Some examples of what folks are writing on Blogshine Sunday:

Mark Tapscott, director of the Heritage Foundation’s Center for Media and Public Policy, rings in with “just some of the countless examples of how the FOIA helps citizens find answers.” read the full entry

Aaron Swartz, coder extraordinaire, writes about U.S. State Department documents revealing the U.S. role in Indonesia’s 1975 invasion of East Timor. According to Swartz, the invasion may have resulted in the death of up to 230,000 Timorese. U.S. President Gerald Ford and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger knew of the planned invasion; Kissinger promised to “influence the reaction in America” and later lied about his knowledge of the invasion. read the full entry

J. Gregory Palmer, publisher of Keystone Politics, writes, “The FOIA is one of the most powerful tools journalists possess when investigating the government, and thus bloggers have no choice but to learn to effectively utilize it. Open, honest journalism relies on market-based competition to succeed and to ensure truth. Bloggers can play an enormous role in checking the power of corporate media conglomerates, but only if they mimic the techniques of real journalists.” read the full entry

Donna Wentworth at Copyfight contributes her thoughts on the OPEN Government Act, which proposes equal treatment under the Freedom of Information Act for online journalists as for traditional journalists: (The debate over online speech is about) “the battle to ensure that we have a truly healthy, functioning democracy — one where you don’t have to be a member of the media elite to participate. As I wrote before, I can’t imagine that we’ve ever needed this kind of legislation more than we do right now.” read the full entry

Steve Rhodes writes at Tiger Beat about “one of the first uses of the web to distribute documents,” the Tobacco Control Archives at the University of California, San Francisco. According to Rhodes, the archives were founded in 1994 after thousands of tobacco industry files were left in a UCSF professor’s office. read the full entry

Christopher Frankonis writes at the Portland (Ore.) Communique about two outstanding requests for information regarding the city of Portland: “For us, these requests represent a fair example of the challenges of the public or the press obtaining relevant and timely information fom the government. At any moment, City Council could schedule a hearing on Portland’s participation in the (Joint Terrorism Task Force). Given the imminence of that consideration, these peices of information are extraordinarily important to proper public discussion of an important public matter.” read the full entry

Mary Minow at LibraryLaw Blog provides her thoughts on the Congressional Research Service. read the full entry

David Giacalone of f/k/a weighs in, “reminding our readers that the lawyer discipline system falls signifcantly short in most states from the basic goals of an open process and easy access to information.” read the full entry

Scott of LavishLuau offers the tale of his quest to learn why Arizona State University tore down a gymnasium and never built a new one: “As a taxpayer it seemed wasteful that ASU removed a perfectly functional building, disrupted many people but were too short-sighted to realize that they lacked the funds to use the vacant land and relocate the displaced users someone else on campus.” read the full entry

Garrett M. Graff of fishbowlDC, the first blogger to recieve a daily White House press pass, provides a link; Blake Carver of LIS News does the same.

Check back later for updates and my own thoughts.