Slashdot Mirror
Variably Sunny: SCOTUS Allows Local FOIA Restrictions
v3rgEz writes "The Supreme Court ruled Monday morning that states have the right to restrict public records access to locals, meaning one more hurdle to would-be muckrakers everywhere. Even in-state requesters are harmed: It means one more bureaucratic hurdle and another excuse for agencies to respond in paper rather than electronically. MuckRock has helped file requests in all 50 states — important for projects like the Drone Census — and we're looking for more volunteers to help ensure transparency from sea to shining sea. States impacted: Alabama; Arkansas; Delaware; Georgia; New Hampshire; New Jersey; Tennessee; and Virginia. If you live in one of the above, fill out a simple form and we can help ensure that sunshine isn't restricted depending on where you live."
If with all the Internet at your disposal you can't find one single person in the state willing to submit the FOIA request and pass you back the results, it's a good sign you're wasting everybody's time and *shouldn't* have access to the information you seek.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
The constitution restricts nothing. It grants powers to the government. Anything not explicitly granted is prohibited.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
How does the ninth amendment even apply, in any way? The FOIA isn't in the constitution at all. Anyways, the SCOTUS found a long (long) time ago that the 9th amendment only applies to the federal government and isn't enforceable against the states, so even if it was in some way relevant, it still wouldn't apply, as this is a state-level FOIAs that the ruling was on.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
I admit, I haven't read the full thing, but as soon as I made it 1/2 a page in, I had to respond ...
First off, this doesn't seem to be about the federal FOIA, it's about a state's act. And the limit here is that states don't have to respond to people who aren't citizens of their states. The 2006 Lee v. Minner decision (458 F.3d 194) found that Delaware wasn't allowed to have such a clause in their FOIA, so this isn't even going to affect all states.
That being said, I'm an elected municipal official in Maryland (which falls under the Lee vs. Minner ruling, as I understand it) ... and it's possible that we'd get sued under the equivalent Maryland law, as someone recently tried to demand from us *EVERY* *LAST* business transaction that we made for the last 7 years. (I can't remember the exact wording; it's possible that we claim that the report requested was a 'new record' and thus something that didn't exist) Mind you, we have 8 employees, 3 of whom are police officers, and 3 of whom are public works. So that'd mean that we'd have to tie up our accountant or town clerk for weeks to go through all of the records, properly sanitize everything to keep from leaking restricted information (like PII, as we're so small that we have a single system that also handles payroll), which would mean that we couldn't actually serve our citizens in the process.
Why did the person want this it? Because they were starting a website to charge businesses for access to this information.
If a person has a legitimate need for the information, they should be able to get a citizen of the state to file the request on their behalf. How much time has been wasted in Hawaii by responding to birth certificate requests over the last few years?
(note; I have a full time job and don't participate in the day-to-day operations of our town; I have no idea how the request ended up playing out (or if it's finished playing out yet); I believe it was sent to our attorney to deal with)
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
It seems that State held information is a State matter and not a federal one.
It is interesting that people look upon the US as a monolithic country when it was formed more as a confederation of independent States. The states guard their sovereignty very strongly. The SCOTUS appears to see FOI requests from different states the same as FOI requests from different countries and, as it is the way the US is set up, it should. If a State does not want to respond to FOI requests from different States or countries there is no Federal power that requires them to.
Here is a quote from the decision;
The state FOIA essentially represents a mechanism by which those who ultimately hold sovereign power (i.e., the citizens of the Commonwealth) may obtain an accounting from the public officials to whom they delegate the exercise of that power.
That's simply not true. The ER does have to provide emergency care to stabilize a patient. If, however, you have cancer you can't just go to the ER for treatment. If you need an organ transplant to live you won't get one in the United States without some form of insurance/state coverage to pay for the operation and the ongoing costs. As your liver fails, you will be able to go to the ER to try and help reduce the toxins in your bloodstream or stem excessive bleeding. But once your life is no longer in danger and you are considered stabilized, you can be dischaged - even though the doctos know your only hope for survival is a transplant.
If you are older and break a bone, the ER will treat you and set the bone in a cast whether or not you have insurance. They won't however cover the cost of physiotherapy to help you walk again afterwards.
There are many who visit horpital emergency rooms and are denied the care they need to function or indeed to live.The largest for-profit network of hospitals, HCA, now demand up-front payment from ER patients if their condition is deemed to be not a true emergency.