R.I. classifies e-bikes, limits bike path access, but pedestrians remain at risk without enforcement

Kudos to Rhode Island legislators who in 2024 limited state bicycle trails and paths to a single class of e-bikes.

The 2024 law, H7713, chief-sponsored by my own Rep. Jennifer Boylan (D-Barrington, E. Providence), defines three classes of electric bikes:

• Class 1: Bicycle equipped with an electric motor that provides assistance only when the rider is pedaling, and that ceases to provide assistance when the electric bicycle reaches twenty miles per hour (20 mph).
• Class 2: Bicycle equipped with a throttle-actuated electric motor that ceases to provide assistance when the electric bicycle reaches twenty miles per hour (20 mph).
• Class 3: Bicycle equipped with an electric motor that provides assistance only when the rider is pedaling, and that ceases to provide assistance when the electric bicycle reaches twenty-eight miles per hour (28 mph).

Only class 1 e-bikes are permitted on the East Bay Bike Path, a paved, 14-mile rails-to-trails route that runs near my home, and which I use regularly (2019, 2021). Fully motorized vehicles are not allowed on paths and never have been.

Though the legislation passed in 2024, signs went up just this summer (pictured, above and below, RJ Peltz-Steele CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). Meanwhile, the problem of persons flouting the law has only grown worse.

My experience has been like that of Ethan Hartley, writing for East Bay RI in August:

It couldn’t have been 10 minutes after this author posted up with a camera trying to grab some photos of people enjoying the bike path near Watchemoket Cove—a particularly scenic stretch of the East Bay Bike Path, located in Riverside off Veterans Memorial Parkway—that I heard the far-off sound of sputtering engines coming from far down the path in the direction of Kettle Point.

That was notable, and odd, considering fully motorized vehicles are not allowed on the bike path.

Yet here they rode. Two young men, perched atop what appeared to be miniature dirt bikes. They were respectful enough, riding on the correct (right) side of the road, in a single-file line, and they weren’t going too fast or revving their little illicit engines obnoxiously.

Problems on the East Bay Bike Path, from lack of snow removal to trash dumping to dangerous road crossings, have long been problematic for lack of enforcement. The bike path comes under the jurisdiction of the state Department of Environmental Management (DEM), rather than local police. DEM asserted, credibly to my mind, that it lacks the resources it would need to police the state's bike paths. 

I feel like jurisdiction is a problem we should be able to figure out without much fuss. Yet the problem has remained intractable in my 14 years here, apparently despite even a child's death.

At the annual conference of the New England Political Science Association in the spring, I ran into Roger Williams University Political Science Professor June Speakman, who also is a state representative (D) from districts on the East Bay Bike Path, the towns of Bristol and Warren. Rep. Speakman told me that some local residents were agitating for legislation that would compel foot and bike traffic on bike trails both to stay on the right.

I was horrified at the prospect, I told her. At present, foot traffic stays left, and bikes right. The idea is that the bikes can see facing pedestrians easier than when overtaking, and pedestrians can see oncoming cyclists who might not be paying attention—and jump out of the way.

I've made that jump a few times over the years. Usually it's a youth staring at a cell phone. Once it was a senior who might not have been able to see well in the waning light of dusk.

Now when I am on foot I worry about oncoming bikes, e-bikes and motorbikes, often traveling well in excess of 20 mph. When a racing cyclist passes fast, I don't mind so much, because racers are usually extremely attentive. But why anyone thinks kids or seniors at dusk will be more responsible on an e-bike than they are already on a bicycle, I can't fathom.

So I say kudos to the legislators who enacted the 2024 bill, and who made no changes in 2025. Before we talk about changing anything more, let's address the enforcement problem.

The United Kingdom and Australia have been racked with anxiety recently over the criminal case of an intoxicated British backpacker who crashed a scooter into and killed a father of two in the crowded city center of Perth, Western Australia.

Collisions are inevitable. And I know which side loses when it's pedestrian vs. any motorized vehicle, electric or otherwise, at 20 mph or more.

Transparency research conference issues CFP for '26

The Ninth Global Conference on Transparency Research has issued its call for papers.

The conference is set for June 24-26, 2026, at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. The conference theme is "Transparency Under Pressure."

The deadline for paper and panel submissions is January 20, 2026, with final papers of 7,000 or fewer words due April 20, 2026. The CFP suggests a non-exhaustive list of topics:

• Transparency and crises
• Transparency and governance
• Transparency, secrecy, and privacy
• Open government and e-government
• Freedom of Information and access to data
• Transparency and artificial intelligence
• Transparency and digital surveillance
• Transparency in political institutions
• Transparency and corruption 

The Global Conference on Transparency Research was founded under the direction of my esteemed colleague Suzanne J. Piotrowski (pictured), professor at Rutgers School of Public Affairs and Administration, and director of the Transparency and Governance Center.

The first conference convened at Rutgers–Newark in 2011. The conference hosts an always warm and collegial group of scholars who study transparency and accountability from a broad range of disciplines, embracing both quantitative and qualitative methods.

Middle Passage project unveils R.I. sculpture: looking ahead in strength, not back in despair, artist says

Memorial Sculpture

The Bristol Middle Passage Port Marker Project (BMP) today unveiled and dedicated the Bristol Memorial Sculpture by Rhode Island School of Design artist and Professor Spencer Evans.

My wife and I were there. (All photos RJ Peltz-Steele CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.)

The Middle Passage Ceremonies and Port Markers Project comprises a network of ports of entry in the slave trade along the eastern and southern U.S. coasts from Maine to Galveston, Texas. The Bristol, R.I., chapter was organized in 2020, later incorporated as a nonprofit in 2023, by Elizabeth Sturges Llerena and Holly Wolf, descendants of the DeWolf family who spoke today. 

The DeWolf family trafficked more enslaved persons than any other in the United States. Llerena and Wolf's generation have committed to work on reconciliation and reparations since the family's history came under scrutiny in the 1990s. Their generation's journey—literally, including travel on the trade triangle form Bristol to Ghana to Cuba—was chronicled in the 2008 PBS documentary, Traces of the Trade: A Story from the Deep North. DeWolf descendant Katrina Browne, who also was present at the unveiling today, produced and directed the film.

The sculpture sits under wraps before the dedication.

The Bristol Memorial Sculpture sits in Independence Park in Bristol, at the southern end of the East Bay Bike Path and northern end of Bristol Harbor. The sculpture means to fulfill the BMP mission, "acknowledging Bristol's history, and most importantly ... honoring the memory of all those harmed by the trans-Atlantic human trade," according to today's program. 

The project means to recognize both the enslavement of African persons, especially the Akan of Ghana, who are known to have landed at Bristol, and the enslavement and oppression of native Americans, specifically the Pokanoket, a Wampanoag people who lived where Bristol is today.

Prof. Evans speaks, his young daughter with her uncle at right.

The sculpture was selected from among finalists' models. Evans's winning design comprises three figures, an indigenous woman, an African man, and a child, cast in bronze. Evans worked on the sculpture at his Pawtucket, R.I., studio, and it was cast at Buccacio Sculpture Studios in Canton, Mass.

A narrative by Evans in the dedication program explained, in part:

Prof. Evans gestures upon the unveiling.

Both adult figures have their bodies turned toward Bristol Harbor, the first being a woman. The position of her body serves as a metaphor for the Pokanoket women who stood at the Cliffs of Sorrow waiting for their stolen families to return. The second figure, a man, symbolizes every African ancestor and descendant who possessed the viscerally sensational reminder that we are not in our homeland. However, both their gazes are fixed toward the child as the second adult points inland in the direction that the child is moving. The dynamically twisted posture of the adult figures also symbolizes the task of circumstantial endurance while possessing a radical love and hope for future generations, despite their reality of living in bondage, displacement, and oppression. The child figure also has a dynamic pose which is seemingly almost weightless in the movement, symbolizing the future generations who are carrying their ancestors with them as they are able to make constant attempts at living their dreams.

Prof. Freamon emcees.

A native of Houston, Tex., now resident in Providence, Evans was on hand and delivered a poetic address to mark the unveiling. He admonished the crowd that they would not see figures expressing fear or bound by chains, because "the spirit of despair" is not what should be passed on to future generations. Rather, he said, the sculpture means to communicate strength, love, hope, and affirmation of the future.

Explorers Monument

Curiously, or maybe fittingly, the new Memorial Sculpture sits across the main circle of Independence Park from Explorers Monument, a tribute to the Portuguese age of discovery.

Directors and advisers of the BMP board were in attendance today, and board president Bernard Freamon emceed. Roger Williams University Law Professor Freamon is a valued friend and colleague of my wife and me.

More than 150 people witness the dedication and unveiling in Independence Park.

Vietnam marks 50 years since fall of Saigon, but American corporations overshadow communism today

At Hoàn Kiếm Lake, Hanoi

Vietnam recently celebrated the 50th anniversary of the fall of Saigon, and I visited Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City to see the country today.

(All contemporary photos by RJ Peltz-Steele, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, with no claim to underlying works.) 

Known in Vietnam as "the civil war" or "the American war," the Vietnam War was a hot chapter in the Cold War story, as the United States sought to counter expansion of communism in Indochina.

The war was barbaric on the ground and devastating to life and land. Estimates range from one to three million civilian and military lives lost in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. More than 58,000 U.S. service members were killed. Land and wildlife were laid waste by lethal chemical defoliants, Agent Orange just one among them, inducing waves of cancer and birth defects. 

In the United States, veteran healthcare was overwhelmed by what would later be recognized as post-traumatic stress disorder. Meanwhile, the social turmoil of war protest shaped a generation of counterculture so powerful that it went mainstream, transforming law and society—even working as impetus in the development of modern First Amendment and transparency doctrine.

(For an anecdote from "the Hanoi Hilton" prison, see Analog propaganda proves persuasive to some at 'Hanoi Hilton,' where exhibits selectively whitewash war, The Savory Tort, July 30, 2025.)

Shipmate, the magazine of the U.S. Naval Academy Alumni Association, recently has published a series on the Vietnam War and its aftermath for veterans, "Legacy of Valor." The latest issue, July/August 2025, contains the fourth entry in the series and features USNA alumni stories.

The May/June 2025 Shipmate, which featured Marines' stories, also highlighted Vietnam War exhibits in the National Medal of Honor Museum (MOHM), which opened in Arlington, Texas, just in March. I was struck by similarities between MOHM—in the narrative and pictures, at least; I have not visited yet—and the War Remnants Museum in Ho Chi Minh City, where I visited in June. MOHM's largest artifact is a restored Bell UH-1 "Huey" helicopter donated by a veteran pilot; there's an American UH-1 Huey at the museum in Vietnam, too (with me below).

(Inset: Cover of Shipmate, March/April 2025, credited to Capt. Tom Murphy, USNA '66, USN (Ret.), depicting Murphy, at left, with his SEAL team in Vietnam in 1969. "Murphy was awarded a Silver Star for his actions that helped eliminate a heavily fortified Viet Cong camp on 2 March 1969," the magazine added.)

An American Huey UH-1H at the War Remnants Museum, Ho Chi Minh City

Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum, Hanoi

Saliently, the superpower United States lost the war, beating a humiliating retreat from the southern capital, Saigon. Vietnamese forces trumpeted the persevering efficacy of ruthless guerilla warfare. The sweep of communism crushed western collaborators and the remaining resistance and sparked a humanitarian crisis as refugees escaped to the sea.

Yet to walk the streets of Vietnam's major cities today, one could be forgiven for confusion over which side in fact won the war.

Ho Chi Minh City

The fall of Saigon—today, Ho Chi Minh City, though "Saigon" is still widely used, at least to refer to the touristic center, and "SGN" is the IATA code of the international airport—is celebrated on April 30. The contiguity of international labor day on May 1 makes for a holiday break.

This year, innumerable banners, signs, and monuments lined streets throughout the country to celebrate the 50th anniversary. I wonder at the cost. The posters bore patriotic illustrations that would be at home in a historical compilation of 20th-century Cold War propaganda.

Yet the banners stand juxtaposed against a background of signs demonstrating the market dominance of western corporations, namely the likes of Coca-Cola, KFC, and ubiquitous 7-Elevens. 

A local guide who took me to the Cu Chi tunnels, from where Viet Cong guerilla fighters waged brutal resistance against American forces from underneath a great swath of the country, told me how his family lost their home and modest wealth and fled Saigon when all property was nationalized after the communists took over the south.

Communism never delivered on its promises, he said. When his father returned to the family home, he found it occupied by party apparatchiks, hardly "the people." Still today, he said, despite commercial development, Vietnamese people suffer poverty, grade-school-limited public education, and no universal healthcare. That's not much to show for a communist people's victory.

"We hate Americans," he joked, smiling. He explained that the regime, apropos of the classic propaganda-poster style of the 50th anniversary images, still teaches schoolchildren to hate America. But people know better and have "moved on," he said. "Now we drink Starbucks."

It occurred to me, insofar as corporatocracy is the measure of the day, it's maybe truly representative democracy that lost the war, both in Vietnam and in America. 

Lunar-new-year commemorative beer from Budweiser, for sale at shop, Mỹ Tho

Roadside signs, Ho Chi Minh City

Billboards, Ho Chi Minh City

Exhibit at War Remnants Museum, Ho Chi Minh City

Marker at Hoàn Kiếm Lake, Hanoi

Exhibit at Thăng Long Imperial Citadel, Hanoi

 

Marker in traffic circle, Hanoi

'The Shipbreakers' (2000) is classic Langewiesche; Hong Kong ship-breaking convention enters force

William Langewiesche, 2007
Internaz via Flickr CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Journalist William Langewiesche died at age 70 in June (N.Y. Times).

I came to know Langewiesche's work through his 16 years with The Atlantic. He wrote subsequently for Vanity Fair and The New York Times Magazine. His long-form journalism, including nine books, is legendary. He tackled big, complex, and notorious subjects, such as ocean piracy and nuclear proliferation, helping readers to make sense of the world through concise and compelling prose.

Upon his passing, commentators have rushed to recommend their favorite Langewiesche works. Mine has been little mentioned, so I want to put it on the record.

For a quarter century, I have been haunted by Langewiesche's remarkable cover story for the August 2000 Atlantic, "The Shipbreakers." As The Atlantic teased:

On a six-mile stretch of beach at a place called Alang, in India, some 200 ships stand side by side in progressive stages of dissection, spilling their black innards onto the tidal flats. Here is where half the world's ships come to die—ripped apart by hand into scrap metal. Alang is a foul, desperate, and dangerous place, and a wonder of the world.

Typical of Langewiesche's work, the story sits at the intersection of many important subjects: contemporary colonialism, social and economic development, environmental protection, labor regulation, and accountability, or lack thereof, for transnational corporations. I can't board an ocean-going vessel today without feeling haunted by Langewiesche's narrative and worrying that I'm contributing to an ongoing human rights tragedy.

Horrifying conditions Langewiesche described in 2000 unfortunately continue today, human rights abuses having been abated only modestly and more in some jurisdictions than in others. Langewiesche focused on India, and Indian enforcement only pushed the most hazardous and ill regulated ship-breaking practices further into Bangladesh and Pakistan. 

There have been much needed regulatory innovations in recent years that mean to effect reform. The European Union adopted a Ship Recycling Regulation in 2013. The NGO Shipbreaking Platform wrote:

From 31 December 2018, EU-flagged commercial vessels above 500 GT must be recycled in safe and environmentally sound ship recycling facilities that are included on the European List of approved ship recycling facilities. The List was first established on 19 December 2016 and is periodically updated to add additional compliant facilities, or, alternatively, to remove facilities which have ceased to comply. Currently, the List comprises facilities operating in the EU, Turkey and US. 

Ship-breakers, Chittagong, Bangladesh, 2005
Adam Cohn via Flickr CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

The EU adopted the regulation after accession to the 2009 Hong Kong Convention for the Safe and Environmentally Sound Recycling of Ships (International Maritime Organization), which entered force just recently, on June 25, 2025. India, Bangladesh, and Pakistan also have signed on to the convention. At least, then, standards for proper ship-breaking are being articulated.

However, neither the EU regulation nor the overarching Hong Kong Convention solves the problem of jurisdictional reach to ships under flags of convenience. The shipping industry has long relied on re-flagging vessels to circumvent regulations of all kinds, and the problem remains intractable. Newly articulated standards will only work insofar as nations refuse to provide a haven for illicit ship-breaking and for its concealment by re-flagging.

Meanwhile, the cruise industry continues to burn through generations of ships in never-ending pursuit of size and extravagance.

"The Shipbreakers" was long posted in full text at Longform, but recently became unavailable there, apparently upon a change of ownership of an underlying ISP. (But archived at the time of this writing.)

Rest in peace, William Langewiesche.

Analog propaganda proves persuasive to some at 'Hanoi Hilton,' where exhibits selectively whitewash war

Hỏa Lò Prison, Hanoi
RJ Peltz-Steele CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

Media illiteracy is not just an affliction of the aged.

In June, I visited Hỏa Lò Prison, also known as "the Hanoi Hilton," in Vietnam, where captured American soldiers, including the late U.S. Senator John McCain in 1967, were imprisoned during the Vietnam War.

Hỏa Lò was a prison well before the Vietnam War. The prison museum today mostly memorializes the brutal torture and execution of political prisoners at the hands of French colonial forces since the prison's 1896 construction.

Guillotine used by the French
in colonial Vietnam,
now at Hỏa Lò Prison
RJ Peltz-Steele CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

The museum exhibits largely whitewash the imprisonment of Americans during the Vietnam War. Exhibits skip over the interrogation and torture of American prisoners, which conditions they were forced to deny in statements in the 1960s, but later reported (U.S. Navy, CBS News). Under international pressure, the Viet Cong improved conditions in the prison late in 1969. The museum focuses on that time and a prisoner exchange in 1973, in which McCain went home after more than five years.

Following the timeline of the prison's history through the many exhibit rooms, I came upon a group of British tourists, circa 20 years old. They were looking at an image of American soldiers playing volleyball in the prison yard. The photograph is a rather well known piece of propaganda, but it's represented in the museum as just a day in the life of "the American pilots" held at the prison.

One young woman in the group turned to her cohort. "See?" she said. "After the French treated them so horribly, this is how well they treated the Americans."

I guess history is written by the victors. 

Sometimes I lament that persons of my parents' generation, reared on Walter Cronkite, too readily believe anything they hear from a purported "news" anchor on cable TV or the internet. I wonder whether a screen-reared generation is too ready to believe anything they see on a museum wall.

I'll have a longer photo-essay on Vietnam, and the 50th anniversary of the fall of Saigon, here at The Savory Tort on Friday, August 1.

Regulatory overhaul opens opportunity to build 'transparency by design' into federal contracting

Google Gemini CC0

Colleagues and I submitted a comment to the federal government yesterday urging recognition of the freedom of information, that is, "transparency by design," in government acquisition of information and communication technology. 

The White House has ordered the overhaul, or streamlining, of the federal procurement process, ideally through simplification of the voluminous and complex Federal Acquisition Regulation. 

The Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council is working over the regulations part by part with "deviation guidelines," allowing agencies room to depart from regulations until a proper regulatory rewrite can be accomplished—something that typically takes years—and inviting feedback on a rolling basis. Part 39, for which model deviation recently issued, covers the acquisition of information and communication technology.

The Administration's aim is a "Revolutionary FAR Overhaul" to "Restor[e] Common Sense to Federal Procurement." The government website Acquisition.gov explains (original emphasis):

Led by the Office of Federal Procurement Policy (OFPP) and the Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council (FAR Council), this initiative will return the FAR to its statutory roots, rewritten in plain language, and remove most non-statutory rules.  In addition, non-regulatory buying guides will provide practical strategies grounded in common sense while remaining outside the FAR.

The goal is clear: faster acquisitions, greater competition, and better results.

Naturally, there is concern by skeptics of the Administration that the overhaul is only a smokescreen to loosen the reins on corporate contractors and grease the wheels of profit off the public fisc.

Regardless of the realpolitik, the Administration at least represents that it wants transparency, which should facilitate a free market and accountability in federal contracting. Like the "DOGE" initiative, the ends are laudable, even if the means are debatable.

Thus, in the shared spirit of efficient governance, colleagues and I sought to remind the FAR Council and OFPP that FOIA already provides for access to agency records in the hands of contractors. However, the reality, exaggerated in the information age, is that public and exempt data often are so commingled as practically to preclude disclosure. At best, efficiency is compromised, wasting public resources. At worst, malfeasance is let to fester.

The problem is not new; I wrote in 2006 (page 731) about a once well known 1993 case of access to contractor data under state freedom of information law in event of a public emergency. The European Union has had a regulation in place for more than 20 years to ensure that public access to records is preserved through "transparency by design" in EU record-keeping.

Transparency by design should be a bedrock principle of government contracting at every level, especially in the information age. Politicians might disagree about what to spend public money on, but transparency and accountability after the fact is a non-partisan imperative.

Below is the full text of the Comment of Freedom of Information Scholars on FAR Overhaul part 39 (submitted July 28, 2025). My interdisciplinary co-authors are Jason R. Baron, J.D., professor of the practice at the University of Maryland College of Information; David Cuillier, Ph.D., director of the Freedom of Information Project, Brechner Center for the Advancement of the First Amendment, at the University of Florida College of Journalism and Mass Communication; Shelley Kimball, Ph.D., associate program director and senior lecturer at the Johns Hopkins Krieger School of Arts and Sciences; and Margaret Kwoka, J.D., Lawrence “Larry” Herman Professor in Law at the Moritz College of Law, The Ohio State University.

---

Comment of Scholars of Freedom of Information Law
on FAR Overhaul, Part 39
July 28, 2025

    We, the undersigned, are scholars of freedom of information law. We suggest that the federal acquisition process would benefit from recognition of agency responsibilities to comply with the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. § 552, which would promote the use of technology to make fulfillment of agencies’ FOIA duties less costly and time-consuming, at a significant manpower savings to the taxpayer.

    Although the FAR, 48 C.F.R. ch. 1, provides for the inclusion of a clause in solicitations and contracts for the design, development, or operation of a system of records to accomplish an agency function subject to the Privacy Act, 5 U.S.C. § 552a (see 48 C.F.R. §§ 24.104 & 52.224-1), it appears that there is no comparable FAR provision addressing an agency’s obligation under FOIA to provide access to federal agency records. As the federal government has increased its reliance on electronic data systems, it is important, in the interest of transparency, to ensure that agencies have the means effectively and efficiently to pull information out of these systems in response to FOIA requests. One way to do that is to require federal agencies to consider their responsibilities under FOIA when they set out to acquire information technology, especially communication technology.

    In 2020, we understand that the National Archives and Record Administration (NARA) recommended to the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) that FAR part 39 be revised to recognize FOIA obligations. Specifically, NARA proposed, inter alia:

Agencies must ensure that contracts for designing, developing, purchasing, or operating information technology or systems, including cloud-based, and Federal or non-Federal information systems, contain requirements that facilitate FOIA processing in their system design specifications (5 U.S.C. § 552). Each agency must ensure that system design includes the following FOIA-related search and retrieval capabilities:

(1)    conduct robust searches of electronic records in response to FOIA requests;
(2)    document the search and search results; and
(3)    export the documents that result from the searches in the format the agency requires for responding to FOIA requests.

The NARA proposal was based on Recommendation 2018-03 of the FOIA Advisory Committee.  The Committee in 2018 recognized a need for “all agencies, when acquiring electronic records management software, electronic mail software, and other records related information technology, to consider features that will help facilitate the agencies’ responsibilities under FOIA to provide access to federal agency records.” Accordingly, the Office of Government Information Services (OGIS) drafted a business case in FY 2019 that would modify the FAR to require access to federal agency records as a consideration in the procurement process. As stated above, NARA submitted the business case to OMB in early FY 2020 for consideration by the Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council.

    Upon the occasion of the FAR overhaul process, as to part 39 and more generally, we suggest that government transparency and efficiency would be achieved by agency recognition of FOIA responsibilities at the time of acquisition of information and communication technology systems. “Transparency by design” in such systems obviates waste of government resources trying to comply with FOIA after the fact with systems ill designed to facilitate compliance. 

    We therefore recommend that the above specifications be included in the FAR revisions being contemplated, in the revised regulations themselves, in the newly contemplated Buyer’s Guides, or in both.

Respectfully submitted,

/s/ Richard J. Peltz-Steele

Richard J. Peltz-Steele, J.D.
Chancellor Professor, University of Massachusetts Law School

Jason R. Baron, J.D.
Professor of the Practice, University of Maryland College of Information

David Cuillier, Ph.D.
Director, The Freedom of Information Project, Brechner Center for the Advancement of the First Amendment, University of Florida College of Journalism and Mass Communication

Shelley Kimball, Ph.D.
Associate Program Director, Senior Lecturer, Johns Hopkins Krieger School of Arts and Sciences

Margaret Kwoka, J.D.
Lawrence “Larry” Herman Professor in Law, Moritz College of Law, The Ohio State University

Affiliations are stated for identification only, not to represent any position of the named institutions.