Washington state high court rules metadata are public records

from The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press:

The Washington Supreme Court upheld Thursday an appellate court’s ruling that metadata -- information related to the history, tracking or management of an electronic document -- is a public record subject to disclosure under the state Public Records Act.
The ruling involved a 2006 case in which Shoreline, Wash., resident Beth O’Neill sued under the Public Records Act to obtain metadata detailing the senders and recipients of a string of e-mails sent to Shoreline Deputy Mayor Maggie Fimia that accused the city council of being “dysfunctional.”

[...]

In writing for the majority, Justice Susan Owens stated: "Metadata may contain information that relates to the conduct of government and is important for the public to know. It could conceivably include information about whether a document was altered, what time a document was created, or who sent a document to whom."

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Mark Caramanica Named New FOI Director for Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press

The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press announced its new Freedom of Information Director is Mark R. Caramanica. Caramanica is a former trial attorney who is finishing his doctorate in Mass Communications at the University of Florida, where he also earned a bachelor's degree in economics and a law degree and master's degree in mass communication.

For more, click here.

D.C. program to examine impact of Reporters Committee case

The Collaboration on Government Secrecy will hold "Privacy Protection After Twenty Years Under Reporters Committee" from 8:45 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. April 28, 2009, at American University Washington College of Law.

In 1989, in what arguably is the most significant Freedom of Information Act decision ever issued, the Supreme Court in Department of Justice v. Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press both broadened the concept of personal privacy and narrowed the definition of the “public interest” in disclosure.

This decision brought about nothing less than a sea change in privacy protection by radically altering the balancing process by which federal agencies decide whether to invoke the FOIA’s privacy exemptions -- leading to the withholding of greater amounts of information from the public.

Marking the 20th anniversary of this landmark FOIA decision, this program examines Reporters Committee’s full impact on government openness versus the protection of personal privacy and explores its continued viability with the passage of time.

Highlights of the agenda include:

• A keynote address by Jane Kirtley, Silha Professor of Media Ethics and Law Director at the University of Minnesota
• Panel discussing the origin of the case, the formulation of the government's position and the unexpected breadth of the Supreme Court's decision
• Panel analyzing the Supreme Court's novel "practical obscurity" concept for protecting personal privacy interests.
• Luncheon address by Mary Ellen Callahan, Chief Privacy Officer and Chief Freedom of Information Act Officer for the Department of Homeland Security
• Panel considering the Reporters Committee "core purpose" standard for determining a limited "public interest" that can be balanced in favor of disclosure
• Panel reviewing the Reporters Committee's impact on FOIA administration, FOIA litigation and implementation of the Privacy Act of 1974
  

Register here.