NY Times Sues NYPD For Never Telling Them Anything

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According to the State Freedom of Information Law, the police are required to provide certain information to the press if they file the proper paperwork and wait patiently. But it looks like the NYPD doesn't really like revealing all their secrets, and now the New York Times is suing them for repeatedly delaying or denying their requests for information. David E. McCraw, a vice president and assistant general counsel of The New York Times Company tells, well, the Times, “We’ve become increasingly concerned over the last two years about a growing lack of transparency at the NYPD. Information that was once released is now withheld. Disclosures that could be made quickly are put on hold for months."

In the suit filed with the State Supreme Court in Manhattan yesterday, the paper asks for a judicial order requiring the police to turn over the information and preventing them "from continuing its pattern and practice of violating" the Freedom of Information Law. But the NYPD says slow service is just how they roll! Spokesman Paul Browne said, "none of the FOIL requests about which The Times complains, is, in our view, ripe for litigation...These requests are being processed by the NYPD in accordance with controlling law."

The Times claims that the NYPD has been reluctant to give information to anyone, even the state. The NYPD reportedly admitted last month that they had not sent the state statistics for minor crime since 2002, and that (surprise!) stop and frisk data was only reported "sporadically" from 2003 to 2007.

FOIL states "that a free society is maintained when government is responsive and responsible to the public, and when the public is aware of governmental actions. The more open a government is with its citizenry, the greater the understanding and participation of the public in government." However, agencies have the right to deny access to records for a slew of reasons, including if revealing would "interfere with law enforcement investigations or judicial proceedings," if they are certain "inter-agency or intra-agency materials" or if they "reveal criminal investigative techniques or procedures, except routine techniques and procedures." So that basically leaves the crime stats they have on their website, right?

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By Jaya Saxena in News on December 22, 2010 10:46 AM

Comments [rss]

Polite New Yorker

It is a shameful day when a newspaper has to sue for information that any citizen should be able to easily access. Ray Kelly needs to take a course on the Freedom of Information Act (after his remedial course on the First Amendment).

loveyourlife

It's general information available to the public not specific information. A good example was the stop and frisk data, that should certainly be available to the public.

JimboGold853OKG

What Bullshit, chuzzlewit! That kind of statement could only come from a cop who's had too much Kool-Aid, or a citizen who sees terrorists and miscreants everywhere.

News flash! Not everything is about the terrorists winning. I wanna know if I'm under surveilance for no reason, if my friends are being watched, if racial or arrest quotas are under way due to upper management pressure, or if undercover infiltration is being made to groups that are not considered dangerous. A transparent police organization wouldn't have of a problem sharing that information with the citizens it's supposed to protect unless they had something to hide.

Thankfully, the wheels are rapidly coming off their bus of secrecy that Ray Kelly and Paul Browne have been driving over the past five or six years.In addition to violating our First Amendment rights, these policies cost the City of NY money. People have sued and won over $1 billion because of lost or bungled information by the NYPD.

chuzzlewit

wat! there's something wrong with the bus' wheels? this could be the work of terrorists....goes to call cops

chuzzlewit

<herp>i don't think the nypd should have to disclose things it doesn't want to. the information is obviously being kept secret for a good reason, and it's release could put people in danger and make the work of the nypd more difficult. sensitive information could be revealed to evil people with nefarious agenda. we need to trust the nypd to make these decisions, not reporters who do not understand law enforcement. these reporters are just creepy and narcissistic anyway.</herp>