Hey everyone,
mySociety will be hosting a special 'Freedom of Information' meet-up on
3rd September at the MozSpace in London.
Come along to hear some great guest speakers, chat with our team and
developers, and have a beer, some pizza and a chat.
For more information on speakers and venue, see our recent blog post
<https://www.mysociety.org/2014/08/20/join-us-for-a-special-freedom-of-information-meet-up/>.
To sign up, go to our Lanyrd page
<http://lanyrd.com/2014/mysocial-2-september/>.
*When: *Wednesday 3rd September, 6pm -- 9pm
*Where:* MozSpace London <http://lanyrd.com/venues/london/vrrw/>
*How: *Add your name to the Lanyrd page: http://lanyrd.com/ccbfgx, so we
know you're coming.
*Who:* Anyone who fancies it.
Hope to see you there!
_*Further information:*_
We're delighted to be joined at this meet-up by the following guest
speakers:-
*Maurice Frankel: *Maurice is director of the UK Campaign for Freedom of
Information <http://www.cfoi.org.uk/>. He has worked with them since it
was set up in 1984, and has been its director since 1987.
Maurice will talk about the possible government restrictions on the
right of access to information in the UK; the problems caused by the
Freedom of Information Act's poor approach to public service contracts
and the surprising limitations which the courts have imposed on the
ministerial veto.
*Marietta Le: *Marietta is from the Hungarian investigative journalism
NGO Atlatszo <http://atlatszo.hu/>.
Atlatzso is a watchdog NGO and online news site for investigative
journalism to promote transparency and freedom of information (FOI) in
Hungary. They run various websites including Kimittud
<http://kimittud.atlatszo.hu/>, a freedom of information request
generator for the general public, which runs using the Alaveteli platform.
They also run the Tor-based anonymous whistleblowing platform
Magyarleaks <http://ak2uqfavwgmjrvtu.onion/> and a crowdsourced platform
to anonymously report everyday corruption called Fizettem
<http://www.fizettem.hu/>.
Marietta will join us to speak about setting up an FOI site in Hungary
using Alaveteli and the current threats to freedom of information in
Hungary, following recent amendments to the FOI law.
*Savita Bailur and Tom Longley:* Earlier this year mySociety instigated
a research project to look at the place that Alaveteli and other FOI
online technologies might have in creating cultures of transparency and
accountability.
We want to address this top level question: "In what circumstances, if
any, can tools like Alaveteli be shown to have measurable impacts on the
ability of citizens to exert power over underperforming institutions?"
To address this, researchers Savita and Tom have focused on three areas:
a literature review to see what research is already out there, in-depth
interviews with people who have installed FOI technologies in many
different countries, and the compilation of a list of critical success
factors. Read more about their research here
<https://www.mysociety.org/2014/08/11/interim-report-researching-the-international-impact-of-foi-technologies/>.
Savita and Tom are more than halfway through their research, and we're
delighted that they'll present their preliminary findings at this meet-up.
We'll also discuss the latest developments on WhatDoTheyKnow, and
Alaveteli developers (as well as other mySociety team members) will be
around to answer any questions.
There'll be plenty of pizza and beer to go around too, so what could be
better?
Hope you can make it,
All the best,
Gemma.
--
Gemma Humphrys
*Events and Administration Officer*
mySociety | mysociety.org<http://www.mysociety.org/>
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