Nice try, government officials, but this time the law is on the citizen’s side

[Commentary] Government officials can get creative when they want to hide information from public view. They sue people who request records. They try to kill programs designed to allow citizens to resolve FOI disputes without filing a lawsuit. They make decisions in open meetings without public deliberation. They even use Sunshine Week to propose bills to make it more difficult for citizens to record police activity.

Now, add two more strategies to the playbook: Suing a citizen for copyright infringement after he posted to YouTube recordings of city council meetings, and prohibiting a citizen from photographing a public record. Fortunately, neither effort was successful -- thanks to a federal judge and a public-records office, respectively, rejecting the government’s rationale in each case.