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Police Department Charging TV News Network $36,000 For Body Cam Footage (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader writes with news that the NYPD charged a local television station $36k to view police body camera footage. Ars reports: "As body cams continue to flourish in police departments across the nation, an ongoing debate has ensued about how much, if any, of that footage should be made public under state open-access laws. An overlooked twist to that debate, however, has now become front and center: How much should the public have to pay for the footage if the police agree to release it? News network NY1, a Time Warner Cable News operation, was billed $36,000 by the NYPD for roughly 190 hours of footage it requested under the state's Freedom of Information Law (FOIL). Now the network is suing (PDF) the police department in New York state court, complaining that the price tag is too steep. The network said the bill runs 'counter to both the public policy of openness underlying FOIL, as well as the purported transparency supposedly fostered by the BWC (body worn camera) program itself.'"
No it is unreasonable. In the past police departments used to charge $10 per page for xeroxing. The courts overruled it. The public needs to pay for the cop salary anyway and they also need to pay for the person who reviews the footage. the networks should only have to pay for the videotape sent over. Its part of the public right to know. So the public (in this case PD) needs to foot the bill since the PD gets paid via taxes anyway.