public records law

This story has been updated. Amid an unparalleled health crisis, when the public needs and craves information, NBC 7 Investigates has found that some local governments — and at least one federal agency — are reducing access to information.  San Diego County’s public health department, known officially as the Health and Human Services, is the source of daily updates on…

San Diego City Attorney Mara Elliott’s Chief of Staff asked a state senator’s office to delete emails sent during a 2019 effort to weaken the state’s public records law. Deposition transcripts of Chief of Staff Gerry Braun and Deputy City Attorney Bill Gersten confirm the request was made, and on March 7 a judge denied the City Attorney’s request to...

Attorneys for New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft and other defendants in a Florida massage parlor prostitution case are asking a judge to block the release of video that police say shows them engaging in sexual acts.

According to data obtained by NBC 7 Investigates, in the last nine years the City has been sued for withholding public documents 23 times – two cases were filed by the same plaintiff over the same issue and three cases are still pending. Judges in those cases awarded plaintiff’s $576,000 in damages.

A newly-formed nonprofit purportedly serving Asian Americans and a professor who studies affirmative action are suing the University of California (UC) for access to data that they say could show whether the university system illegally discriminates against Asian Americans in admissions, NBC News reports. The lawsuit, filed in early November in California Superior Court, accuses the university system of not...

As grounds, public defender Howard Finkelstein argues release “will cause significant trauma to an already beleaguered community, impede the defendant’s constitutional right against self-incrimination, as well as his right to a fair and impartial trial.”

Civil rights groups, media advocates and some lawmakers are opposing an Iowa bill that would end public access to many 911 calls, a broadly-worded measure that also could shield some police videos. The bill declares that 911 calls involving injured people are confidential “medical records” and exempt from Iowa’s open records law. The secrecy would apply to audio and video...

A mother called 911 for help as she texted with her son, who was trapped inside the Pulse nightclub. A sister told a dispatcher that her 20-year-old brother also was trapped, in a bathroom at the gay club, and that “he said there were a lot of dead people.”

A day after doctors reported high levels of lead in Flint children, Gov. Rick Snyder’s top aide told him the “real responsibility” for the city’s water issues rested with local government officials, emails released Wednesday showed....
Then-chief of staff Dennis Muchmore later told the governor that residents were “caught in a swirl of misinformation” about lead contamination and that it was...

Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s disclosure of nearly 200 pages of emails from a private Google account could become key evidence in an ongoing lawsuit that charges that the governor flouted the state’s public records law.