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A state agency is forcing a legislative task force looking into violence at state youth facilities to file a Freedom of Information for records necessary for its investigation.

Imagine, a state agency thumbing its nose at state legislators who are seeking information so their task force can complete its investigation. This agency’s arrogance and defiance should not go unpunished.

The state’s legislative Task Force on Juvenile Justice Reform — of which Sen. Betty Little, R-Queensbury, is a member — is investigating violence at state-run and state-licensed youth homes in the wake of the murder of a case worker at a facility in Lockport in June and the January shooting of a police officer in Rochester by a teenager who had left a youth center without permission.

To assist them in their investigation, task force members want access to documents and other information that might shed light on the reasons for the increased violence. Specifically, the task force is seeking information pertaining to gang-related violence, youth-on-youth violence, assaults on staff and staff injuries, staff overtime records, youth Absent Without Leave (AWOL) rates, juvenile recidivism rates, and other information on new policies linked to an increase in youth violence, according to a press release.

Sen. Catharine Young, who chairs the task force, wants to know why troubled youths are being pushed through the system and whether budget cuts are contributing to the increase in violence.

“The safety of the public has been compromised because these youths are not getting the urgent treatment and attention that is needed,” she said. “The system is failing and it needs to change or things are just going to get worse.”

But despite the urgency of the situation, the state Office of Children and Family Services, headed by Commissioner Gladys Carrion, is defying the authority of the duly elected legislators by refusing to simply turn the information over to the task force as requested.

Why an agency funded and operated by the state government is allowed to stonewall a legislative task force investigating its activities is confounding. If the task force feels it needs this information to do its research, why is the agency balking? We understand the need for confidentiality in the case of some of the youth involved. But lawmakers aren’t the general public. They are agents of the state, just as OCFS is, and if they feel they need this confidential information to draw their conclusions and make changes, they should have it.

Often state government bodies use the state Freedom of Information Law to impede examinations that might prove embarrassing or damaging to the organization holding the information. But usually, they do it to citizens, not the very lawmakers who fund and control their agencies.

The Freedom of Information Law was not designed to be abused this way. Let’s hope the agency reconsiders its stance and turns over the records without forcing legislators to resort to the Freedom of Information Law. And in the event it doesn’t, let’s hope the agency’s defiance triggers legitimate suspicions and prompts legislators to dig even deeper into the agency’s activities.

– Mark Mahoney

If you’ve got an Android-based phone, you’ve got instant access to Congress.

The Sunlight Foundation, which monitors congressional actions, has announced that it’s created an application to help users interact with Congress. “Congress” is a pocket congressional directory, which allows users to get up-to-date information about their congress person using the phone’s location, a ZIP Code or the last name or state of the representative, according to a Sunlight Foundation press release.

The app lets users get real-time news about their members of Congress and lets them read Tweets and watch videos from representatives’ Twitter and YouTube accounts. Users also can reply to congressional representatives on Twitter and speed-dial congressional offices.

Eventually, the Foundation hopes to expand its Congress app to including real-time floor activity, voting histories, fundraising information and specific legislative actions by individual members.

For more information, visit the Sunlight Foundation’s blog, or call 202-742-1520, extension 226.

– Mark Mahoney

Recently, in response to a blog posting here about certain e-mails being public record, a reader asked whether government bodies were required to save e-mails as records, and for how long.

So I contacted Bob Freeman at the state Committee on Open Government, who said he gets this question fairly often. The short answer is to look at e-mails as merely as a means of transmitting records. The content, he said, is the key in determining how long a record must be kept. And the main factor in deciding how long a record should be kept is its importance.

For instance, Mr. Freeman said, minutes of a government meeting — essentially the official record of that meeting — must be kept permanently. But a tape recording of a meeting must only be kept for four months.

How long a government must keep a particular record, believe it or not, is regulated under state Arts and Cultural Affairs Law. The law includes the provisions for dealing with records, including disposal and retention. An actual listing of what records must be kept and for how long is found under the New York State Archives.

So we went the state Archives Web site and found some information. For a list of the most common records kept by governments, along with the length of time the records must be stored, click here. For a more complete menu and more information about the regulations for retaining records, click here.

That should give citizens and public officials a really good idea about what records need to be kept and for how long. If you’re searching for records, you might want to check these lists firt.

– Mark Mahoney

An exchange of e-mails between former Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s communications staff and reporters from various newspapers working  to break the Spitzer sex scandal story has been obtained through the Freedom of Information Law by a media Web site.

The information provides not only some interesting insight into how reporters interact with PR people at high levels of government, but also reminds us of the public’s right to access information sent and received by government officials via e-mail.

Let’s start with the fun part. The Web site, Gawker, recently obtained 1,300 pages of e-mail communication through the Freedom of Information Law that was exhanged between reporters and the top communications people for ex-Gov. Spitzer and current Gov. David Paterson. The e-mails were exchanged as news was breaking on the governor’s involvement with a high-priced prostitute. The revelation led to Spitzer’s resignation. Click here to link to the story on Gawker. You’ll get a fascinating glimpse into the relationship between reporters and the governors’ flacks.

But what this story also reminds people is that most e-mail communication involving government officials is public information.

People generally know that you can file FOIL requests for documents such as budgets and contracts and the like. But most people are probably not aware they can also FOIL for e-mail exchanges. Under the law, e-mails are treated exactly the same as any other written documentation. (And like other documentation, the same rules regarding personal privacy, law enforcement, trade secrets and litigation apply.)

Here’s an excerpt of an advisory opinion from the state Committee on Open Government on the subject of e-mails. The first paragraph is the legal definition of a record. The second paragraph is an interpretation of that definition.

“Any information kept, held, filed, produced, reproduced by, with or for an agency or the state legislature, in any physical form whatsoever including, but not limited to, reports, statements, examinations, memoranda, opinions, folders, files, books, manuals, pamphlets, forms, papers, designs, drawings, maps, photos, letters, microfilms, computer tapes or discs, rules, regulations or codes.”

“Whether information is stored on paper, on a computer tape, or in a computer, it constitutes a “record.” In short, email is merely a means of transmitting information; it can be viewed on a screen and printed, and I believe that the email communications at issue must be treated in the same manner as traditional paper records for the purpose of their consideration under the Freedom of Information Law.”

A lot of government business these days gets done via e-mail. But as you can see, that doesn’t mean the public can’t get access to that information. 

– Mark Mahoney

After much cajoling and numerous back-and-forth exchanges, the Warren County Sheriff’s Office has honored our Freedom of Information Law requests for copies of the daily police blotters.

But the department has also taken its response further, by agreeing on its own to post  the daily blotters on the Sheriff’s Office’s Web site for all citizens to see.

About a month ago, Sheriff Bud York, upset over some unflattering reporting, told his officers not to give any information to The Post-Star other than what the department normally would issue in a press releases. That information blackout included the daily log of police activity and arrests known as the “police blotter.”

Under the state’s Freedom of Information Law, blotters are public documents and must be released to the public. So we sought the blotters by making Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) requests. The sheriff responded that the blotters weren’t readily available and would take as long as 35 days for his staff to prepare. Since many police agencies routinely produce blotters in a matter of minutes, not weeks, we found this to be another example of the sheriff trying to punish the paper by withholding public information.

In the meantime, reporter Don Lehman has been in regular contact with the department over the blotters and filing daily FOIL requests for them. Today, in an unexpected turn of events, we learned that not only would the Sheriff’s Office provide the blotters we had been seeking dating back to Sept. 21, but that the department would also begin regularly posting daily blotters online at the department’s Web site, http://sheriff.co.warren.ny.us/.

To access the blotters, go to the site and click on the tab marked “Blotter.” The top portion of the blotter is the arrest report, listing all those people arrested by sheriff’s officers during the designated time period. The information includes the date and time of the incident, the name and birthdate of the suspect, the location of the arrest, the specific charges, and a case number the public can use to get more information. The second portion is a listing of all the calls that deputies responded to in that time period. Most of this information wouldn’t show up in a press release, but it could alert the public to incidents in their neighborhoods or to trends in crime.

In the Warren Pieces blog today, Don credits Chief Deputy Shane Ross with fielding our FOIL requests and for setting up the blotter on the department’s Web site.

This is an unexpected and welcome development for your right to know. Not only is this public information being made available to the media, but also to every citizen who might want to know what incidents are being responded to by the Sheriff’s Department. Kudos to the sheriff and his staff  for honoring the FOIL requests and for going the extra mile to open the records to all citizens.

– Mark Mahoney

President Obama gets a failing grade on one of the first real tests of his pledge for more transparency in government.

In an earlier posting on this blog, I discussed the importance of the president’s response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request made by Bloomberg News for details about the Federal Reserve’s multi-billion-dollar bailout of private finance corporations.

A federal court, you may recall, ruled in August in favor of Bloomberg’s FOIA request and ordered the Fed to release what corporations received emergency bailout money, how much money each took, and what they each provided in collateral.

In its FOIA request, Bloomberg argued that the taxpayers were involuntary investors in these companies through the bailout, and therefore were entitled to know how the money was spent and what was used to secure it. The Fed argued, unsuccessfully, that the release of the information would destabilize the companies, undermine the Fed’s credibility to monitor financial policy, and would create a run on the institutions.

The president, through the U.S. attorney general, had the option of allowing the ruling to stand and releasing the information to the public, or appealing the ruling in an attempt to keep the information on the bailout secret.

We’d hoped the president would respect the federal court’s ruling and not authorize an appeal. Unfortunately for the cause of open government, the president took the secrecy route.

After sharply criticizing the Bush administration for its stated policy of secrecy, President Obama had promised to open up the doors of government and the information flow. In that regard, here are a couple of quotes from the president contained in a letter he wrote in January to federal agencies and department heads:

“Openness will strengthen our democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in government.”
“Transparency promotes accountability.”
“Information maintained by the federal government is a national asset.”
“My administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in government.’’

The administration’s decision to appeal this ruling hardly seems like the creation of an “unprecedented level of openness in government.” In fact, it seems like the same old Bush tactics, wrapped in a shiny new package of rhetoric.

– Mark Mahoney

Sheriff York, creating even more paperwork.

It’s a fairly routine action.

Every day, newspapers around the country ask police agencies for their “police blotter,” a daily log of police activity, to find out what’s been going on in the community. And every day, that information is readily made available to those newspapers without objection or delay. The blotter is a public document and is public information under the state’s Freedom of Information Law.

Years ago, the blotter was hand-written, and all you had to do to view it was stop by the police station and ask to see it. Nowadays, it’s all on computer, but it’s still easily retrievable by police upon request. State Police routinely provide the information to our reporters when we ask. Glens Falls and Hudson Falls police do it regularly. So do other police agencies we deal with. In fact, pretty much every police agency releases the blotter without incident. It’s that common.

But those departments don’t have Sheriff Bud York. Mr. York apparently doesn’t like some of the reporting about him lately.  So Sheriff York has decided to punish this newspaper, and therefore the public, by forcing the paper to file a Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) request in order to obtain the daily blotter from the sheriff’s department.

We think it’s completely unnecessary. But he does have the right to require a FOIL under the law. So we complied with his request by filing the proper FOIL requests.

Our police reporter, Don Lehman, first requested the blotter for Sept. 21. On Sept. 29, we received a response from the sheriff saying that the department no longer maintains a physical blotter. He said the information must be manually retrieved by the records department and that copies won’t be available until Oct. 27. That’s a full 36 days to compile a document that other departments can prepare in minutes.

Here’s a copy of the sheriff’s response to our FOIL request: sherifffoil

The sheriff’s response is ridiculous. First of all, if police agencies like Glens Falls and Hudson Falls can generate a blotter each day, so can the Warren County Sheriff’s Department. In fact, until the sheriff took office almost two years ago, the sheriff’s department had been producing a blotter for us every day. Suddenly, it takes over a month to prepare the same record? Does anything you do on a computer take a month to prepare these days? The police are not creating a record, which would be covered under the Freedom of Information Law. This record already exists. So we’re not asking for the department to do anything that’s not within the scope of the Open Meetings Law.

Finally, the sheriff wanted to charge us 25 cents per page for copies. Since the information is all stored in a computer, there’s no reason the record can’t be prepared and released electronically. The government can’t charge you for copies if they can send you the same record in an e-mail.

If you think this doesn’t affect you, you’re wrong. First off, you’ll be getting month-old information on police matters. Secondly, the sheriff and his staff are going to have to respond to each and every FOIL request that we send. And we’re sending one for every day’s blotter, as per the sheriff’s request. And ultimately, he’s still going to have to provide the blotter anyway, since the blotter is public information. You’d think the sheriff and his staff would have better things to do with their time than create unnecessary red tape. How’s that for your tax dollars at work?

The bottom line is that Sheriff York is trying to use the state’s Freedom of Information Law to punish a newspaper for the bad press he says he’s received. That’s not what the law was created for. And no public official should be using it for that purpose.

– Mark Mahoney

Lt. Gov. Richard Ravitch addresses the media recently. Gov. David Paterson stands to his right.

In a surprise landmark decision overturning two lower court rulings, the state’s highest court, the Court of Appeals, has upheld Gov. David Paterson’s right to appoint a lieutenant governor.

The lieutenant governor, besides lying in waiting should the governor resign or die, has an important dual function of presiding over the state Senate and having the power to break ties in that body. Given this summer’s situation in which the Senate was evenly split, the ability to break ties is a significant power for the governor to have.

The state Constitution is kind of vague on the subject of filling a vacancy in the lieutenant governor’s office, which is why Senate Republicans and others found grounds to challenge the appointment. But the Court of Appeals, in a 4-3 decision, clarified the issue by finding that the state constitution never intended for a vacancy in the office to go unfilled.

Opponents feared that allowing a governor to appoint a lieutenant governor could create a situation in which New York is ruled by an appointee. In addressing that question, the court basically said, ‘Well, no system is perfect.’

So as of today, we have a new lieutenant governor, Richard Ravitch.

For those who’d like to read more, here’s a copy of the court’s ruling, which is public information.

– Mark Mahoney

I just got a call from our reporter covering the Washington County Board of Supervisors meeting this morning saying the board was planning to go into executive session to discuss some issues involving a potential employee.

The reporter wondered whether it was legal for the board to discuss such matters behind closed doors. The answer is, yes, it’s perfectly legal.

There are actually eight reasons a government board can legally close a meeting under the Open Meetings Law. One of them is when it relates to “the medical, financial, credit or employment history of a particular person or corporation, or matters leading to the appointment, employment, promotion, demotion, discipline, suspension, dismissal or removal of a particular person or corporation.”

If they’re talking specifics about a particular individual, they can indeed do it outside the public’s view. So the Washington County board is well within its rights to close the meeting.

– Mark Mahoney

A federal court has ruled in favor of a Freedom of Information Act request by Bloomberg News seeking details as to what banks received emergency bailout money through the Federal Reserve, how much money each bank took and what they each provided in collateral.

This is a  major victory for the taxpayers because it involved the secret allocation of billions of taxpayer dollars to private corporations.

The government was trying to keep this information out of the public hands under some implausible scenario that releasing the information would cause a run on banks and that it would generate an unfair marketing edge for banks that didn’t take the money.

In her ruling, Judge Loretta A. Preska found that the Fed had failed to prove that there would be “real and imminent harm” from the disclosure, as the standard of law requires.

Here’s PDF of the FOIA request, bloomberg-suit-vs-fed, which plainly states the information Bloomberg News sought and its justification on behalf of taxpayers for its request. It’s a real easy read, even for us non-lawyer folks.

Supporting the action are several private news corporations, journalism organizations and free press groups, including the New York Times, Dow Jones, Gannett Newspapers, Hearst publications, the American Society of News Editors, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, and the National Conference of Editorial Writers.

The only snag could come in the next two weeks. The federal government has until Sept. 30 to file an appeal to the ruling. That would come through Solicitor General Elena Kagan, who reports to President Obama through the U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder.

It’s the president’s call as to whether to appeal the ruling. Remember, this is a president who chastised the Bush administration for secrecy and who specifically states on the White House website that he is “committed to creating the most open and accessible administration in American history.” His words, not ours.

By not authorizing an appeal of the Bloomberg ruling, he would be honoring that pledge. You can contact the president and tell him your thoughts on this matter by clicking here. Just tell him not to appeal the Bloomberg ruling. He’ll get it.

– Mark Mahoney