RECORDER EDITORIAL: Freedom of Information Law isn’t optional - The Recorder

We wonder how the Amsterdam city police would like it if people followed their example and considered all laws optional.

Speed limit? I’ll go as fast as I damn well please.

Burglary? My house is your house.

Drug possession? You can’t tell me what I can and cannot put in my body.

If those examples are absurd, then why does the department feel it can blithely ignore the state Freedom of Information Law when its officials don’t want to comply with it?

Well, they might think, it’s not really a law law. It’s a public records law. It’s not like a murder or robbery kind of law.

Yet it actually is an official state law, specifically Public Officers Law, Article 6, Section 84-90. It was passed by a real elected legislature and signed by the real, elected governor of the state they live and work in.

It’s not called the Freedom of Information Suggestion. It’s the Freedom of Information LAW.

It’s a law that was approved by the same state legislators who make it against the law to run a red light, drive drunk, assault other people and steal an old lady’s purse.

Yet when police don’t want to disclose information that rightly and legally under that law should be disclosed to the citizens, then suddenly, obeying that law is optional.

The Recorder recently filed a Freedom of Information LAW request for information about a stabbing in which an 18-year-old woman was charged. Police first ignored our request for the police report — a public document — then when they finally did comply, they scratched out the name of the woman charged with the crime.

At first, they tried to say it was against their policy not to release the names of those charged with a misdemeanor.

It’s fine for them to have that policy. But nowhere in the Freedom of Information LAW does it specify charges police in which police are entitled to withhold the identity of a suspect and which they aren’t.

When that didn’t fly, they tried to tell us that because the suspect was undergoing a mental health evaluation, the suspect’s identity was protected. But that privacy protection only applies to clinical records at a mental health facility, not police reports.

Looking at strike three, the police chief then said the records were specifically exempted by state or federal statute and would constitute an unwarranted invasion of privacy. Again, criminal suspects’ names aren’t protected by federal or state statute, and the release of such names is routine — not considered an invasion of privacy.

All of these interpretations of the LAW were backed up by the state Committee on Open Government, a division of the state Department of State — an official New York state government department.

There are only nine reasons under the Freedom of Information LAW in which police can withhold the name of a criminal suspect (yes, misdemeanors are actual crimes).

Let’s see how withholding the name of an adult charged with a crime fits in with those exemptions.

Deniable records include records or portions thereof that:

(a) Are specifically exempted from disclosure by state or federal statute. Nope. We already addressed that one.

(b) Would if disclosed result in an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy. Nope. As we said, criminal suspects aren’t entitled to such privacy.

(c) Would if disclosed impair present or imminent contract awards or collective bargaining negotiations. Nope.

(d) Are trade secrets or are submitted to an agency by a commercial enterprise or derived from information obtained from a commercial enterprise and which if disclosed would cause substantial injury to the competitive position of the subject enterprise. Nope.

(e) Are compiled for law enforcement purposes and which if disclosed would:
i. interfere with law enforcement investigations or judicial proceedings. Nope.
ii. deprive a person of a right to a fair trial or impartial adjudication. Nope.
iii. identify a confidential source or disclose confidential information relative to a criminal investigation; Nope (or not that they’ve claimed).
iv. Would reveal criminal investigative techniques or procedures, except routine techniques and procedures. Nope.

(f) Could if disclosed endanger the life or safety of any person. Nope.

(g) Are inter-agency or intra-agency communications, except to the extent that such materials consist of statistical or factual tabulations or data; instructions to staff that affect the public; final agency policy or determinations; or external audits, including but not limited to audits performed by the comptroller and the federal government. Nope.

(h) Are examination questions or answers that are requested prior to the final administration of such questions; or if disclosed, would jeopardize the capacity of an agency or an entity that has shared information with an agency to guarantee the security of its information technology assets, such assets encompassing both electronic information systems and infrastructures. Again a big fat Nope.

Nowhere in the law does it grant an exemption from disclosure for the name of a criminal suspect charged with a misdemeanor. Nowhere does it say the Freedom of Information LAW only applies if it doesn’t violate some local police department policy. Nowhere does it say police can pick and choose the identities of the people they want to protect.

Regular citizens can’t decide for themselves which laws to obey and which ones to ignore, and neither can police. They need to release this suspect’s name.

source: https://www.recordernews.com/opinion/editorial/196562

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