What Do You Think Is in These 73 Straight Pages of Fully Redacted Emails?
What follows are 73 pages of emails I received last week in response to a public records request I filed with the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office back in March.
Newspaper Publisher Indicted and Jailed After Bizarre Open Records Request Saga
The publisher of a small weekly newspaper in Georgia was indicted last week for filing an open records request with a local court, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reports. The story Mark Thomason was going after with his request is almost as strange as the fact that he was charged with a felony and jailed overnight…
Cop Who Forwarded Racist Jokes Decries Public Records Laws
Newly unearthed evidence that a high-ranking Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department official forwarded racist emails at work makes clear one thing: it sucks that people can read your racist work emails!
Russian Hacker Accessed Email of Palm Beach Sheriff's Office Investigator Accused of Surveilling Journalists
A Russian hacker who claims to have broken into the personal computer of a Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office investigator named Mark Lewis did have access to Lewis’s email account at one point, an email released to Gawker this week shows. The hacker, who goes only by the pseudonym BadWolf, previously claimed to have…
Here's a Map of the NYC Parks Where You Might Get Narced for Smoking Weed
After a false start and a spell of glum weather, New York is finally starting to feel springlike this week—just in time for 4/20. If you’re the type who likes to celebrate the day, and who likes to do it outdoors rather than in the safety of your living room, take heed before you smoke weed.
Watch a Local News Reporter Get Arrested While Requesting Public Records
In theory, citizens of all 50 states are legally empowered to request and obtain records from their governments. When they work as intended, public records laws are a vital tool for reporters and ordinary people to learn about the government and hold it accountable. But a lot of the time, they don’t work as intended…
Contracts Show Police Misconduct Records Are Kept Hidden by Design
Why does it seem like so few cops are taken to task for various abuses of their power? Maybe because their contracts are written to ensure that they get away with it.
McKinney, Texas, Apologizes for "Erroneous" $79,000 FOIA Bill
Wednesday evening, a spokeswoman for McKinney, Texas, apologized to Gawker for sending a $79,000 bill to fulfill a Public Information Act request concerning a police officer who pointed his gun at a group of unarmed teenagers at a pool party.
Texas Town Is Charging Us $79,000 for Emails About Pool Party Abuse Cop
Days after McKinney, Texas, police officer Eric Casebolt was filmed pointing his service weapon at a group of unarmed black teenagers at a pool party this month, Gawker submitted a Public Information Act request to the city of McKinney asking to see Casebolt’s records and any emails about his conduct sent or received…
Private Equity Firms Don't Want You to Know How Expensive They Are
Public employees have public money in their pension funds to save for retirement. Those pension funds invest that public money in private equity firms. Those private equity firms then refuse to say how much they're charging, and why. Hmmm.
Set of Palin Emails Only $726
Summer bargain alert! Come Friday, you can treat yourself to 24,199 pages of electronic messages sent between Sarah Palin, her husband/snowmobile maintenance man, Todd, and various Alaska state officials, for the low, low price of $725.97. (Sorry, no Palin-to-English dictionary included.)
Brilliant Ohio Grifters Make Money When Small Towns Destroy Public Records
Ohio's public records law has a provision fining municipalities that improperly dispose of official documents. And a bunch of "citizen activists" there have realized that a lot of towns dispose of a lot of records improperly.
