Government records

An Alaska Supreme Court decision makes private e-mail messages containing government business subject to the state Public Records Act but also makes obtaining those records difficult.

Friday's ruling held that the state Public Records Act does not prohibit public officials from conducting government business through their private e-mail accounts, potentially posing difficulties for people seeking to access those messages in the future, Alaska media lawyer D. John McKay said in an interview.

A Colorado judge denied the media's request to film and photograph Monday's hearing of the man accused of killing 12 and wounding 58 people at an Aurora movie theater last week.

Arapahoe County District Court Judge William Sylvester has ordered that no cameras or audio recording be allowed at James Holmes' July 30 hearing where charges are expected to be filed against him. The order is part of a broader trend of restrictions issued by Sylvester limiting press coverage in the Colorado shooting.

The Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court held Monday that written requests for records that do not comply with certain agency-specific request policies cannot merely be ignored.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled yesterday that records of a private entity acting on behalf of a public agency may be subject to the state’s open records laws.

The Connecticut Appellate Court ruled this week that a state open records law provision permitting records requesters to use “hand-held scanner[s]” to copy records excludes the use of flatbed scanners. Under the court's interpretation of the statute, requesters seeking to scan public records using their own scanning devices may now be limited to using those that are actually "hand-held."

Update: A House committee announced late Monday that the bill would not be considered, after a prominent senator announced he would not support it.

The FBI cannot cite an exclusion provision related to confidential informants under the federal Freedom of Information Act regarding a request for records about civil rights era photographer Ernest Withers after the bureau was found to have officially confirmed Withers was an informant through a records release, a federal district court in Washington, D.C. ruled Tuesday.