In a bold push for medical privacy, Hawaii's House of Representatives has introduced HCR 144/HR 138, a resolution calling for the Hawaii Attorney General to investigate whether crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) are violating patient privacy laws. 

Often referred to as "fake clinics" or “unregulated pregnancy centers” (UPCs), these are non-medical centers that provide  free pregnancy tests and counseling, but typically do not offer essential reproductive care like abortion or contraception. In Hawaii, these centers outnumber actual clinics offering abortion and reproductive healthcare. In fact, the first CPC in the United States was opened in Hawaii in 1967 by Robert Pearson, who then founded the Pearson Foundation, a St. Louis-based organization to assist local groups in setting up unregulated crisis pregnancy centers. 

EFF has called on state AGs to investigate CPCs across the country. In particular, we are concerned that many centers have misrepresented their privacy practices, including suggesting that patient information is protected by HIPAA when it may not be. In January, EFF contacted attorneys general in Florida, Texas, Arkansas, and Missouri asking them to identify and hold accountable CPCs that engage in deceptive practices.

Rep. Kapela’s resolution specifically references EFF’s call on state Attorneys General. It reads:

“WHEREAS, the Electronic Frontiers Foundation, an international digital rights nonprofit that promotes internet civil liberties, has called on states to investigate whether crisis pregnancy centers are complying with patient privacy regulations with regard to the retention and use of collected patient data.” 

HCR 144/HR 138 underscores the need to ensure that healthcare providers handle personal data, particularly medical data, securely and transparently.. Along with EFF’s letters to state AGs, the resolution refers to the increasing body of research on the topic, such as: 

• A 2024 Healthcare Management Associates Study showed that CPCs received $400 million in federal funding between 2017 and 2023, with little oversight from regulators.
• A Health Affairs article from November 2024 titled "Addressing the HIPAA Blind Spot for Crisis Pregnancy Centers" noted that crisis pregnancy centers often invoke the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) to collect personal information from clients.

Regardless of one's stance on reproductive healthcare, there is one principle that should be universally accepted: the right to privacy. As HCR 144/HR 138 moves forward, it is imperative that Hawaii's Attorney General investigate whether CPCs are complying with privacy regulations and take action, if necessary, to protect the privacy rights of individuals seeking reproductive healthcare in Hawaii. 

Without comprehensive privacy laws that offer individuals a private right of action, state authorities must be the front line in safeguarding the privacy of their constituents. As we continue to advocate for stronger privacy protections nationwide, we encourage lawmakers and advocates in other states to follow Hawaii's lead and take action to protect the medical privacy rights of all of their constituents.

情報通信審議会　情報通信技術分科会　陸上無線通信委員会（第90回）

地方自治体のデジタルトランスフォーメーション推進に係る検討会（第35回）

令和6年度「消防団地域貢献表彰」の受賞団体の決定及び表彰式の開催

交通安全対策特別交付金の交付決定（令和6年度3月期）

東日本電信電話株式会社及び西日本電信電話株式会社の活用業務に係る届出内容の公表

危険物の規制に関する規則の一部を改正する省令（案）等に対する意見公募

「事業者間協議の円滑化に関するガイドライン」　 の改正案に対する意見募集の結果及び改正ガイドラインの公表

「公益事業者の電柱・管路等使用に関するガイドライン」の改正案に対する意見募集の結果

令和6年度地方財政審議会（2月25日）議事要旨

令和6年度地方財政審議会（2月25日）議事要旨

令和6年度地方財政審議会（2月28日）議事要旨

令和6年度地方財政審議会（2月28日）議事要旨

接続料の算定等に関する研究会（第93回）

岩手県大船渡市の林野火災に関する被害状況等について（第22報）

A look back at the games governments played to avoid transparency

In the year 2015, we witnessed the launch of OpenAI, a debate over the color of a dress going viral, and a Supreme Court decision that same-sex couples have the right to get married. It was also the year that the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) first published The Foilies, an annual report that hands out tongue-in-cheek "awards" to government agencies and officials that respond outrageously when a member of the public tries to access public records through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) or similar laws.

A lot has changed over the last decade, but one thing that hasn't is the steady flow of attempts by authorities to avoid their legal and ethical obligations to be open and accountable. Sometimes, these cases are intentional, but just as often, they are due to incompetence or straight-up half-assedness.

Over the years, EFF has teamed up with MuckRock to document and ridicule these FOIA fails and transparency trip-ups. And through a partnership with AAN Publishers, we have named-and-shamed the culprits in weekly newspapers and on indie news sites across the United States in celebration of Sunshine Week, an annual event raising awareness of the role access to public records plays in a democracy.  

This year, we reflect on the most absurd and frustrating winners from the last 10 years as we prepare for the next decade, which may even be more terrible for government transparency.

The Most Infuriating FOIA Fee: U.S. Department of Defense (2016 Winner)

Assessing huge fee estimates is one way agencies discourage FOIA requesters.

Under FOIA, federal agencies are able to charge "reasonable" fees for producing copies of records. But sometimes agencies fabricate enormous price tags to pressure the requester to drop the query.

In 2015, Martin Peck asked the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) to disclose the number of "HotPlug” devices (tools used to preserve data on seized computers) it had purchased. The DOD said it would cost $660 million and 15 million labor hours (over 1,712 years), because its document system wasn't searchable by keyword, and staff would have to comb through 30 million contracts by hand. 

Runners-up: 

City of Seattle (2019 Winner): City officials quoted a member of the public $33 million for metadata for every email sent in 2017, but ultimately reduced the fee to $40.

Rochester (Michigan) Community Schools District (2023 Winner): A group of parents critical of the district's remote-learning plan requested records to see if the district was spying on their social media. One parent was told they would have to cough up $18,641,345 for the records, because the district would have to sift through every email. 

Willacy County (Texas) Sheriff's Office (2016 Winner): When the Houston Chronicle asked for crime data, the sheriff sent them an itemized invoice that included $98.40 worth of Wite-Out–the equivalent of 55 bottles–to redact 1,016 pages of records.

The Most Ridiculous Redaction: Federal Bureau of Investigation (2015 Winner)

Ain't no party like a REDACTED FBI party!

Brad Heath, who in 2014 was a reporter at USA Today, got a tip that a shady figure had possibly attended an FBI retirement party. So he filed a request for the guest list and pictures taken at the event. In response, the FBI sent a series of surreal photos of the attendees, hugging, toasting, and posing awkwardly, but all with polygonal redactions covering their faces like some sort of mutant, Minecraft family reunion.

Runner-Up 

U.S. Southern Command (2023 Winner): Investigative journalist Jason Leopold obtained scans of paintings by detainees at Guantanamo Bay, which were heavily redacted under the claim that the art would disclose law enforcement information that could "reasonably be expected to risk circumvention of the law."

The Most Reprehensible Reprisal Against a Requester: White Castle, Louisiana (2017 Winner)

WBRZ Reporter Chris Nakamoto was cuffed for trying to obtain records in White Castle, Louisiana. Credit: WBRZ-TV

Chris Nakamoto, at the time a reporter for WBRZ, filed a public records request to probe the White Castle mayor's salary. But when he went down to check on some of the missing records, he was handcuffed, placed in a holding cell, and charged with the crime of "remaining after being forbidden.” He was summoned to appear before the "Mayor's Court" in a judicial proceeding presided over by none other than the same mayor he was investigating. The charges were dropped two months later. 

Runners-up

Jack White (2015 Winner): One of the rare non-government Foilies winners, the White Stripes guitarist verbally abused University of Oklahoma student journalists and announced he wouldn't play at the school anymore. The reason? The student newspaper, OU Daily, obtained and published White's contract for a campus performance, which included his no-longer-secret guacamole recipe, a bowl of which was demanded in his rider.

Richlands, Virginia (2024 Winner): Resident Laura Mollo used public records laws to investigate problems with the 911 system and, in response, experienced intense harassment from the city and its contractors, including the police pulling her over and the city appointing a special prosecutor to investigate her. On separate occasions, Morro even says she found her mailbox filled with spaghetti and manure. 

Worst Federal Agency of the Decade: Federal Bureau of Investigation 

Bashing the FBI has come back into vogue among certain partisan circles in recent years, but we've been slamming the feds long before it was trendy.

The agency received eight Foilies over the last decade, more than any other entity, but the FBI's hostility towards FOIA goes back much further. In 2021, the Cato Institute uncovered records showing that, since at least 1989, the FBI had been spying on the National Security Archive, a non-profit watchdog that keeps an eye on the intelligence community. The FBI’s methods included both physical and electronic surveillance, and the records show the FBI specifically cited the organization's "tenacity" in using FOIA.

Cato's Patrick G. Eddington reported it took 11 months for the FBI to produce those records, but that's actually relatively fast for the agency. We highlighted a 2009 FOIA request that the FBI took 12 years to fulfil: Bruce Alpert of the Times-Picayune had asked for records regarding the corruption case of U.S. Rep. William Jefferson, but by the time he received the 84 pages in 2021, the reporter had retired. Similarly, when George Washington University professor and documentary filmmaker Nina Seavey asked the FBI for records related to surveillance of antiwar and civil rights activists, the FBI told her it would take 17 years to provide the documents. When the agency launched an online system for accepting FOIA requests, it somehow made the process even more difficult.

The FBI was at its worst when it was attempting to use non-disclosure agreements to keep local law enforcement agencies from responding to public records requests regarding the use of cell phone surveillance technologies called cell-site simulators, or "stingrays." The agency even went so far as to threaten agencies that release technical information to media organizations with up to 20 years in prison and a $1 million fine, claiming it would be a violation of the Arms Export Control Act.

But you don't have to take our word for it: Even Micky Dolenz of The Monkees had to sue the FBI to get records on how agents collected intelligence on the 1960s band.

Worst Local Jurisdiction of the Decade: Chicago, Illinois

Some agencies, like the city of Chicago, treat FOIA requests like a plague.

Over the last decade, The Foilies have called out officials at all levels of government and in every part of the country (and even in several other countries), but time and time again, one city keeps demonstrating special antagonism to the idea of freedom of information: the Windy City.

In fact, the most ridiculous justification for ignoring transparency obligations we ever encountered was proudly championed by now-former Mayor Lori Lightfoot during the COVID-19 lockdown in April 2020. She offered a bogus choice to Chicagoans: the city could either process public records requests or provide pandemic response, falsely claiming that answering these requests would pull epidemiologists off the job. According to the Chicago Tribune, she implied that responding to FOIA requests would result in people having to "bury another grandmother." She even invoked the story of Passover, claiming that the "angel of death is right here in our midst every single day" as a reason to suspend FOIA deadlines.

If we drill down on Chicago, there's one particular department that seems to take particular pleasure in screwing the public: the Chicago Police Department (CPD). In 2021, CPD was nominated so many times (for withholding records of search warrants, a list of names of police officers, and body-worn camera footage from a botched raid) that we just threw up our hands and named them "The Hardest Department to FOIA" of the year.

In one particularly nasty case, CPD had mistakenly raided the home of an innocent woman and handcuffed her while she was naked and did not allow her to dress. Later, the woman filed a FOIA request for the body-worn camera footage and had to sue to get it. But CPD didn't leave it there: the city's lawyers tried to block a TV station from airing the video and then sought sanctions against the woman's attorney. 

If you thought these were some doozies, check out The Foilies 2025 to read the beginning of a new decade's worth of FOIA horror stories.

Good old-fashioned grassroots advocacy is one of the best tools we have right now for making a positive change for our civil liberties online. When we unite toward a shared goal, anything is possible, and the right to repair movement is a prime example of this.

In July of last year, EFF and many other organizations celebrated Repair Independence Day to commemorate both California and Minnesota enacting strong right to repair laws. And, very recently, it was reported that all 50 states have introduced right to repair legislation. Now, not every state has passed laws yet, but this signals an important milestone for the movement—we want to fix the stuff we own!

And this movement has had an impact beyond specific right to repair legislation. In a similar vein, just a few months ago, the U.S. Copyright Office ruled that users can legally repair commercial food preparation equipment without breaking copyright law. Device manufacturers themselves are also starting to feel the pressure and are creating repair-friendly programs.

Years of hard work have made it possible for us to celebrate the right-to-repair movement time and time again. It's a group effort—folks like iFixit, who provide repair guides and repairability scores; the Repair Association, who’ve helped lead the movement in state legislatures; and of course, people like you who contact local representatives, are the reason this movement has gained so much momentum.

Fix Copyright! Also available in kids' sizes.

But there's still work that can be done. If you’re itching to fix your devices, you can read up on what your state’s repair laws mean for you. You can educate your friends, family, and colleagues when they’re frustrated at how expensive device repair is. And, of course, you can show your support for the right to repair movement with EFF’s latest member t-shirt. 

We live in a very tumultuous time, so it’s important to celebrate the victories, and it’s equally important to remember that your voice and support can bring about positive change that you want to see.  

On Monday, March 10, EFF sent a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee opposing the Strengthening Transparency and Obligation to Protect Children Suffering from Abuse and Mistreatment Act (STOP CSAM Act) ahead of a committee hearing on the bill. 

EFF opposed the original and amended versions of this bill in the previous Congress, and we are concerned to see the Committee moving to consider the same flawed ideas in the current Congress. 

At its core, STOP CSAM endangers encrypted messages – jeopardizing the privacy, security, and free speech of every American and fundamentally altering our online communications. In the digital world, end-to-end encryption is our best chance to maintain both individual and national security. Particularly in the wake of the major breach of telecom systems in October 2024 from Salt Typhoon, a sophisticated Chinese-government backed hacking group, legislators should focus on bolstering encryption, not weakening it. In fact, in response to this breach, a top U.S. cybersecurity chief said “encryption is your friend.”  

Given its significant problems and potential vast impact on internet users, we urge the Committee to reject this bill.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　２０３３　Judo　production　L.L.C.　All　Rights　Reserved 　　柔道の国際大会でイランの選手は優勝を目前に政府からイスラエル選手との対戦を避けるために棄権を命じられる。この映画は実話に基づいた金メダル候補の柔道選手の不屈の戦いを描いた作品である。　ジョージアで行われている女子世界柔道選手権でイラン代表のレイラは６０キロ級のトーナ　メント戦に出場して勝ち進んでいく。２回戦に勝利するとイラン政府が、けがを装って棄..