“The Joseph L. Brechner Freedom of Information Project at the University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications (UFCJC) launched today a national Secrecy Tracker to help identify legislation that threatens the public’s access to government records and meetings.
“The tool allows anyone for free to see what bills are proposed in any state, Congress, and Washington, D.C., that are related to public records and open meeting laws. The Secrecy Tracker employs machine learning to help sift out false positives and capture bills that may not include relevant keywords but still relate to transparency.
“‘This allows anyone to find out what bills could hamper the flow of civic information before they are passed into laws,’ said David Cuillier, director of the Brechner FOI Project. ‘It also allows researchers and advocates to identify national trends over time and across states.’”
The Tracker is updated daily and is searchable back to 2011.
