What’s amiss in this California Public Records Act denial from the Sacramento City Attorney?

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Complaints by residents in Oregon has lead to the removal of some property owner’s names from PortlandMaps, the city’s online mapping program of assessor’s data and building permits. Portland offers a vague explanation for the decision to allow a search by address only.

Ohio media outlets may have to add a requirement to the standard job description: must have photographic memory. That is, if they want to peruse particular public records which cannot be copied. That’s the law in Ohio. The opinion of the Ohio Attorney General adds absurdity to confusion in his assertion that reporters can inspect the gun permit owner lists kept by the Sheriffs’ offices but are not allowed to write anything down. Keep your eyes peeled for a clarifying law, sure to be stupider than the first.

Meanwhile, the Wisconsin Attorney General has issued an opinion that may make police agency’s records more available to the public. The AG stated that a 1991 state Supreme Court ruling exempting from the open records law district attorney files does not apply to police reports. A police spokesperson objected, claiming that open access would give a defense attorney “tactical advantage over a prosecutor who has not yet examined the police reports”, according to this story. Will someone make a list of all the arguments public agencies have offered for keeping public records out of our hands?

Next month, Connecticut will remove “information identifying a party protected by a restraining order” from its Web site case lookup. This move is in response to a 2006 federal law prohibiting the disclosure of the identity of victims of domestic violence. In every county, this information will still be available in the county court case files.

Under a 2006 amendment to the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2005, no state, Indian tribe of territory “shall make available publicly on the Internet any information regarding the registration or filing of a protection order, restraining order, or injunction in either the issuing or enforcing State, tribal, or territorial jurisdiction, if such publication would be likely to publicly reveal the identity or location of the party protected under such order.”

I wonder if this mandate will impede efforts to identify restrained parties, such as San Diego County does in its unique database.

Search court trial records statewide for Minnesota, including criminal civil, probate and family law. A search for judgments is also here.

The Ohio Supreme Court has proposed rule changes that will redefine the term “public records” and affect access to court case records [See”Proposed amendments to the Rules of Superintendence for the Courts of Ohio Rules 44-47] Suggested changes include:

(a) Redacting the case information rather than limiting public access to the entire record;

(b) Limiting remote access to either the case record or case information while
maintaining its public access;

(c) Limiting public access to either the case record or case information for a specific period of time;

(d) Using a generic title or description for the case record or case information in a case management system or register of actions;

(e) Using initials or other identifier for the parties’ proper names.

Read the court summary.

The open records advocacy group, the Evan B. Donaldson Adoption Institute, has released a study of the consequences of restrictive and open adoption laws. The Institute concludes that new adoption laws that have given adoptees and birth parents access to the original birth certificates has advanced the policy debate “from speculation about the appropriateness, wisdom and impact of such legal changes to a more-informed consideration of their personal, practical and social effects on real people’s real lives.”

California bill AB1168, pertaining to the redaction of social security numbers, is now law.The legislative counsel’s analysis summarizes a key element for researchers.

This bill would declare the intent of the legislature that, in order to protect against the risk of identity theft, local agencies shall redact social security numbers from records before disclosing them to the public pursuant to this chapter. This bill also would provide that, unless required to do so by state or federal law, no person, entity, or government agency shall present for recording or filing with a county recorder if it displays more than the last 4 digits of a social security number, as specified.

County recorders will be able to assess an additional fee on document filing to fund the mandate to create a public version of every filed document, which would truncate Social Security numbers. Secretary of State forms are required to eliminate any request for Social Security numbers and the Franchise Tax Board will also truncate SSNs.