A federal judge in the US District Court for the District of Oregon just slapped the BOP with a decision forcing them to provide better justification for why they refuse to disclose information on the contracts they have with private prison companies to house immigration detainees. Essentially, the BOP kept refusing to provide information pursuant to FOIA requests on things like staffing, operations, and computer technology. This is an epidemic within the private prison industry; they are the only entity in this country that performs an inherently governmental funciton with practically no public oversight of their operations because they aren't bound by FOIA or public records laws. This lawsuit was aimed at trying to get access to this sort of information through the BOP, which is subject to FOIA requests. While the BOP will most certainly appeal the ruling and continue to just summarily decide to withhold documents, as attorney Stephen Raher says, "Today’s ruling reiterates that the government cannot withhold information simply because private contractors would rather not be exposed to public scrutiny."
Here is the decision.
Rocky "another Jew in the oven" Hoffschneider.
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I just wrote out a long comment about a public records case i won while incarcerated at the Florida Civil Commitment Center in Arcadia, Florida. It is a landmark ruling, finding that a private company, The Geo Group, Inc., is a state agency for purposes of the Florida Public Records Act. I will email it to anyone who wants to see it. It can be used as a resource of similar litigation in Federal and state courts. email me at: damianworld@aol.com. Damian
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