Proposed changes would place new restrictions on scope of public records requests
By Peter Jamison Peter Jamison Reporter covering D.C. politics and government Email Bio Follow May 8 at 3:38 PM D.C. lawmakers are considering a proposal that could dramatically curtail access to public records, exempting from disclosure correspondence sent with government email in which public employees discuss matters not related to their official duties.
Open-government advocates swiftly condemned the proposed changes, which include new language that would only permit disclosure of “information regarding the affairs of government and the official acts of public officials and employees.” “The process is disturbing. The substance is even worse,” Susman said. “The idea that this is a technical, clarifying amendment is ludicrous.”
Mendelson said the proposed FOIA restrictions were not intended to protect council members such as Evans from scrutiny. He said the general counsel had told him that the records requests which unearthed Evans’s improper conduct would not have be rejected under the new restrictions. The point, he said, was instead to shield details of government officials’ personal lives.
The District's current open-records law already contains an exemption for “information of a personal nature where the public disclosure thereof would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.” Mendelson did not immediately respond to follow-up questions Wednesday about why that provision was insufficient.
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