PIA

June 22, 2022 Statement from Kelley Shannon, executive director of Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas, urging transparency in Uvalde mass shooting investigation: The Freedom of Information Foundation of Texas continues to urge law enforcement and other government officials at all levels – school, city, county, state and federal – to promptly release critical information related to the May 24 mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. Uvalde residents and the public at large have been subjected to the withholding of information about what took place that dreadful day. Information that has trickled out since the tragedy has sometimes [...]

By Lexi Churchill ProPublica co-published with The Texas Tribune June 15, 2022 A growing list of state and local officials are fighting the release of records that could help bring clarity to how the emergency response unfolded during last month’s deadly shooting in Uvalde. The governor’s office strayed from that broader opposition Monday, granting a request under the Texas Public Information Act from a Houston television station that sought the handwritten notes he used when he first spoke publicly about the shooting. The notes appear to support Abbott’s claim that he was misled when he initially praised law enforcement efforts during [...]

By Emily Kopp U.S. Right to Know April 20, 2022 The Wuhan Institute of Virology has the right to ask a partnering lab in the U.S. to destroy all records of their work, according to a legal document obtained by U.S. Right to Know. A memorandum of understanding between the Wuhan lab and the Galveston National Laboratory at the University of Texas Medical Branch states that each lab can ask the other to return or “destroy” any so-called “secret files” — any communications, documents, data or equipment resulting from their collaboration — and ask that they wipe any copies. “The party [...]