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Governments Turn Tables By Suing Public Records Requesters (apnews.com)
schwit1 quotes the AP:
Government bodies are increasingly turning the tables on citizens who seek public records that might be embarrassing or legally sensitive. Instead of granting or denying their requests, a growing number of school districts, municipalities and state agencies have filed lawsuits against people making the requests -- taxpayers, government watchdogs and journalists who must then pursue the records in court at their own expense.
The lawsuits generally ask judges to rule that the records being sought do not have to be divulged. They name the requesters as defendants but do not seek damage awards. Still, the recent trend has alarmed freedom-of-information advocates, who say it's becoming a new way for governments to hide information, delay disclosure and intimidate critics. "This practice essentially says to a records requester, 'File a request at your peril,'" said University of Kansas journalism professor Jonathan Peters, who wrote about the issue for the Columbia Journalism Review in 2015, before several more cases were filed. "These lawsuits are an absurd practice and noxious to open government."
The lawsuits generally ask judges to rule that the records being sought do not have to be divulged. They name the requesters as defendants but do not seek damage awards. Still, the recent trend has alarmed freedom-of-information advocates, who say it's becoming a new way for governments to hide information, delay disclosure and intimidate critics. "This practice essentially says to a records requester, 'File a request at your peril,'" said University of Kansas journalism professor Jonathan Peters, who wrote about the issue for the Columbia Journalism Review in 2015, before several more cases were filed. "These lawsuits are an absurd practice and noxious to open government."
If this keeps happening they risk being in contempt of the court by filing frivolous lawsuits against legitimate actors.
Twinstiq, game news
Many of these information outlaws failed to even submit Forms 223981A-1 and 32871BC-5, Application For Permit To Become Information Criminal and Certification of Illegal Information Gathering. That makes them double criminals!
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Trump needs to remember the reason he was voted in: put and end to this deep-state bullshit.
Suing the citizen is exactly the kind of shit you get once you start warrantless mass surveillance of the Americans (Bush, Obama), spying on journalists (Obama), sending the IRS after the dissenters (Obama), putting the whistle-blowers to jail (Obama).
Manning, Assange, and Snowden need to be fully exonerated and given a medal of freedom. Obama stooges need to be jailed and tried for seditious subversion of the constitution.
Denying a FOI may be a good reason to do so. Such as protecting protecting confidential information. For example if you want the Medicaid Health Records of the guy who lives down the street, because you think he is a druggy.
However information that shouldn't be denied is if it just happens to put the officials in a bad light. So they may had rushed that contract for the new building and went with a known vendor. While the reason to do so, is because the building needed to be built quickly, and the known vendor had a good track record for quality. However releasing this information will just mean for the person who approved it a bunch of extra problems, to defend his actions, and explanation on after the fact solution's. Now this is information that still should be available even if it puts someone who was trying to put the benefit of the community ahead of his own, but still we should know about this, as it could lead to abuse in the future and the person will be held accountable, even just politically.
Politicians need to realize that they serve the community and their job there is at the privilege of the community. If they want him out, then their job is over.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Then move to a better country. You won't be missed.
Face it America, you're all fucked.
Your beloved Constitution is being used to wipe the asses of those in power. Your beloved Republic ceases to exist when your politicians act like facists. Your beloved freedoms don't exist when they stop applying and you stop fighting for them, and when your own President doesn't seem to know or care what they are. You sure as fuck are no better than the places you're at war with, because you have religions believing they should determine what everyone should be allowed to do. Your Christian minority would like nothing more than a theocracy while pretending to want freedom.
So, cower in your homes, whine about how you're all ineffectual losers, and accept that you're a society in decline who no longer occupy the place in the world you believe you do.
Simpering pussies, just curl up and die and leave the rest of us in peace already, will you?
Fucking pathetic country you've become, still thinking you're the moral leaders of the world, when you have an idiot with small hands, a small penis, and no fucking clue as the leader of your country.
The day will come when you find you no longer have allies who give a shit about your notions of being the greatest nation on the planet.
In the old days corrupt and unruly government officials would be tarred and feathered (or worse) so they knew to behave. Government works for the people not vice versa.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Then move to a better country. You won't be missed.
Just like you did when you didn't like it?
Become a member today at https://action.aclu.org/secure...
don't know about you all.... but for us frogs, we like it when the water warms up.... feels good so I'm not complaining
Come over to Europe! We could use a few immigrants that can read and write and maybe even have some marketable skills for a change.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
is SLAPP
Silly citizens- how DARE you want to use the law to request things that you have the legal right to see?
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
If this keeps happening they risk being in contempt of the court by filing frivolous lawsuits against legitimate actors.
I wonder how many of the lawsuits are against frivolous information requests. For example yet another request to NASA about where the aliens are hidden. Might be a valid move for these.
Come over to Europe! We could use a few immigrants that can read and write
That disqualifies a majority of my countrymen right there.
Time to update the FOIA with teeth. Something along the lines of filing a lawsuit or other attempt to obstruct an FOIA request makes the government employees/elected officials involved automatically liable to felony obstruction charges if they lose the lawsuit and must personally pay the state legal fees and the legal fees of the FOIA requestor. Such lawsuits must be settled in 90 days or summary judgement is made for the FOIA requestor. Further, any elected officials who file such a lawsuit immediately lose their elected position for the duration of the lawsuit, government employees are immediately placed on paid leave. If they lose the lawsuit, they have to pay back the leave time and are summarily fired/removed from office.
Time to put all the little jack booted thugs in government on notice, the people are your boss!
If you disagree, please post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like
This is brilliant. There's even a name for it: vexatious litigation. This cannot possibly backfire.
Yeah, you can leave them there, we already got a vast load of religious nutjobs recently, what we'd need more of is sane people who can actually work and pay for the sponges.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
File requests anonymously or through a proxy.
I have no problems with government working for the people, as long as there's a balance to the work being done.
From the perspective of working in a public school, there are right ways and wrong ways of obtaining public information. I've worked in three different school districts, and at 9 out of every 10 school board meetings, the only member of the public in attendance is the newspaper reporter. And 9 out of every 10 board meetings where someone else from the public attends, it's an individual, a family, or a community group speaking at the public commentary, then leaving after the public comment period is finished. (And 1 out of every 100 is when the shit hits the fan, and 300 people show up to complain about some coach who got fired or homosexuality advocacy group or what have you.) But if you want your public information, GO TO THOSE MEETINGS. That's why we have them open to the public. If you don't, then don't complain about why some school employee gets frustrated when you interrupt their already-busy day telling them to bend over backwards for some pissy FOIA request, as this guy has the habit of doing on a regular basis.
A public school in the state of Minnesota already has to file 37 different reports with the state every year, everything from attendance, to financing, student performance, and even one for preparing students to be a part of the "World's Best Workforce". There's an incredible amount of internal resources devoted to making that all happen. The best resource to find out what schools are doing is the information already publicly available on the state's Department of Education website, school websites, and newspapers.
But, despite all those efforts, it only takes one fool to mess it all up for the rest of us.
The tables were already turned against citizens, otherwise the requests would not need to be made proactively.
but not with the current legal system. the main problem is unlike Europe, there is no article 47 here granting a right to civil counsel. Instead, you are pro se, and might have no resources to prepare a case to defend your FOIA. This is the tactic the government is relying on to win. They know you cannot afford to bring a case in court, so you have a great risk to the judge siding with the government.
The benefit is in some cases you can bring your case, and a judge might side with you..
https://www.obamasweapon.com/
Or maybe I never hated this country with a passion. Loser.
Israel is pretty rascist, he could try there. Best apartheid since South Africa
Pay for your own sponges you dirty socialist.
This is exactly like how a colleague of mine was arrested for filing a complaint against an police officer who had illegally kept him from reporting on an incident that was happening. Basically the officer called on other officers after pushing him back far beyond what was "necessary" for the officers safety (ignoring all other persons who were much closer, but not reporters) and physically surrounding him as to prevent him from filming. He filed a complaint against the initial officer and was subsequently arrested. A warrant was entered into the system and no attempt was made to alert him to the fact he needed to show at a police department for answer for some 'crime'. So subsequently he ended up in a very dangerous situation with guns pointed at him by multiple police offices- who were clearly ready to shoot him in spite of not giving ANY orders even- during the filming of ANOTHER police encounter. Humorously the only reason this police department knew about the warrant was because of an illegal search that they had conducted just prior to this incident that was being filmed. About an hour earlier we had gone into the police station to get answers as to why there were so few police on that night for a story that we were doing. At that point they conducted a search without there being any reason to suspect anybody of a crime. That is when the warrant came back and why the police had surrounded my colleague with guns pointing at him- but no orders. They were acting as if he was a dangerous armed criminal in spite of knowing exactly why he was there (to film their illegal interactions with a stopped car that had been pulled over, we were on a PUBLIC side walk far enough away and in sight of the officer as to not be a safety concern).
I've also been arrested for crossing the street despite it not being illegal within the contexts. Also a situation where the police were taking out there dislike for protesters and reporters on me. Retaliation is NOT acceptable. While we're probably the only reporters/media correspondents who are actively responding with legal action there is sadly a low chance of success. Police are almost always given the benefit of the doubt no matter how much evidence there is to the contrary. We have evidence of intentional misconduct, but it'll probably not go anywhere because BOTH the police and courts are notoriously corrupt here. That's not unusual though. Other areas in my state are much better, but I'd still say the chance of succeeding in a lawsuit against the police are low in spite of there being clear and convincing evidence. However that said there have been a number of reporters in NH who have won civil lawsuits in other cities against the police. Arresting someone for disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, and filming didn't hold up too well in court. Nor did another situation where a city brought a lawsuit against numerous individuals who were filming other government employees.
Conservatives need a good conspiracy victimstance in 2017. "We won the presidency with racism but STILL can't get anything done, thus, conspiracy!"
Trump was the least racist, and yes, the least conservative republican president in modern history. The whole racist/nazi/russian story is atrocious; you'll be so ashamed you were duped into it, but it will be too late.
Face it. You liberals had a chance to support Trump and change the country for the better. You blew it.
To be fair, us conservatives relaxed to much after the win and didn't defend Trump. We also blew it. We thought the deep state would roll over and give up...
The big banks and the military-industrial complex own him now. It was either that, or face impeachment by the deep state. Welcome, Obama 2.0/Bush 3.0 aka the New Trump.
Actually you are not too far off the mark. After an incident with my child at school, I had to file 7 FOIA requests to get a copy of the video. When I first started filing them, various people within the school were insisting that I use a non-existent form. I also had to pay $180 for an external company to recover the video from the system (via USB in five minutes). They kept redacting the video with various excuses, such as there were other children in the frame (a lie). When I finally received all 7 copies, I was able to piece together the original.
The investigation by the school district and State department of education amounted to little more than additional delay tactics. Although the process took over a year, we were made whole and the law was changed in our State. If I had to do it again, I would start by contacting the Federal Office for Civil Rights.
Things get strange with state and local governments because you can have an administration divided among different parties. If the Attorney General, Secretary of State, Treasurer, Comptroller, etc are of different parties, it may be that one of them wants to refuse document requests in a way that minimizes costs because of the inability to get money from another piece of the administration. For all I know, if moves the costs of the fight to someone else's budget. Things like this can get weird as all get out for political reasons that never get articulated.
We have this lofty idea that FOIA request are a lynch pin of democracy and open government, but there's another side to this that bears examination. Public records requests are often used to harass local government entities. I'm aware of a public library near by that was inundated with requests because the requestor was against the library's policy on internet access. They did not filter ALL their PCs for pornography BECAUSE it's a free speech issue. It isn't illegal, therefore the government cannot prevent a citizen from accessing it. Libraries have largely resolved this issue today by allowing "free access" to a limited number of PCs in adult-only areas, so the controversy is not what it was twenty years ago. Nevertheless, the tactic used was to request nearly every record the library possessed. Meeting minutes, budget records, financial data--basically anything they could think of. Were these "protestors" actually interested in this data? Nope. They had no intention of using it. The just wanted to cost the library time and effort, which they did. This particular library hired a full-time clerk whose ONLY job was to respond to these requests "in a timely manner" as required by law. This is public money being spent on responses to these requests, and just so you know. Libraries aren't rich. Having to spend an entire FTE on responding to these "requests" basically means a cut in service hours somewhere else in the system.
What this kind of protesting does is divert government from its mission to provide services and do the business of government and turn it into an agency whose only job is to respond to ever more ludicrous requests for "information" that has NOTHING to do with government, will not result in any sort of "open" government,will divulge no juicy secrets, and simply paralyzes the institution so attacked. When FOIA laws are used in this manner, i's like patent trolls harassing a company. I'm all for open government and access to information, but when it is used as a political weapon it makes a mockery of the entire process. So bully for these governmental entities fighting back against these assholes.
How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
I think nobody would mind if you took them away from us.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
You mean so that you can pretend that the 100,000 that comes over are millions and claim that the hundred of them that misbehaves are representing all of them?
Nah, so we can report that we actually DO get some that DO have marketable skills.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.