July 23, 2008
Bills, lawsuits attempt to thwart private prisons’ escape from FOIA
Two Democratic lawmakers are looking to hold private prisons housing federal inmates to the same Freedom of Information Act standards as federal facilities. But while their bills sit in Congress, the First Amendment Center reports, open government advocates are coming at the issue from a different angle.
Two recent lawsuits aim to increase the flow of information from private prisons using FOIA, according to the First Amendment Center. Last month, the ACLU filed a FOIA suit against the Department of Homeland Security in hopes of forcing the agency to hand over records on the deaths of immigrant detainees who were in the custody of private prisons.
And in May, the Center reports, Prison Legal News, a monthly magazine on prison issues, took the largest private prison-management service in the U.S., Corrections Corporation of America, (CCA) to court in Tennessee. CCA, whose headquarters is in Nashville, had refused the magazine's public-records request…
LINK - RCFP.org (The Reporters' Committee for Freedom of the Press
