|
Evanston, Illinois, City Clerk Devon Reid has added another claim to his lawsuit against the city and several officials after aldermen voted to designate additional Freedom of Information Act officers. Reid was represented at the first hearing in his lawsuit Wednesday by his attorney Ed Mullen. In the lawsuit, Reid alleges that the city and its officials violated Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) law by not providing him with unredacted copies of police videos and documents in FOIA requests. Reid’s lawsuit claims that as Evanston’s designated FOIA officer, he is responsible for making sure redactions are appropriate and necessary. As FOIA officer, Reid has said he serves as a conduit between residents requesting information and the city department that can provide it. He also serves as an advocate to help residents properly request and receive the information they need, he said. In addition to the dispute over unredacted materials, the lawsuit also argues that as the city clerk, “Reid has the responsibility to issue the response to a FOIA request and determine whether the response is appropriate.”
Chicago Tribune
In response to a Freedom of Information Act seeking data that D.C. law requires police to collect about the race or ethnicity of individuals subjected to traffic stops, the D.C. Police Department told ACLU DC that the information can be only be by viewing more than 31,000 body-worn camera videos. “Based on a prior bill we received from MPD for body-worn camera footage production at $23 per minute of video, the bill for 31,521 five-minute videos would exceed $3.6 million: a preposterous amount to get access to data that should be free to the public,” said Scott Michelman, Legal Co-Director of the ACLU of the District of Columbia.
WUSA9
A Trump administration national security official has sought help from advisers to a think tank that disavows climate change to challenge widely accepted scientific findings on global warming, according to his emails. The request from William Happer, a member of the National Security Council, is included in emails from 2018 and 2019 that were obtained by the Environmental Defense Fund under the federal Freedom of Information Act and provided to The Associated Press. That request was made this past March to policy advisers with the Heartland Institute, one of the most vocal challengers of mainstream scientific findings that emissions from burning coal, oil and gas are damaging the Earth's atmosphere.
The Oklahoman
Proponents of government transparency are warning that a little-noticed bill, now sitting on Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's desk, could gut public access to the Texas Legislature's internal communications. Authored by powerful state Rep. Charlie Geren, R-Fort Worth, the bill would let lawmakers assert "legislative privilege" to withhold work-related records that are currently subject to the Texas Public Information Act. While the Legislature can already object to the disclosure of documents used to create or evaluate proposed legislation, critics of the bill say it would mark an expansion of lawmakers' ability to wall off their records from public scrutiny. The change comes as the Texas Legislature is being praised for strengthening open government measures, including the closure of a loophole that let private government contractors withhold information.
KVIA
|
 "Based on a prior bill we received from MPD for body-worn camera footage production at $23 per minute of video, the bill for 31,521 five-minute videos would exceed $3.6 million."
|
A shortcoming of the school system's public-outreach efforts was the location of many of the community meetings.