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So this is happening.

According to the Associated Press, Ferguson bureaucrats are demanding high prices before they release any records and files about the fatal shooting of unarmed teenager Michael Brown.

The move, AP says, is a way to discourage journalists and civil rights activists from investigating Brown’s shooting.

The city has demanded high fees to produce copies of records that, under Missouri law, it could give away free if it determined the material was in the public’s interest to see. Instead, in some cases, the city has demanded high fees with little explanation or cost breakdown. It billed The Associated Press $135 an hour — for nearly a day’s work — merely to retrieve a handful of email accounts since the shooting.

That fee compares with an entry-level, hourly salary of $13.90 in the city clerk’s office, and it didn’t include costs to review the emails or release them.

The new prices, which is Ferguson’s response to requests under the state’s Sunshine Act to turn over the records, may look like a cover-up. And in many similar cases, it is.

Price-gouging for government files is one way that local, state and federal agencies have responded to requests for potentially embarrassing information they may not want released. Open records laws are designed to give the public access to government records at little or no cost, and have historically exposed waste, wrongdoing and corruption.

“The first line of defense is to make the requester go away,” said Rick Blum, who coordinates the Sunshine in Government Initiative, a coalition of media groups that advocates for open government. “Charging exorbitant fees to simply cut and paste is a popular tactic.”

For AP, that meant facing thousands of dollars for basic information surrounding the shooting and its aftermath.

Some states provide public records for free or little cost, while others like Missouri can require fees that “result in the lowest charges for search, research and duplication.” The AP asked for a fee waiver because it argued the records would serve the public interest, as the law allows, but that request was denied.

In late August, the AP asked for copies of several police officials’ emails and text messages, including those belonging to Wilson and Chief Thomas Jackson. The AP sought those records to reveal the city’s behind-the-scenes response to the shooting and public protests.

Ferguson told the AP it wanted nearly $2,000 to pay a consulting firm for up to 16 hours of work to retrieve messages on its own email system, a practice that information technology experts call unnecessary. The firm, St. Louis-based Acumen Consulting, wouldn’t comment specifically on Ferguson’s contract, but said the search could be more complicated and require technicians to examine tape backups.

But they weren’t the only publication hit with exuberant fees when asked to see police reports, personnel files or any information about Brown’s death.

Organizations like the website Buzzfeed were told they’d have to pay unspecified thousands of dollars for emails and memos about Ferguson’s traffic-citation policies and changes to local elections. The Washington Post said Ferguson wanted no less than $200 for its requests.

[…]

The American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri filed a public records lawsuit days after the shooting for Brown-related police reports, but ultimately received a censored report that omitted officers’ names and other details usually released in such documents.

Jonathan Groves, president of the Missouri Sunshine Coalition and a former daily journalist, said that while public agencies can legally charge reasonable fees for records, an unfettered Sunshine Law is nonetheless an important tool “so that we have faith in what the government is doing.”

So much for transparency.

SOURCE: AP | PHOTO CREDIT: Getty

A Week Of Protest For Michael Brown: Ferguson, Missouri In Pictures (PHOTOS)
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