Freedom of Information Act 2009 -

The Freedom of Information Act is over forty years old, but what do you know about it, really?  FOIA allows government agencies and departments to release information not previously released.  Citizens desiring access to such information can apply to the appropriate department and request access.

The rules for actual implementation of the law comes from the Dept. of Justice, and they can vary from one administration to the next.  In 2001 Attorney General John Ashcrot issued guidelines to federal departments indicating that information should only be release after full and deliberate consideration of privacy interests.  In March 19, 2009, Attorney General Eric Holder issues a new guidance memo. The memo states that "in the face of doubt, openness prevailst".  The Dept of Justice will defend denial of a FOIA request only if the agency reasonably foresees that disclosure would harm an interest protected by one of the statutory exemptions, or disclosure is prohibited by law.

To learn more - US Dept of Justice FOIA Post October 2001 and FOIA Memo March 2009 - http://www.usdoj.gov/

Say what you want about paying taxes and the IRS, but when it comes to compiling and disseminating statistical data, you can't beat them!  Go to

http://www.irs.gov/taxstats/index.html to find business tax statistics (foreign and domestic), individual tax statistics (including personal wealth), data related to IRS operations, statistics related to charitable organizations and non profits, demographic research for the current year and previous years ... you can get statistics by actual tax form, for various years. See Tax Statistics, from Statistics of Income Division of the IRS.  Who ever thought tax returns could be so breakthtaking and instructive!

Did you know?

National and international regulatory bodies exist and for good reason - to protect citizens against abuse and misconduct attributed to authorities we want to trust.  Sometimes, physicians don't behave properly.  Now using the Federation Physician Data Center (FPDC) , a central repository for formal actions taken against physicians by state licensing and disciplinary boards, Canadian licensing authorities, the US armed forces, the US Dept of Health and Human Services, and other national and international regulatory bodies, physicians that do not live up to their oath and professionalism, can be checked out.  The FPDC is typically used in performaing credentialing functions or pre-employment background checks or when you need to select a physician.  Go to http://www.fsmb.org to check on 46,000 physicians and more than 156,000 board actions, since the 1960's.