Government Records

Utah Court Rules Journalist Entitled to Names of Lobbyists Hired to Delist Gray Wolf

The court held that the names of the subcontractors being paid with state funds to lobby for wolf-delisting were not properly classified as protected “trade secrets” or “commercial information,” under Utah’s open records statute, and that in any event the names must be released because the public interest in access outweighs any interests in restriction…

Pushing Back Against NYPD for Violations of Journalists’ Constitutional Rights

In a recently filed suit, five visual journalists are suing the NYPD for civil rights violations after each journalist was targeted, beaten, or arrested by NYPD officers while attempting to cover the 2020 George Floyd protests in New York City.

Sacramento Bee Scores Win Against Police Secrecy

Obfuscating Mercy: How The California Supreme Court Finally Addressed Secretive Pardons

The new rule rejects the governor’s decades-old practice of automatically sealing clemency files, but places the onus on the public to move for unsealing.

The Pentagon Papers 50 Years Later

Fifty years has not definitively resolved the impact and import of the Pentagon Papers case. Was it a monumental victory for the press? Was it a loss, since for the first time the courts imposed a prior restraint on a newspaper? Or was it an inconsequential one-off, since it hasn’t been a precedent for many…

Social Media Blocking by Government Officials: Where Does the Law Stand?

A look at how caselaw has developed since the Knight Institute filed the 2017 complaint against president Trump, and what factors courts consider in challenges to social media blocking by public officials.

Signed, Sealed, Delivered: Fifth Circuit Addresses Growing Concern With Overbroad Sealing Practices

The panel addressed a “peripheral-yet-essential point: Judicial records are public records. And public records, by definition, presume public access.”

Court Unseals Government Docs in Prosecutor Misconduct Inquiry

A New York federal district court ordered the unsealing of government emails, text messages and other documents at the heart of an extraordinary prosecutorial misconduct inquiry involving the elite terrorism and international narcotics unit in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the SDNY.

D.C. Court of Appeals Rules in Favor of CIA on Syria Program FOIA Request

The appellate court’s “who-knows-for-sure” standard is rhetorically striking and illustrates the virtually unbridled deference courts give to federal agencies in FOIA cases involving national security.

Judge Orders Release Under FOIA of Report on Sexual Abuse of Children at Federal Health Agency

In consolidated cases brought by The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, a federal magistrate judge has ordered the federal government to make public a contractor’s report about mismanagement at the Indian Health Service that allowed a doctor to sexually abuse children for more than two decades.