放送・配信コンテンツ産業戦略検討チーム（第2回）

　本年1月7日、世田谷区史編さんをめぐる争議が解決しました。解決にご尽力いただいた多くの方々に心より感謝します。今回の解決では、和解文書に「著作者人格権の尊重」が明記された点に最大の意義があります。全国の自治体史にかかわる人々、歴史研究者はもとより、フリーランス・クリエーターの権利にも大きな影響を与える内容です。この闘いの意義について、皆様と共有したいと思います。下記の要領で解決報告集会を開きますので、お誘いあわせの上、ご参加ください。(オンライン＋リアル：どちらもお申し込み..

Recognize the Worst in Government Transparency 

Co-written by MuckRock's Michael Morisy, Dillon Bergin, and Kelly Kauffman

The public's right to access government information is constantly under siege across the United States, from both sides of the political aisle. In Maryland, where Democrats hold majorities, the attorney general and state legislature are pushing a bill to allow agencies to reject public records requests that they consider "harassing." At the same time, President Donald Trump's administration has moved its most aggressive government reform effort–the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE–outside the reach of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), while also beginning the mass removal of public data sets.

One of the most powerful tools to fight back against bad governance is public ridicule. That's where we come in: Every year during Sunshine Week (March 16-22). the Electronic Frontier Foundation, MuckRock and AAN Publishers team up to publish The Foilies. This annual report—now a decade old—names and shames the most repugnant, absurd, and incompetent responses to public records requests under FOIA and state transparency laws.

Sometimes the good guys win. For example, last year we highlighted the Los Angeles Police Department for using the courts to retaliate against advocates and a journalist who had rightfully received and published official photographs of police officers. The happy ending (at least for transparency): LAPD has since lost the case, and the city paid the advocates $300,000 to cover their legal bills.

Here are this year's "winners." While they may not all pay up, at least we can make sure they get the negative publicity they're owed. 

The Exorbitant FOIA Fee of the Year: Rapides Parish School District

After a church distributed a religious tract at Lessie Moore Elementary School School in Pineville, La., young students quickly dubbed its frank discussion of mature themes as “the sex book.” Hirsh M. Joshi from the Freedom From Religion Foundation, a lawyer representing a parent, filed a request with the Rapides Parish School District to try to get some basic information: How much did the school coordinate with the church distributing the material? Did other parents complain? What was the internal reaction? Joshi was stunned when the school district responded with an initial estimate of $2 million to cover the cost of processing the request. After local media picked up the story and a bit of negotiating, the school ultimately waived the charges and responded with a mere nine pages of responsive material.

While Rapides Parish’s sky-high estimate ultimately took home the gold this year, there was fierce competition. The Massachusetts State Police wanted $176,431 just to review—and potentially not even release—materials about recruits wholeave the state’s training program early. Back in Louisiana, the Jefferson Parish District Attorney’s office insisted on charging a grieving father more than $5,000 for records on the suspicious death of his own son.

The Now You See It, Now You Don’t Award: University of Wisconsin-Madison

Sports reporter Daniel Libit’s public records request is at the heart of a lawsuit that looks a lot like the Spider-Man pointing meme. In 2023, Libit filed the request for a contract between the University of Wisconsin and Altius Sports Partners, a firm that consults college athletic programs on payment strategies for college athletes ("Name, Image, Likeness" or NIL deals), after reading a university press release about the partnership.The university denied the request, claiming that Altius was actually contracted by the University of Wisconsin Foundation, a separate 501(c)(3). So, Libit asked the foundation for the contract. The foundation then denied the request, claiming it was exempt from Wisconsin’s open records laws. After the denial, Libit filed a lawsuit for the records, which was then dismissed, because the university and foundation argued that Libit had incorrectly asked for a contract between the university and Altius, as opposed to the foundation and Altius.

The foundation did produce a copy of the contract in the lawsuit, but the game of hiding the ball makes one thing clear, as Libit wrote after: “If it requires this kind of effort to get a relatively prosaic NIL consultant contract, imagine the lengths schools are willing to go to keep the really interesting stuff hidden.”

The Fudged Up Beyond All Recognition Award: Central Intelligence Agency 

A CIA official's grandma's fudge recipe was too secret for public consumption.

There are state secrets, and there are family secrets, and sometimes they mix … like a creamy, gooey confectionary.

After Mike Pompeo finished his first year as Trump's CIA director in 2017, investigative reporter Jason Leopold sent a FOIA request asking for all of the memos Pompeo sent to staff. Seven years later, the agency finally produced the records, including a "Merry Christmas and Happy New Year" message recounting the annual holiday reception and gingerbread competition, which was won by a Game of Thrones-themed entry. ("And good use of ice cream cones!" Pompeo wrote.) At the party, Pompeo handed out cards with his mom's "secret" recipe for fudge, and for those who couldn't make it, he also sent it out as an email attachment.

But the CIA redacted the whole thing, vaguely claiming it was protected from disclosure under federal law. This isn't the first time the federal government has protected Pompeo's culinary secrets: In 2021, the State Department redacted Pompeo's pizza toppings and favorite sandwich from emails.

The You Can't Handle the Truth Award: Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin

In Virginia, state officials have come under fire in the past few years for shielding records from the public under the broad use of a “working papers and correspondence” FOIA exemption. When a public records request came in for internal communications on the state’s Military Survivors and Dependents Education Program, which provides tuition-free college to spouses and children of military veterans killed or disabled as a result of their service, Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s office used this “working papers” exemption to reject the FOIA request.

The twist is the request was made by Kayla Owen, a military spouse and a member of the governor’s own task force studying the program. Despite Owen’s attempts to correct the parameters of the request, Youngkin’s office made the final decision in July to withhold more thantwo folders worth of communications with officials who have been involved with policy discussions about the program.

The Courts Cloaked in Secrecy Award (Tie): Solano County Superior Court, Calif., and Washoe County District Court, Nev.

Courts are usually the last place the public can go to vindicate their rights to government records when agencies flout them. When agencies lock down records, courts usually provide the key to open them up.

Except in Vallejo, Calif., where a state trial court judge decided to lock his own courtroom during a public records lawsuit—a move that even Franz Kafka would have dismissed as too surreal and ironic. The suit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union sought a report detailing a disturbing ritual in which officers bent their badges to celebrate their on-duty killings of local residents.

When public access advocates filed an emergency motion to protest the court closure, the court denied it without even letting them in to argue their case. This was not just a bad look; it violated the California and U.S. constitutions, which guarantee public access to court proceedings and a public hearing prior to barring the courtroom doors.

Not to be outdone, a Nevada trial court judge has twice barred a local group from filming hearings concerning a public records lawsuit. The request sought records of an alleged domestic violence incident at the Reno city manager’s house. Despite the Nevada Supreme Court rebuking the judge for prohibiting cameras in her courtroom, she later denied the same group from filming another hearing. The transparency group continues to fight for camera access, but its persistence should not be necessary: The court should have let them record from the get-go.      

The No Tech Support Award: National Security Agency

NSA claimed it didn't have the obsolete tech to access lecture by military computing pioneer Grace Hopper

In 1982, Rear Adm. Grace Hopper (then a captain) presented a lecture to the National Security Agency entitled “Future Possibilities: Data, Hardware, Software, and People.” One can only imagine Hopper's disappointment if she had lived long enough to learn that in the future, the NSA would claim it was impossible for its people to access the recording of the talk.

Hopper is undoubtedly a major figure in the history of computing whose records and lectures are of undeniable historical value, and Michael Ravnitzky, frequent FOIA requester and founder of Government Attic, requested this particular lecture back in 2021. Three years later, the NSA responded to tell him that they had no responsive documents.

Befuddled, Ravnitzky pointed out the lecture had been listed in the NSA’s own Television Center Catalogue. At that point, the agency copped to the actual issue. Yes, it had the record, but it was captured on AMPEX 1-inch open reel tapes, as was more common in the 1980s. Despite being a major intelligence agency with high-tech surveillance and communication capabilities, it claimed it could not find any way to access the recording.

Let’s unpack the multi-layered egregiousness of the NSA’s actions here. It took the agency three years to respond to this FOIA. When it did, the NSA claimed that it had nothing responsive, which was a lie.  But the most colossal failure by the NSA was its claim that it couldn’t find a way to make accessible to the public important moments from our history because of technical difficulties. 

But leave it to librarians to put spies to shame: The National Archives stepped in to help, and now you can watch the lecture in two parts.

Can't get enough of The Foilies? Check out our decade in review and our archives!

　ＪＣＪ沖縄ジャンプナイトは２日、第３３回オンラインイベントを開いた。沖縄タイムス編集局の福元大輔政経部長が「沖縄県の地域外交」と題して講話。玉城デニー沖縄県知事が主要政策として掲げる地域外交の現在地と、その背景について語った。　　　　　 　　　　　　　県の「地域外交」を報じた沖縄タイムス紙面玉城知事提唱「三つのＤ」　２０１８年に初めて知事選に立候補した玉城知事。その出馬会見で表明したのが自身の政策の根幹となる「三つのＤ」だった。ダイバーシティー（多様性）、デモクラシー（民主..

Nashville’s Metropolitan Council is one vote away from passing an ordinance that’s being branded as “guardrails” against the privacy problems that come with giving the police a connected camera system like Axon’s Fusus. But Nashville locals are right to be skeptical of just how much protection from mass surveillance products they can expect.  

"I am against these guardrails," council member Ginny Welsch told the Tennessean recently. "I think they're kind of a farce. I don't think there can be any guardrail when we are giving up our privacy and putting in a surveillance system." 

Likewise, Electronic Frontier Alliance member Lucy Parsons Labs has inveighed against Fusus and the supposed guardrails as a fix to legislators’ and residents’ concerns in a letter to the Metropolitan Council. 

While the ordinance doesn’t name the company specifically, it was introduced in response to privacy concerns over the city’s possible contract for Fusus, an Axon system that facilitates access to live camera footage for police and helps funnel such feeds into real-time crime centers. In particular, local opponents are concerned about data-sharing—a critical part of Fusus—that could impede the city’s ability to uphold its values against the criminalization of some residents, like undocumented immigrants and people seeking reproductive or gender-affirming care.

This technology product, which was acquired by the police surveillance giant Axon in 2024, facilitates two major functions for police:

• With the click of a button—or the tap of an icon on a map—officers can get access to live camera footage from public and private cameras, including the police’s Axon body-worn cameras, that have been integrated into the Fusus network.

• Data feeds from a variety of surveillance tools—like body-worn cameras, drones, gunshot detection, and the connected camera network—can be aggregated into a system that makes those streams quickly accessible and susceptible to further analysis by features marketed as “artificial intelligence.”

From 2022 through 2023, Metropolitan Nashville Police Department (MNPD) had, unbeknownst to the public, already been using Fusus. When the contract came back under consideration, a public outcry and unanswered questions about the system led to its suspension, and the issue was deferred multiple times before the contract renewal was voted down late last year. Nashville council members determined that the Fusus system posed too great a threat to vulnerable groups that the council has sought to protect with city policies and resolutions, including pregnant residents, immigrants, and residents seeking gender-affirming care, among others. The state has criminalized some of the populations that the city of Nashville has passed ordinances to protect. 

Unfortunately, the fight against the sprawling surveillance of Fusus continues. The city council is now making its final consideration of the aforementionedan ordinance that some of its members say will protect city residents in the event that the mayor and other Fusus fans are able to get a contract signed after all.

These so-called guardrails include:

• restricting the MNPD from accessing private cameras or installing public safety cameras in locations “where there is a reasonable expectation of privacy”; 

• prohibiting using face recognition to identify individuals in the connected camera system’s footage; 

• policies addressing authorized access to and use of the connected camera system, including how officers will be trained, and how they will be disciplined for any violations of the policy;

• quarterly audits of access to the connected camera system; 

• mandatory inclusion of a clause in procurement contracts allowing for immediate termination should violations of the ordinance be identified; 

• mandatory reporting to the mayor and the council about any violations of the ordinance, the policies, or other abuse of access to the camera network within seven days of the discovery. 

Here’s the thing: even if these limited “guardrails” are in place, the only true protection from the improper use of the AI-enabled Fusus system is to not use it at all. 

We’ve seen that when law enforcement has access to cameras, they will use them, even if there are clear regulations prohibiting those uses: 

• During protests against police brutality in San Francisco, police used live access to cameras to illegally spy on protestors.

• Black residents of a subsidized housing development became the primary surveillance targets for police officers with Fusus access in Toledo, Ohio. 

• Officers in Massachusetts have been able to use cameras with live access to conduct months-long, ongoing warrantless surveillance. 

Firms such as Fusus and its parent company Axon are pushing AI-driven features, and databases with interjurisdictional access. Surveillance technology is bending toward a future where all of our data are being captured, including our movements by street cameras (like those that would be added to Fusus), our driving patterns by ALPR, our living habits by apps, and our actions online by web trackers, and then being combined, sold, and shared.

When Nashville first started its relationship with Fusus in 2022, the company featured only a few products, primarily focused on standardizing video feeds from different camera providers. 

Now, Fusus is aggressively leaning into artificial intelligence, claiming that its “AI on the Edge” feature is built into the initial capture phase and processes as soon as video is taken. Even if the city bans use of face recognition for the connected camera system, the Fusus system boasts that it can detect humans, objects, and combine other characteristics to identify individuals, detect movements, and set notifications based on certain characteristics and behaviors. Marketing material claims that the system comes “pre-loaded with dozens of search and analysis variables and profiles that are ready for action,” including a "robust & growing AI library.” It’s unclear how these AI recognition options are generated or how they are vetted, if at all, or whether they can even be removed as would be required by the ordinance.

A page from Fusus marketing materials, released through a public records request, featuring information on the artificial intelligence capabilities of its system

The proposed “guardrails” in Nashville are insufficient to address danger posed by mass surveillance systems, and the city of Nashville shouldn’t think they’ve protected their residents, tourists, and other visitors by passing them. Nashville residents and other advocacy groups have already raised concerns.

The only true way to protect Nashville’s residents against dragnet surveillance and overcriminalization is to block access to these invasive technologies altogether. Though this ordinance has passed its second reading, Nashville should not adopt Fusus or any other connected camera system, regardless of whether the ordinance is ultimately adopted. If Councilors care about protecting their constituents, they should hold the line against Fusus. 

　沖縄は旧暦で各種行事を行う。今年の旧正月は1月29日だった。県内各地の漁港では漁業者（ウミンチュ）たちが航海安全と豊漁、家族の健康を願い、漁船に大漁旗を掲げるのが習わしだ。　旧正月のころ台湾や中国、香港など中華圏は新年の「春節」。ベトナムは「テト」。韓国、東南アジアも新年に沸く。民族の大移動といわれる春節。沖縄も海外の観光客であふれている。　カンヒザクラ（緋寒桜ともいう）の淡いピンクの花が青空に映える中、初春の沖縄の風物詩・プロ野球の春季キャンプも真っ盛り。どの球場も県内外..

トランプ米大統領が己の思いつくまま発信する言葉に、「Oh NO ‼オー、ノー！！」と、世界中で声が上がっています。　しかし、「ノー」の声は届かず、トランプは毎日毎日、嬉々としてトランプ・ワンマンショーを、ホワイトハウスをスタジオにし楽しんでいます。　大迷惑を被っている世界の庶民は、「ウクライナ戦争もガザ戦争も関税戦争も、全て空手形でなぎ倒そうとするトランプは、結局、ユダヤ財閥にノーと言えないのだ」と、トランプのアキレス腱を突っついて、憂さを晴らすしかないようです。

Sungrowが提供する複数の製品には、複数の脆弱性が存在します。