Public records

Despite having enough cash to increase its spending budget to $11 billion, Alaska is offering few cut rates to those requesting public records,The Associated Press reported. 

Although the state will on occasion waive fees for less than 200 pages of copied material or if the information requested is considered a matter of public interest, Alaska's senior assistant attorney general told The AP that times were changing.

The Louisiana Supreme Court heard arguments Monday in an open-records dispute over documents from a state investigation into the highly publicized post-Hurricane Katrina deaths of patients at Memorial Medical Center.

After 18 months of analysis and 140 public record requests, the (Middletown) Times Herald-Record  on Monday launched a comprehensive database of public payroll information in New York -- containing the names, titles and salaries of 39,400 people at every level of government.  

The South Dakota Supreme Court decided last week to seal jury records from the public in a bid to protect personal information and identities.

With the rule change, the court policy went from favoring disclosure to closure: As of Nov. 1, “All records, lists, papers, tickets, and other materials used in all stages of the jury selection process shall be preserved in the custody of the clerk of courts."

After nearly five years of fighting between the federal government and the American Civil Liberties Union over images of torture at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, a federal appeals court ruled today that the photos must be made available to the public.

A West Virginia judge ruled Wednesday that even the state Supreme Court is subject to public records laws, just as “every state officer” would be, The Associated Press said.

The AP had requested e-mails from West Virginia Supreme Court Chief Justice Elliot “Spike” Maynard as part of its coverage of Maynard's alleged corporate ties, but the request was denied. The wire service reports it then sued for the information under the state Freedom of Information Act.

Seven years after the Sept. 11 attacks, The Palm Beach Post reports, a federal court order still bans the release of the Florida state driving records of the alleged hijackers. Even the order itself is under seal --  a court clerk recently told the newspaper "it was part of a grand jury investigation and can be unsealed only by another court order."

Faced with efforts in Congress to pull the Smithsonian Institution in under the Freedom of Information Act, the institution's new head told The Associated Press last week he favors maintaining the current status that keeps the museum complex separate from FOIA.

A Michigan sheriff apparently took Freedom of Information Act denials to a new, unfriendly extreme when he charged a newspaper $10 for a two-paragraph letter refusing a records request.

A federal judge has ruled in favor of a Virginia woman who posted on her Web site the Social Security numbers of prominent people to make a point about the availability and potential for abuse of public records on the Internet.