Legislation produced and given quick initial approval by a state House panel last week would prohibit public disclosure of most body camera recordings made by Tennessee law enforcement officers for at least a year — and potentially keep video of police misconduct under wraps for even longer. Continue…
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Read More… from Bill would black out police bodycam videos in Tenn.
Commentary: In a decision filed Thursday, the New Mexico Court of Appeals held that committees appointed by public bodies must comply with the Open Meetings Act (OMA), and even when meetings are closed due to the attorney-client privilege, substantial OMA requirements still must be met.
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Read More… from New Mexico: Victory for open meetings in Court of Appeals decision
Techdirt: We've been noting for years: when Senator Ron Wyden says that (1) there's a secret interpretation of a law that is at odds with the public's understanding of it, or (2) that government officials are lying, you should pay attention. Continue…
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Judges don’t like it when someone makes a claim that turns out not to be true in order to get a lawsuit dismissed, such as claiming records don’t exist when they do. The White House Office of Science & Technology Policy (OSTP) failed to disclose the existence of some records in response to a Freedom of Information Act request until after a federal judge had already ruled in the case.
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Read More… from Judge issues Order to Show Cause against White House OSTP in FOIA case
The Prince George's County delegation in the Maryland House of Delegates will not meet Friday, but the Democratic caucus of that delegation will. The membership of the delegation and the caucus are precisely the same. The difference is that where delegation meetings are generally open to the public, party caucus meetings are not.
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Read More… from Maryland lawmakers use loophole to dodge open meetings law
The Tennessee Legislature has passed a bill that will require nearly every government office across the state to tell citizens how they can get public records.
The measure first directs the open records counsel in the state comptroller’s office to come up with a model public records policy that local government agencies could adapt. The legislation would then require government offices to have a written public records policy by July 17, 2017.
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Read More… from New Tennessee law could make requesting public records less confusing
The Washington Supreme Court has upheld a $502,000 penalty for Public Records Act violations by the state Department of Labor and Industries, in a ruling that affirms judges can calculate such fines based on each page of a withheld record.
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Read More… from Washington justices uphold $502,000 public records fine against state
Rhode Island General Treasurer Seth Magaziner's office is charging more than $10,000 for Forbes' columnist Edward Siedle's investigation into the Rhode Island pension system's real estate investments, which Siedle identified in December as the fund's "worst performing asset class by far."
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Read More… from Rhode Island Treasurer demanding $10K for Forbes’ public records request
Police detained WBRZ-TV reporter Chris Nakamoto while he was pursuing a story on government operations in the small town of White Castle, Louisiana.
Nakamoto was put in handcuffs, escorted to the police department and written a misdemeanor summons. The summons was written for an alleged violation of statute 14:63, remaining after being forbidden.
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Read More… from Louisiana TV reporter handcuffed, given summons while investigating mayor’s salary
Sunshine Week brought some welcome news for transparency advocates this year: Two state courts ruled, in suits brought by news organizations, that freedom-of-information laws require private entities to disclose their records if they perform a public function.
The rulings, which arrived last week during the annual effort to promote awareness of open government, took up one of the key recurring disputes in public-records law, and both resolved it in favor of greater access.
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Read More… from How two court rulings involving universities breathe new life into the right to know
