SF No. 43 – The bill would amend Chapter 13 so that “Government data of a political subdivision on requests for notices of services or activities of a political subdivision” would be “private data on individuals or nonpublic data.”
SF No. 60 – The bill is the Senate companion to HF No. 20. The bill proposes to keep e-mail addresses submitted to government entities “not public.”
The City of Minneapolis is asking IPAD, the office with the Department of Administration that reviews Data Practices issues, to issue a temporary classification for License Plate Recognition (LPR) data. The data, which consists of millions of police scans of vehicle plates captured by squad car-mounted cameras, is currently available as public data under the Minnesota Data Practices Act. Minneapolis is seeking to have the data temporarily classified as “not public” in anticipation of more comprehensive action by the Minnesota Legislature.
The legislature is expected to take up questions of LPR retention and classification during its 2013 session. MNCOGI will be presenting its perspective on LPR data issues at its January 28 public forum.
The Minnesota Legislature convened on January 8, 2013. The following bills were introduced on January 10th. Each has some bearing on Data Practices and Open Meeting issues:
HF No. 5, Establishing a Minnesota insurance exchange
HF No. 5 creates a board to direct the function of the insurance exchange. The bill contains provisions which would exempt certain board discussions (contract negotiations, personnel matters, trade secret information) from the Open Meeting law.
SF No. 1, Senate companion to HF No. 5, with similar provisions
HF No. 20, Classifying e-mail and telephone data
HF No. 20 would classify e-mail and telephone information provided to government entities for notification purposes (snow plowing, etc) as “private data on individuals.” This data is currently public data.
HF No. 42, Subjecting certain DNR/tribal meetings to the Open Meeting law
HF No. 42 would subject meetings involving the Department of Natural Resources, Ojibwe bands, and the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission to the Open Meeing Law.
A private attorney working with the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota has agreed to represent a Little Canada man whose video camera was taken from him by a sheriff’s deputy.
Andrew Henderson, 28, was recording an incident involving a man at his apartment building Oct. 30 when Ramsey County sheriff’s deputy Jacqueline Muellner grabbed the camera.
Henderson was later charged with obstructing legal process and disorderly conduct. He said he was sitting about 30 feet away from the incident. Muellner wrote on the citation that Henderson was interfering with the privacy of the other man, who was being loaded into an ambulance.
Henderson eventually got the camera back, but there was no recording on it. He believes it was deleted.
“A citizen such as Mr. Henderson has an absolute right to be present in a public area, as he was, and to take pictures or to film the surroundings, including police officers that were present,” said Henderson’s attorney, John Lundquist of Fredrikson & Byron in Minneapolis, on Friday, Jan. 11. “And by seizing his camera, they violated in a very dramatic way his First Amendment rights.”
Lundquist is a criminal defense attorney with 30 years experience at his firm.
Chuck Samuelson of the ACLU confirmed that the nonprofit had come to a verbal agreement with Lundquist and Henderson on Friday on Henderson’s representation.
Attorneys with the firm of Kelly & Lemmons, which is prosecuting Henderson on behalf of the city of
Little Canada, did not immediately return phone calls seeking comment Friday.
“We figure that when they’re faced with legitimate legal representation, they’ll say, ‘Oops, our bad,’ and drop the case,” Samuelson said.
Henderson’s next court appearance is scheduled for Jan. 30.
When Muellner took his camera the night of the incident, she told him, “If I end up on YouTube, I’m gonna be upset.”
Henderson told her that what he was doing was legal. He refused to give his name.
But he identified himself when he went to the sheriff’s station the next day to retrieve the camera. He received the citation in the mail a few days after that.
Henderson’s case is similar to others around the country involving citizens recording police activities.
Courts have ruled elsewhere that law enforcement officers have no expectation of privacy when they carry out their duties in a public place.
Ramsey County sheriff’s spokesman Randy Gustafson said Tuesday that it is not the department’s policy to take people’s cameras. People are within their rights to record deputies’ activities, he said.
Henderson said he carries his camera with him and uses it often. Police should be held accountable for their actions, he said.
The deputy wrote on the citation, “While handling a medical/check the welfare (call), (Henderson) was filming it. Data privacy HIPAA violation. Refused to identify self. Had to stop dealing with sit(uation) to deal w/Henderson.”
HIPAA, or the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, deals with how consumers’ health information is handled by health care providers. It does not cover private citizens recording a medical event.
The 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in May ruled that an Illinois law barring audio recording of a conversation without consent of all parties “restricts far more speech than necessary to protect legitimate privacy interests.” As applied in that case, “(the law) likely violates the First Amendment’s free-speech and free-press guarantees,” the court ruled.
The U.S. Supreme Court declined in November to hear the state’s appeal.
In another case, Boston attorney Simon Glik was arrested in 2007 after he used his cellphone to videorecord several police officers roughly arresting another man. The state charged him with violating Massachusetts’ wiretap law; those charges were thrown out.
Glik sued the city of Boston, claiming his arrest constituted a violation of his rights under the First and Fourth Amendments.
The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 2011 that Glik was “exercising clearly established First Amendment rights in filming the officers in a public space, and that his clearly established Fourth Amendment rights were violated by his arrest without probable cause.”
The city of Boston paid Glik $170,000.
Emily Gurnon can be reached at 651-228-5522. Follow her at twitter.com/emilygurnon.
On January 28, 2013, the Minnesota Coalition on Government Information (MNCOGI) will host a public discussion on Data Practices issues facing the 2013 Minnesota Legislature. The Minnesota Data Practices Act is the state’s chief open government law.
Issues to be discussed will include the status of license plate scan data; whether citizen e-mail addresses held by government entities should be public or private; the extent to which personnel data about public officials should be public, the degree to which “criminal intelligence data” should be kept secret, and possible changes to how the Data Practices Act is enforced.
COGI-tations are free, public forums sponsored by the
Minnesota Coalition on Government Information.
Discussion:
Monday, Jan 28, 2013, 2-3:30 pm in MN Capitol Meeting Room 118
Presenter:
MNCOGI board member Don Gemberling will present MNCOGI’s positions on several issues that will come before the legislature this year. Mr. Gemberling was the past director of IPAD, the office within the Department of Administration responsible for Data Practices issues.
Questions? Contact: Helen Burke, MNCOGI Board Chair at MNCOGI@gmail.com
The Minnesota Supreme Court is allowing cameras to record proceedings in civil cases for a test that runs through June 30, 2013. The Minnesota Coalition on Government Information is hosting a panel discussion to examine this experiment at its halfway point.
Minnesota news organizations hope that the test will demonstrate that recording equipment does not disrupt court proceedings, and can enhance the public’s understanding of what goes on inside its courts. They also hope that the experiment will open the door to expanded coverage of criminal court proceedings in Minnesota.
Panel discussion:
Wednesday, Oct. 24, 11am-12:30pm in Room 10 of the State Office Building.
Panelists include:
Seventh District Assistant Chief Judge John H. Scherer of Stearns County
Ramsey County District Judge Margaret Marrinan
Emily Gurnon, courts reporter for the St. Paul Pioneer Press
Joan Gilbertson, producer for WCCO-TV
David Unze, reporter for the St. Cloud Times
Moderator: John P. Borger, MNCOGI board member and partner at Faegre Baker Daniels
Minnesota CLE credits are pending approval
Questions? Contact Helen Burke, MNCOGI Board Chair at mncogi@gmail.com
For people tracking data practices activities in Minnesota, FYI: From the Information Policy Division the The Fall 2010 issue of features a recap of the recent COGI-tations workshop by David Cullier from the University of Arizona, “Digging Digital Docs.” It also includes an update on the gang database workgroup.
An article in the September/October issue of ACADEME, “Three Clicks and Academic Freedom is Out,” describes a new law in Texas. As a result of legislation passed in 2009, all public universities are required to post detailed syllabi for all undergraduate courses, a curriculum vitae for each regular instructor, a department budget report for each course offered, and reports of student course evaluations. The author notes this law as an example of how “activists, notable in Texas but with ties to other states and to national groups, have adopted the rhetoric of transparency to further their own conservative agendas.”
David Cuillier will be speaking at the upcoming COGI-tations lecture, “Digging Digital Docs: The Law and Practical Strategies for Acquiring Government Electronic Records,” on September 27, 2010. Cuillier wrote The Art of Access with Charles Davis of the National Freedom of Information Coalition. Since there will always be more stories about public records being concealed or revealed, they maintain an blog with the same name. An interesting recent post described a lawsuit filed by an open government group in California, asking California State University to disclose their speakers contract for a recent appearance by Sarah Palin. The contract was a public record, Stanislaus County Superior Court Judge Roger Beauchesne ruled. See the story: “Bendable Straws.. Really?“
If you can get up early on a Monday morning, there’s a great lecture coming up on September 27, part of the COGI-tations series from the Minnesota Coalition on Government Information (MNCOGI). The guest speaker is David Cuillier, Professor of Journalism at the University of Arizona and co-author of the newly-published book, The Art of Access: Strategies for Acquiring Public Records.
Cuillier’s talk is “Digging Digital Docs: The Law and Practical Strategies for Acquiring Government Electronic Records.”
His book is filled with government record research tips – questions to ask, examples of request letters, and interesting real-life stories. Fascinating pull-out “Pro Tips” by journalists and attorneys throughout the book are inspiring.
This MNCOGI session will be energizing for journalists, librarians, researchers, and citizen activists. You’ll learn about where to look for government records and how to work with government agencies to get them (and never take no for an answer!).
The details:
Digging Digital Docs: The Law and Practical Strategies for Acquiring Government Electronic Records
8 – 9:30 a.m. (Doors open for coffee and rolls at 7:45)
Monday, September 27, 2010
WomenVenture (map)
2324 University Avenue
St. Paul, MN 55114
(free parking!)
Quote from THE ART OF ACCESS: “Just as Trump is in charge of his private company, we the citizens are quite literally in charge of our public companies – federal, state and local agencies. Government employees work for us. We pay their salaries. As their bosses, we have not just the authority but the duty to make sure out employees are doing what we pay them to do. If they aren’t we point them to the door. That’s democracy. Thomas Jefferson said our country is based on government “deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”” (p. 21)
