How the record was created, how it was delivered, how it was sent, whose equipment was used (and even whether it was a final report or a draft one), none of that matters when it comes to determining what a public record is.

You don't have to have a dog in the hunt to be ticked by this story

This story should really bother you. It should bother you, not because you know any of the people involved, the city or the situation that prompted it. It should bother you on principle: A court order was secured to prohibit public disclosure of information because a citizen who frequently disagrees with city council decisions had requested it under FOIA.

by Jeff Lester

“Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants.”

Before he became a Supreme Court justice, Louis Brandeis wrote those words more than a century ago in a Harper’s Weekly article on the need to uncover corruption in the nation’s financial system.
Since then, advocates for open government have invoked the metaphor of sunshine. We say “sunshine laws” as shorthand for freedom of information’s legal protections. We celebrate freedom of information efforts during Sunshine Week.

When I get together with my counterparts in other states — such as the Florida First Amendment Foundation, Open Oregon, the New England First Amendment Coalition, or the Ohio Coalition for Open Government — I often imagine us as residents of a nursing home sharing our ailments. We nod and tsk-tsk as we exchange tales of the latest abuse of our open government laws.