CALIFORNIA PUBLIC RECORDS: BILL TARGETS FREQUENT RECORDS REQUESTERS
A bill introduced in California’s legislature would allow state agencies to stop filling the open-records requests of people who have asked for records too many times. But what is too many, and why are they scared?
I have frequently sent CPRA request to the crime labs, police agencies and other departments. Their failure to respond is legend. But it is only because I pursued this avenue, that I was able to uncover hundreds of emails between the San Diego Sheriff's Department and the City Attorneys, and the San Diego police Department and prosecutor talking about how they were going to have to "fix" the "problem" I had uncovered because of their illegal use of non-qualified personnle to draw blood at the jails. Had I not been able to obtain these internal emails using CPRA, the SDSO and SDPD, along with the prosecutors would still be using phlebotomists who matain their medical supplies underneath their kitchen sinks and only wash it when it is visibly blood. Not kidding, folks. Believe me, the prosecutors knew and tried to cover it up.
Or how about the crime lab analyst that was testifying falsely, and the prosecutors knew it. I got those records through the CPRA from the SDSO crime lab. the chief trial lawyer for the city, who never produced that information to anyone, is now a judge. Imagine what would have happened had it been uncovered at the time the woman was testifyin, before this man was rogue prosecutor was given his cush job as a judge?
The bill sets out a process or an agency to seek a court order allowing them to no longer process records requests when the requester has an “improper purpose, which includes, but is not limited to, the harassment of a public agency or its employees.”
The tactic is becoming more common. Recently, Washington passed a law that targets jail or prison inmates who frequently request records. Similarly, Tennessee directed its new Advisory Committee on Open Government to come up with a policy addressing frequent and multiple requesters under the state’s open records law.
Missouri and Maine also saw similar legislative proposals in 2005 that were eventually dropped.
Prior to a Tuesday hearing on the California bill, the California Newspaper Publishers Association sent a letter to the legislature protesting the proposed measure.
“CNPA argues in its letter that while their may be instances of abusive requests and harassing behavior, the problem is not worthy of legislative resolution.,” the group’s Web site said. “In fact, public agencies at every level of government have failed to comply with the law by ignoring requests for records, delaying access, wrongfully denying requests and charging fees in excess of those authorized by law. Every audit performed by Californians Aware, the California First Amendment Coalition, or CNPA member newspapers such as the Contra Costa Times or Stockton Record, has shown abysmal compliance with the law.”
