PROVIDENCE – For the second year in a row, the McKee administration is fighting efforts by open-government advocates to remove obstacles to public access to public records, including traffic accident data, the names of those with “preferred” license plates and police bodycam footage.
In the hours ahead of a May 22 hearing on the bill, the heads of state agencies sent letter after letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee opposing efforts to overhaul the law.
The advocates – including the Rhode Island chapter of the ACLU, Common Cause RI, the League of Women Voters, the RI Press Association and the Providence Streets Coalition – made their case at a press conference a day earlier.
But Gov. Dan McKee’s top legal advisor, Claire Richards, told Senators the legislation would “intrude on the privacy of the state’s citizens, undermine criminal investigations and lead to burdensome and overbroad requests” that would impose financial burdens on public bodies “which will ultimately be passed on to taxpayers.”
She acknowledged the fees also serve a strategic purpose by “encourage[ing] requestors to carefully tailor their requests to precisely the records they seek” and “deter[ring] abusive requests that are unreasonably broad, unduly burdensome or intended to disrupt the public body’s business.”
Her other arguments:
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Requiring disclosure of names of preferred license plate holders violates federal law, and the privacy of the state’s drivers.
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Requiring disclosure of government- issued subpoenas may interfere with criminal investigations.
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The determination of whether to reduce or waive fees for requests “in the public interest” is best left to the courts.
Elaborating on McKee’s stance, his spokeswoman Olivia DaRocha told The Journal last year: The administration believes the current ability to charge “a reasonable cost for all APRA requests is fair and achieves a reasonable balance between transparency and taxpayer burden.”
Other state agencies jumped on the bandwagon, as they did last year.
What does the bill do?
The legislation [S909] is sponsored in the Senate by Senate Finance Chairman Louis DiPalma.
Among the key features of the 15-page bill: it would reduce the price of photocopying documents from 15-cents to 5-cents-a-page, prohibit charges for denying records requests and disallow any charge for the first two hours of searching, retrieving and redacting records.
If passed, the bill would also restore the long-standing practice by state agencies of waiving fees, “in the public interest, for the production of information that “is likely to contribute significantly to public understanding of the operations or activities of the government.”
It would also remove the obstacles that exist in some quarters to obtaining arrest reports, require release of body cam footage from use-of-force incidents within 30 days and require the release of final reports of police internal affairs investigations, with personally identifiable information redacted.
While other states provide public databases listing officers who have been disciplined for misconduct, Rhode Island does not.
“This bill attempts to bring some much needed and long-overdue sunlight to police practices in our state,” according to the ACLU’s Steve Brown.
The latter proposal drew strong objections from the Rhode Island Police Chiefs Association and the International Brotherhood of Police Officers.
But Michael Greco, describing himself as a former 18-year Brown University police officer, lauded the effort to make the arrest and incident reports of private police departments – like Brown’s – subject to Rhode Island’s public records law.
The Association of Independent Colleges and Universities of Rhode Island registered its opposition.
But Greco said he quit after witnessing efforts over the years to hide incidents on campus that, in his view, should have been publicly disclosed or, at least broadcast on a police radio channel monitored by the media, including a suspected active shooter and a knife wielding incident.
He said the officers were instead told not to use their radios.
Why is McKee objecting to the bill?
Here are some of the objections raised by the members of McKee’s cabinet.
Rhode Island State Police: “Disclosing allegations from an unfounded claim [against an officer] will do nothing but defame the law enforcement officer and chill recruitment and retention of police officers.” And, “releasing video footage prior to an investigation being substantially completed will hinder the investigation and potential criminal prosecution, leaving open questions whether the investigation was fact-based or populist driven.”
Department of Corrections: “Like all law enforcement agencies, the RIDOC has confidential informants who assist in investigations of drug trafficking, extortion, and staff misconduct. However, unlike other law enforcement agencies, these informants live within the walls of the ACI. Disclosure of investigatory reports would put their lives in grave danger.”
Department of Transportation: “RIDOT is deeply concerned that this language could compel the release of data that federal law explicitly protects from discovery, admissibility, or use in litigation,” specifically crash data collected “solely for the purpose of designing and improving roadway safety.”
Department of Behavioral Healthcare, Developmental Disabilities and Hospitals: “BHDDH receives many subpoenas for various reasons, some of which include responding to ongoing law enforcement investigations and regulatory inspections and investigations. While the outcome of those investigations may well be worthy of release to the public, making public the fact that an investigative agency is looking into and/or sending a subpoena for BHDDH records would likely impede an ongoing investigation,”
Department of Commerce: Requiring that all documents to be discussed at an open meeting be posted with the agenda would be a problem for an agency that deals with “businesses considering relocating to or expanding within Rhode Island … We [do not] wish to discourage applicants from applying to our programs or relocating to or expanding in our state because they fear their confidential information and/or trade secrets will be disclosed to their detriment.”
Department of Administration: “While the state does not oppose adding an additional hour free, waiving charges based on a ‘public interest’ standard is not in the interests of taxpayers.” Additionally, requiring what is known as a “privilege log” listing what has been withheld and why “would grind government to halt.” And “requiring that [n]o charge be imposed for the denial records, does not consider the state resources necessary to protect confidential records.”
This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: McKee administration fights removing obstacles to getting public records
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