Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/foia1unicri012209.html
UNITED NATIONS, January 22 -- A little known UN agency, the Turin-based Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute, held a conference on "security governance" at the UN on Thursday. Microsoft, despite the well known security flaws in its software, was invited to present, along with Kerry Kennedy of the RFK Foundation. Ms. Kennedy, it emerges, will be "partnering" with UNICRI to develop and disseminate a human rights curriculum for kids.
At a mid-day press conference, Inner City Press asked Ms. Kennedy if she or the RFK Foundation had played any role in the UN's September 2007 conference on the victims of terrorism, and whether she believes the UN should have a Freedom of Information Act and better whistleblower protection -- the lack of which in the US's Abu Ghraib prison scandal in Iraq she has commented on.
Ms. Kennedy said she was not been a part of the September victims' event, but that she believes that more openness and information is important with anything associated with government, like the UN. She said of the UN, "I would be in favor of making those as rigorous and open as possible." Video here, from Minute 11:44.
Later, Inner City Press asked UN Assistant Secretary General Robert Orr, who had introduced both Ms. Kennedy and the Microsoft representative, to justify the UN's lack of a FOIA. He said that member states had rebelled at paying "the costs associated with FOIA." Video here, from Minute 35:14. But if those costs are mostly related to redacting and concealing information, and nearly all records are not electronic, this should not be a bar.
And see, www.innercitypress.com/foia1unicri012209.html
