The FOIA blog

California Bill Tries to Restrict Public Records Act Requests

A bill introduced in California would allow a court to restrict in certain cases individuals from making public records act requests.  While I understand the motives behind the law, I worry that the  unintended consequences of this statute make this a bad idea.

The law can be found here:  Download Ab_520_bill_20090225_introduced[1]

Discovery Against a FOIA Requester

The District of Columbia's Fraternal Order of Police recently filed a complaint against the District of Columbia concerning a FOIA request it made pursuant to the D.C. FOIA (which largely mirrors the federal FOIA). 

D.C. then took the largely unprecedented and rare move of serving discovery on the plaintiff.  After a motion for a protective order, D.C. backed down and withdrew its discovery request.  However, as I've never heard of anything like this, I thought it was worthy of a blog post.

The parties are still quibbling about the discovery--as you can see from these filings with the court.

Download District%27s%20Withdrawal%20of%20FOIA%20Discovery[1]

Download FOP%20Response%20to%20Withdrawal%20Motion[1]

Virginia Coalition for Open Government on Twitter

The Virginia Coalition for Open Government, embracing new technology, is now on twitter at twitter.com/opengovva. 

New Pennsylvania State Records Law In Effect

Pennsylvania's new open records law went into effect on January 1, 2009.  It replaced the old Right to Know law which really didn't let anyone know anything.  More details on the law can be found here.

Palin Invokes Executive Privilege on Emails

According to this Washington Post article, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin and Republican Vice-Presidential Candidate has invoked executive privilege to withhold emails requested by an Alaskan citizen.

I don't know Alaska law.  However, if a similar problem arose in the federal realm her legal problem on maintaining the privilege is that she cc'd her husband on many of the documents.  While he is the First Man of the state, he isn't a legal employee and that fact may doom her invocation of the privilege as the privilege usually stands only when the documents are internal to the government.  There are some exceptions and they will, no doubt, argue that these exceptions apply to this situation.

I'm trying very hard to keep this blog non-political.  However, this isn't a good sign about Palin's views on transparency in government. 

Sarah Palin Wasilla, Alaska Documents

The town of Wasilla, Alaska, where Sarah Palin was mayor has released documents as a result of numerous Alaska Public Records Act requests.  The documents can be accessed here.

Increase in State Open Records Blogs Noted

Once in awhile I blog about State Open Records matters.  However, since I started this blog almost two years ago, I've noticed that others have covered the state matters in depth.  And I'm not alone.  Leslie Graves has also noticed this trend.

Michigan Supreme Court Rules On Two State FOIA Cases

This AP story discusses the Michigan Supreme Court's rulings on two state FOIA cases that came before it.  In both cases, personal privacy beat out requester's rights.  Links to the actual cases are provided on the last page of the story.

When is a Body's Records Covered by a State Public Records Law

A court in the state of Washington will have to decide if a body made up of entirely public groups is covered by the state's public records law.  This article by Daniel Lathrop of the Seattle P-I describes one mans battle to get records from the Association of Washington Cities.  As the article states, the Court will decide how to proceed on the matter.

Updated Tennessee Open Records Law

According to this report, Tennessee has an updated public records law.  The interesting thing about this law is that it specifically lays out the responsibility of the ombudsman.