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Utah Gov. Gary Herbert signed into law Tuesday night a bill that amends the state's open records law to allow for more government privacy. The controversial House Bill 477 moved swiftly through the Utah Legislature late last week, but was recalled by the Senate on Monday to delay the date it goes into effect due to pressure from the governor, citizens and transparency advocacy groups.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court limited the scope of the state’s open records law last week when it ruled that several teachers’ personal e-mail messages, though sent on school-owned computers from work e-mail addresses, were not public records.

A Nevada newspaper asked the state Supreme Court on Tuesday to overturn a lower court's ruling that e-mail messages sent by Gov. Jim Gibbons were personal and therefore not subject to public records law, the Reno Gazette-Journal reported.

Carson City Judge James Russell had previously denied the Journal's request for 98 of 104 e-mail messages between Gibbons and his staff over a six-month period. The newspaper had asked for a log of the e-mail if the actual messages were not released.

A Michigan appeals court ruled yesterday that the state's Freedom of Information Act does not apply to so-called "personal" e-mail messages sent from government work accounts, AnnArbor.com reported.

The telephone records of journalists at The Washington Post and The New York Times were among those illegally obtained by the FBI between 2002 and 2006 by creating false terrorism emergencies and using other under-the-radar methods, The Washington Post reported.

An Alabama newspaper is demanding copies of so-called personal e-mail messages sent by city officials that were withheld from a recent open-records request.

The Associated Press has asked the West Virginia Supreme Court to reconsider its November ruling that e-mail messages exchanged between its former justice and a coal executive were not subject to public records laws, The Associated Press reported.

Two groups announced Monday that they have settled a 2007 lawsuit against the government over millions of missing e-mail messages that were sent during the Bush administration, USA Today reported.

The D.C. federal district court ruled Thursday that a U.S. attorney’s personal e-mail correspondence, sent from his work account, was private and cannot be used to bolster former Justice Department attorney Richard Convertino’s lawsuit against the government, The National Law Journal reported.