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An appeals court has shot down New York City Mayor de Blasio's attempt to keep secret emails between City Hall and outside advisers dubbed "agents of the city." The court ruled that de Blasio must hand over the emails after a lawsuit by NY1 and other news organizations seeking their disclosure under the state's Freedom of Information Law. A lower court had ruled the same way, but Hizzoner appealed. De Blasio was seeking to shield communications with consultants like Jonathan Rosen and his firm BerlinRosen, who were hired by the mayor's now-defunct and scandal-scarred political nonprofit the Campaign for One New York.
New York Daily News
For the fourth year in a row, the Department of Defense has asked Congress to legislate a new exemption from the Freedom of Information Act in the FY 2019 national defense authorization act for certain unclassified military tactics, techniques and procedures. Previous requests for such an exemption were rebuffed or ignored by Congress. The Defense Department again justified its request by explaining that a 2011 US Supreme Court decision in Milner v. Department of the Navy had significantly narrowed its authority to withhold such information under FOIA. "Before that decision, the Department was authorized to withhold sensitive information on critical infrastructure and military tactics, techniques, and procedures from release under FOIA pursuant to Exemption 2," DoD wrote in a legislative proposal that was transmitted to Congress on March 16 and posted online yesterday by the Pentagon's Office of General Counsel.
Secrecy News
In a significant expansion of intelligence record preservation, email from more than 426 Central Intelligence Agency email accounts will now be captured as permanent historical records. A plan to that effect was approved by the National Archives last week. In 2014, the CIA had said that it intended to preserve the emails of only 22 senior officials, a startlingly low number considering the size and importance of the Agency. The National Archives initially recommended approval of the CIA proposal. But as soon as the CIA proposal was made public, it generated a wave of opposition from members of Congress and public interest groups. "In our experience, email messages are essential to finding CIA records that may not exist in other so-called permanent records at the CIA," wrote Senators Dianne Feinstein and Saxby Chambliss in November 2014, when they were chair and vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee. "Applying the new proposal to all but the 22 most senior CIA officials means the new policy would allow the destruction of important records and messages of a number of top CIA officials."
Secrecy News
In an important win for government transparency, a Santa Clara (California) Superior Court judge has ruled that the city of Milpitas must release documents relating to allegations of serious misconduct by former city manager Tom Williams. The city originally withheld the documents based in part on a “reverse California Public Record Act” lawsuit filed by Williams more than a year ago. Under a “reverse CPRA” action, any individual claiming to have an interest in government records sought by a CPRA request can preemptively seek to prevent the release of those records, sometimes before the person who originally requested the records has a chance to contest the “reverse CPRA” action. Nothing in the California Public Records Act explicitly allows “reverse CPRA” lawsuits. Until 2012, FAC and many others maintained they were prohibited under the law. However, that year the California Court of Appeal decided that such lawsuits are permissible. As a result, journalists and others who request records under the CPRA increasingly find their efforts thwarted by third parties — often before the original requester of the records even has a chance to show up in court and argue for access.
First Amendment Coalition
The Eastern Kentucky University Board of Regents violated the state open meetings act when it met behind behind closed doors for more than five hours, Attorney General Andy Beshear said. The student newspaper, the Eastern Progress, filed an appeal with Beshear's office after the meeting. The March 19 meeting was held before EKU officials announced how they would deal with a $25 million budget cut, specifically by cutting about 120 jobs and programs. Because individual people would lose their jobs, the regents used two exemptions to the open meetings law, one that allows closed sessions for the discipline or dismissal of an employee, or for proposed or pending legislation. Board attorney Dana Fohl argued that litigation was "reasonably imminent depending on what positions might ultimately be eliminated." But Beshear's office found that discussing budget cuts was "only tangentially related" to individual personnel matters. The open meetings law states "the formation of public policy is public business and shall not be conducted in secret," and exemptions shall be "strictly construed.," the opinion says. "The public had a right to attend the discussions regarding the impact of the recommendations on the University."
Lexington Herald Leader
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 "In our experience, email messages are essential to finding CIA records that may not exist in other so-called permanent records at the CIA."
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