Score one for the public and the FOIA
This is all good news imo.
From the Globe:
The state’s high
court Monday instructed state agencies to broaden their understanding of
the “public interest” when deciding requests under the state’s public
record law, a ruling that increases the grounds the public can invoke
when fighting to get information released to them.
The unanimous ruling
by the Supreme Judicial Court grew out of a lawsuit filed by the Boston
Globe against the Department of Public Health for electronic copies of
4.6 million birth certificates issued between 1953 and 2011 and 2.2
million marriage licenses issued between 1983 and 2013.
The SJC unanimously
ruled that the complex issue raised in the Globe litigation that
balances the right of the public access to government records with the
privacy rights of Massachusetts citizens must be re-examined by lower
court judges based on Monday’s ruling.
posted by Jim Pillsbury @ 10:12 AM
7 Comments
7 Comments:
Sure they find in the Globe's favor. They have lots of visibility and lots of money to fight these state agencies. But does the little guy ever win these fights?
The Globe seems to fight all these battles. Good for them. We all benefit
Don't you wonder why they wanted all these birth certificates and marriage licenses? I do
The same protections and enforcement are given to us, the little people. I have seen it personally, the State seems to be doing a good job requiring the agencies to respond and even in appeal. It seems to be working.
The Globe has the income to hire the lawyers who get the information that help sell their paper and keep readers engaged.
The birth certs and marriage license request was likely a test to see if the system would work on a larger scale. All of that stuff is public anyway and may be in some data base already. I don't see an issue there but understand the question you have..
Your personal experience related to any Framingham organization Jim? Just curious how we here in this city are at responding to these request.
All of my FIOA requests have been answered from Framingham. The only one I still don't have an answer to is from the State Police, no wonder there.
Good to know that Framingham is responsive. I wonder if all police departments and state agencies are the same. I have not had good luck with some others in the past. Anyone out there ever had issues with police departments not being responsive or is it just me they don't like?
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