Offenders

Nearly two dozen North Texas cities have passed laws prohibiting sex offenders from living within 1,000 or 2,000 feet of schools, day-care centers, parks and other places frequented by children. The attached Dallas Morning News story appears to argue that … Continued

Prostitutes Claim Right to Privacy

Marjorie Cohn, a professor at the Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego, said that a Web site that publishes photos of convicted prostitutes violates the women’s right to privacy. “It’s an incredible invasion of the privacy of the … Continued

NASA Keeps Air Safety Study Secret

Anxious to avoid upsetting air travelers, NASA is withholding results from an unprecedented national survey of pilots that found safety problems like near collisions and runway interference occur far more frequently than the government previously recognized. After all what could … Continued

Defective Bridges Reports Remain Secret

Bridge inspection reports can legally remain secret, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott’s office has decided. Bridge maintenance is a life and death matter as so clearly proven by the recent I35 Minneapolis bridge collapse. In 1990, the Minneapolis bridge was … Continued