Police records and video: Radley Balko interview, August 19, 2011

FOIAchat was a weekly conference on Twitter that occurred between 2010 and 2013 from 2 PM to 3 PM EST under the hashtag #foiachat. The discussion invited collaboration between activists, citizens, bloggers, and journalists on public records requests topics. Topics included the Freedom of Information Act and state equivalents, open meetings laws, and related issues.

FOIAchat was discontinued in 2013. Read our legal disclaimer.

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During this FOIAchat, 28 contributors participated. To review this FOIAchat on Twitter, click here.

Edited for non-Twitter readability and to group like-ideas.

Could you give a brief history of knowledge about investigations and attaining public records?
I cover criminal justice issues, so my experience is mainly dealing with police departments and prosecutors' offices and that experience has been that they aren't forthcoming with information. Most of the time, I end up getting primary documents (search warrants, affidavits, etc.) from attorneys involved in cases I cover.

What are some of your favorite datasets to request? Police reports, autopsy reports, etc. are usually pretty interesting reading, though disturbing at times.

Is there a favorite public records exemption or is it typically unfounded stonewalling?
It depends on the police department. For example, police departments in Northern Virginia reject all open records requests by default. It's pretty amazing. In fact, Northern Virginia police departments will even reject requests for publicly available information!

Another trick police departments will use is they'll give you prohibitive cost estimates of complying with a request. I once asked the Houston PD for a copy of search warrants for no-knock raids over the last year. Their estimate: $100,000+.

I'm really interested in hearing how you attained information about Hayne and West: Mississippi Gets an “F” in Transparency?

With Hayne and West, most of my source documents came from people involved in cases where they testified. Mississippi government agencies denied every request I made with respect to those two. My favorite was the Mississippi crime lab's excuse when I asked only for the number of autopsies Hayne had performed on a specific day. They rejected the request citing the need to protect the privacy of the deceased. In Mississippi, even families of deceased have had difficulties obtaining autopsy records.

This actually brings up another interesting roadblock: the portion of the federal HIPAA law pertaining to medical privacy. HIPAA privacy regulations extend to the deceased, so agencies wouldn't send questionable Hayne autopsy reports to have them reviewed. Problem with HIPAA is that it gives government agencies lots of leeway, so they can invoke privacy regulations only when it benefits them.

How do you track expert witnesses thru the many different courts they testify in across counties, states? You can search for their names in legal databases. Defense attorneys are good sources to find other cases, too.

Would that be if the expert witness' names shows up in appellate opinions? Private companies, like JurisPro, provide expert's resumes - someX for free may have trial level cases not in appellate court.

Any effective way to appeal rejected requests?
Again, I haven't had the resources to fight denials, but denials themselves can make a great story (see Northern Virginia police departments). Publicizing denials, especially egregious ones, can sometimes shame an agency into at least a bit more transparency. Have you gathered information on taser deaths? I have not, but a guy tased 7+times in one incident in Greenfield, MA is researching that question for his case

Last we talked about using programs to organize data from FOIAs. Any that you use?
I don't. Until only recently, I worked for a pretty small publication, so we didn't have resources for that sort of large-scale records request. Excited to now be working for a publication that does, though. Now working out some ideas.

You've worked with some massive amounts of data though. How did you organize all of it? I just sat down and went through it myself. Probably helps that I'm not dealing with dry, bureaucratic data.

Can you tell me more about your experiences attaining information on the police raids?
Interesting thing about my beat is how law enforcement agencies can get away with ignoring open records laws. For example, the Northern Virginia police departments that deny all requests are violating state law, but no one with power to make them comply seems to mind. Similarly, under federal law, any police deparments [sic] that gets federal funding must track and report officer-involved shootings. Few of them do. You simply can't find official data on number of people shot by cops over, say, the last year, even though it's required by law. Another interesting issue: Cops and cop cars are increasingly sporting cameras. Those videos should be covered by open records will be interesting to see how easily/quickly that video is turned over, especially in controversial cases.

Is publicizing failures to track the best way to get police departments to report incidences? Sometimes, I think it's the only way. An example: Working on a story right now about a raid on a woman in Chicago. She wasn't the target of the raid, but cops broke into her house, handcuffed her, etc. Chicago police department won't give her copy of search warrant affidavits because she wasn't the target of raid, even though she was the one raided. Will likely take publicity/media coverage to get them look into what happened/let her see the documents.

Related links

• Reason - The NoVa Police Blackout, Law enforcement agencies in Northern Virginia say you have no right to know what they're doing
• Reason - CSI:Mississippi, A case study in expert testimony gone horribly wrong
• Go Jefferson - A Guide To Hiding Records: How to Avoid Complying with Wisconsin's Open Records Law
• Huffpost - Myths Of The Criminal Justice System: Part 2
• Sunlight Foundation - Florida Accidently Deletes Public Records
• Reason - The NoVa Police Blackout, Law enforcement agencies in Northern Virginia say you have no right to know what they're doing