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Mostly Cloudy Civic Law
Q: I went down to my local Town Hall and filled out a Freedom of Information Law request to get some information about why the Town had decided to adopt a new law. They wouldn’t give me an answer on the spot, and later told me that they didn’t have to give me the information I had asked for. What’s up with this?
A: Unfortunately for you, the classically mis-named Freedom of Information Law doesn’t cover what you want.
The Freedom of Information Law, commonly known as FOIL, actually does not permit citizens to obtain information. Instead, it creates a presumption of a right to inspect and copy various public records and documents. You have to give a reasonable identification of the records and documents you wish to inspect or copy, so that the government officials can locate them. FOIL does not require a government to respond to questions which ask for information instead of documents, and whether or not to respond to questions is up to the government Records Access Officer.
When you file a FOIL request, the government is required within five days either to permit you to inspect or copy the records you have identified, or to notify you that it has received your request and give you an estimate when the records will be available.
However, there are various types of records which the government is permitted not to provide under FOIL, in order to protect against invasions of privacy or to safeguard information which is confidential or which would compromise an ongoing investigation or decision-making process.
If you fail to provide a reasonable description of the records you wish to inspect or copy, so that the government is unable to identify what you want, your FOIL request can be rejected. And, if you request records which fall within the various protected categories in the statute, the government may either decline to provide the records to you, or may choose to give you copies of the records in which the protected information has been redacted.
