It’s been almost 40 years since Tom Blanton filed his first public information request. Since then, Blanton, the current director of the nonprofit National Security Archive, has become a leading authority in access to information and been directly involved in the release of tens of thousands of documents declassified by the U.S. government.
So far this year, there have been 71 cases of censorship of journalists and media in Venezuela, meaning 87 percent more cases than there were over the same period last year, according to Venezuelan organizations that defend freedom of expression and information access that spoke about the situation in their country on Oct. 31 before the Inter American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) during its 149th session.
In late 2012 Chilean journalist Miguel Paz, an ICFJ Knight International Journalism fellow, launched with a group of colleagues a data journalism platform called Poderopedia, which helps reveal the network of relationships between business and government elites in Chile.
The President of Peru, Ollanta Humala, enacted the Computer Crimes Act last week, which criminalizes the unauthorized creation and use of electronic databases, among other things, with up to five years in prison. Several lawyers and journalism organizations have criticized the law, saying it will endanger Peruvians' right to freedom of expression and information.
Reporters without Borders (RSF) condemned the intimidation and censorship against the journalists of indigenous media during the national mobilization of several regional groups in Colombia.
Of the 124,394 applications received during the first 18 months since Brazil’s new Law of Access to Information (LAI) went into effect, 5.15 percent came from journalists, according to Brazil’s Inspector General Jorge Hage.
Chief Justice Joaquim Barbosa, president of the Federal Supreme Court (STF in Portuguese), criticized the journalistic coverage of judicial topics in Brazil. In his opinion, the press has been monothematic and addresses topics on the agenda with little preparation.
The creation of a new intelligence body in Venezuela that, among other powers, has the capacity to declare information as "reserved" or "classified," generated concern among different national and international organizations, several publications reported.
Mexico, El Salvador and Antigua are ranked higher than Canada, the United States, United Kingdom and Australia on a global ranking of right to information laws, according to the annual ratings prepared by Access Info Europe (AIE) and Halifax-based Centre for Law and Democracy (CLD).
Jineth Bedova Lima, Carlos Dada, Marcela Turati and Anabel Hernández are some of the journalists working out of Latin America mentioned in a list recently published by Action on Armed Violence (AOAV) that compiles 100 of the most influential journalists covering armed conflict in regions around the world. AOAV is a UK-based charity group that focuses on reducing armed violence by hosting in-country programs, lobbying governments and investigating issues.