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President Trump made a high-profile, short-lived typo this past weekend when he referred to Defense Secretary Mark Esper as "Mark Esperanto" in a tweet that was deleted after an hour. Trump has made unprecedented use of Twitter from the Oval Office and regularly uses it to share thoughts and announcements on politics and diplomacy. For many experts, his penchant for deletion is cause for concern: Under the 1978 Presidential Records Act, Trump's electronic communications are considered public property, and living history. Access to complete presidential records makes fuller historical research and scholarship possible. For instance, new work on the early years of the Cold War is only coming out now that certain documents and parts of the policy record are declassified, Dan Mahaffee, senior vice president and director of policy at the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress, said.
NPR
The Delaware Department of Justice says Wilmington City Council violated the Freedom of Information Act when barring outspoken city resident Dion Wilson from speaking during a public comment period last month. City Council President Hanifa Shabazz said Wilson was not allowed to speak because he had used profanity during the previous meeting. Shabazz also had Wilson arrested earlier this month on charges of harassment and disorderly conduct— a move criticized by some council members and free speech advocates. Deputy Attorney General Dorey Cole decided FOIA’s open meeting requirements apply to the public comment period. She said City Council can remove citizens who are “willfully and seriously disruptive” to a meeting — but that Council’s preemptive decision to bar Wilson from speaking was not justified.
Delaware Public Media
Grosse Pointe Woods' (Michigan) city government has left some citizens outraged after it provided names, emails and addresses of thousands of its residents to a politician running for reelection. The city handed over the information on about 6,500 residents to incumbent City Council member Richard Shetler days after Shetler filed a Freedom of Information Act request to the city clerk in August seeking resident contact information from water bill and parks and recreation lists. Upon receiving the information, Shetler email-blasted constituents, promoting his reelection campaign.
Detroit Free Press
The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and a coalition of 32 media organizations are supporting Spectrum News NY1’s request of the Supreme Court of the State of New York, Appellate Division, First Department, to reverse a trial court order that would require a hearing to assess whether redacting police body camera footage would be “unreasonably difficult.” The January order of the Supreme Court of the State of New York, County of New York, permits the parties to conduct a hearing to determine whether making redactions to body camera footage would be “unreasonably difficult,” as the NYPD claims. The additional hearing would further delay production of any records NY1 requested under New York’s Freedom of Information Law.
Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press
The Interior Department has removed heavily criticized language from the final version of its public records rule that some worried would give officials too much leniency in withholding documents. The final iteration of the department’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) regulation issued Friday removes several proposed language changes that government watchdog groups argued would place an unlawful burden on public records seekers and offered the agency broader authority to reject requests that didn’t fit the more narrow request format. For instance, a section of the finalized rule no longer lists the additional specification to “reasonably describe” the records sought: “identify the discrete, identifiable agency activity, operation, or program in which you are interested.”
The Hill
Ruth Van Mark was announced as Wyoming's first public records ombudsman. In the position, she will settle disputes over records requests, determine the scope of what can be redacted in requests and coordinate with state agencies to make the process for submitting requests more straightforward. “The ombudsman’s role provides the citizens of Wyoming who are seeking public information an opportunity to get their questions answered without having to go to court if, in fact, they can’t work it out with the agency,” Van Mark said. The position was created with the passage of Senate File 57 in the spring. Cassie Craven, a lobbyist with the Wyoming Liberty Group, said there was a lot of testimony last session about records disputes between state agencies and citizens that had gone wrong in court.
Wyoming Tribune Eagle
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 "Access to complete presidential records makes fuller historical research and scholarship possible. For instance, new work on the early years of the Cold War is only coming out now."
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