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This week’s FOIA round-up: Interior was interested in FBI’s “gold standard” FOIA policy, AP collects data on medical marijuana cards, and an Arkansas judge rules clerk broke public records law
In this week’s FOIA round-up, the Department of the Interior staff emails show employees were interested in the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s “500-page per month” policy, the Associated Press created a new dataset by collecting information from each state to see why people wanted a medical marijuana card, and an Arkansas judge rules that a clerk broke state public-records laws, but cites as extenuating circumstances the clerk was acting on advice that they had received from state judicial authorities.

Louisiana judge grants access to state police body-camera footage
This week, The New Orleans Advocate won a lawsuit against the Louisiana State Police ordering the department to release body-camera footage involving off-duty New Orleans Police Department officer, Sergeant Chantelle Davis, who was stopped for speeding. The ruling comes two years after Louisiana instated its body-worn camera law.

Ohio public records law revises code to reflect new mandate on statutory damages
Before this month, if you won your public records lawsuit in Ohio you would get your records, but not necessarily win any attorney fees or statutory damages. Now, a new revision to the law overrules the outdated provision.

Massachusetts Spotlight: Navigating the public records appeal process
While the 2016 Massachusetts public records overhaul did successfully reform several aspects of the state’s records law, it didn’t address some of the biggest hurdles facing requesters — most importantly, a lack of enforcement.

Is a unified state public records law a solution to requester woes?
With 50 different public records laws across the nation and varying opinions on what works, requesters continue to find themselves in a loop to grasp different guidelines. Yet, a former access officer turned transparency lawyer says one unified public records law could be relief requesters need.