Investigative journalism in e-State Estonia Tarmo Vahter Weekly newspaper Eesti Ekspress .
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Transcript of Investigative journalism in e-State Estonia Tarmo Vahter Weekly newspaper Eesti Ekspress .
Investigative journalism in e-State Estonia
Tarmo VahterWeekly newspaper Eesti Ekspress
www.ekspress.ee
Where to find the information?
The Estonian Way
• Estonia has since 2001 the Freedom of Information Law (Avaliku Teabe Seadus).
• It has really changed the Estonian journalism.
• I will tell you about 3 different cases, where I have found interesting information from the Internet.
1) Documents registers
• Every government office in Estonia must publish the register of correspondence on its website.
• You will see who has sent the letters for the office and what the topic was.
• If you want to read the original letter, you have to send a FOIA request.
• In 5 days time the government office must send you the copy of the letter.
The register of correspondence of the Ministry of Justice
• http://www2.just.ee/jdocs
In 2006 I found an interesting letter about Congo in this register
• http://www2.just.ee/jdocs//?grupp=sisse&meta=mkp&otsi=11.09.2006
I made a FOIA
request and got
the original
document.
CLAIM: Ex-prime minister Tiit Vähi is doing illegal mineral
business in Congo!?
Story in Eesti Ekspress
2) Central commercial register and land register
• https://ar.eer.ee/
• Everybody can use the Estonia´s central commercial register and land register.
• It is not free of charge – you have to pay about 50 cents–1 euro for each search.
• You can do good stories, if you use both of the databases.
• In 2008 I just accidentally noticed that the private company of politician Heiki Kranich was registered at the address Tuvi 12/3.
It is a top apartment house in the city centre of Tallinn.
Let´s check the land register!
• https://www.just.ee/kravalik/Login.aspx?ReturnUrl=%2fkravalik%2fDefault.aspx
...the results
What did I find?
• The land register showed that it was a big 160 m2 apartment.
• The owner of the apartment was not Heiki Kranich, but an unknown company Luksi Maja.
• Back to the commercial register!
...and the results were:
What did I find now?
• One of the owners of the company Luksi Maja was Koit Uus - a very rich businessman.
• Uus had recently made a big land deal with the ministry of environment.
• Guess who was the minister of environment back then?
Heiki Kranich, who is now living in his luxury apartment.
Story in Eesti Ekspress
3) Archival Information System
• http://ais.ra.ee/• Database of National Archives of Estonia. • It enables everyone to get information
about a record on the Internet. • There are more than 5 million records.• You can not see the documents
themselves, you have to go to the archive to read them.
• In 2006 I got a tip that some political parties have handed their documents to the National Archives.
• I made a search with the name Isamaa (Pro Patria Union) – it´s the most important conservative party in Estonia.
Bingo!
A lot of documents... What´s this? Bookkeeping?
Unbelievable!
• They have handed every financial document from the year 1993 to the National Archives.
• Nobody had read them before.
• There where even original documents of the bank transfers.
• When Pro Patria´s leader Mart Laar was the prime minister of Estonia, his party was secretly collecting money from the state-owned enterprises.
My Story in Eesti Ekspress
Summary
• It´s possible to find very interesting things from the Estonian databases.
• You can make good stories very cheaply
• You just have to now where to look.
• And it´s very important to be patient