Illegal copy of the Oregon Attorney General's Public Records and Meetings Manual

Update: See here for more "copyrighted" law manuals from the Oregon DOJ, and here for a nice clean compact OCR'd pdf of the "Oregon Attorney General's Public Records and Meetings Manual" all courtesy of Carl Malamud at public.resource.org.

9/14/2009: Every 2 years the Oregon DOJ publishes the "Oregon Attorney General's Public Records and Meetings Manual". Essential reading for people trying to use their right to get public records from Oregon government agencies. The DOJ has been trying to keep me from redistributing this manual, on the grounds that they own the copyright to it.

Trying to use copyright law to keep the public from getting information about how to get public records strikes me as wrong, so I've posted the manual online at my official UO faculty website. As the email below explains, I am posting this despite the fact that the AG's office has explicitly warned me not to redistribute this manual.

So, you can go here and pay the DOJ $25 for the dead-tree version, or download my pdf free. Here are the links. Internet volunteers are currently preparing a searchable version, which we expect to have online and googled in a few days.

Oregon PR Manual Section 0
Oregon PR Manual Section 1
Oregon PR Manual Section 2
Oregon PR Manual Section 3

Meanwhile, Jeff Mapes of the Oregonian reports that Attorney General Kroger is now considering what action to take against me for illegally redistributing this public records manual. As James Madison said,

"A popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or, perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: And a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives."

Given that this quote is prominently posted on the cover of the very manual which AG John Kroger is trying to keep off the internet, I hold with those who favor farce.

Kroger is not going to take any action against me. His spokesperson Tony Green is soon going to stop answering calls about this. Kroger is never going to do anything to improve access to Oregon's public records, and he is going to blame this on the legislature, claiming he is powerless to act.

I needed to the Public Records Manual to figure out how to get the AG to release a copy of his office's investigation of Special Assistant Attorney General Melinda Grier. While the AG quickly and freely released everything he had about the Adams case, he has only given up heavily redacted parts of the Grier investigation. His Associate AG David Leith is trying to charge $1800 to see even those redacted pages. Ms Grier is not the mayor of Portland, but she is a DOJ Special Assistant Attorney General, and the spouse of DOJ Solicitor General Jerry Lidz. The AG hasn't explained how this legitimately creates a need a redaction when there was none for the Adams case!

9/13/2009 email:

Dear Attorney General Kroger:

In July I tried to obtain a pdf of the 2008 "Oregon Attorney General's Public Records and Meetings Manual" from your office, as part of my still unsuccessful efforts to get a copy of the DOJ's ethics investigation of UO General Counsel and Oregon Assistant AG Melinda Grier.

I was surprised that this manual was not already posted on your public records website. It it seems clear to me that Oregon law regarding public records, and specifically ORS 192.243, requires the DOJ to post this manual online. I was even more surprised when my questions about this and my efforts to get the DOJ to do sol - or at least email me a pdf so that I could post it - were repeatedly ignored by your office.

Eventually I did get the response below, offering to sell me a copy, and warning me ... "it is not to be redistributed without our permission in any format" ... This doesn't seem right to me. This manual describes Oregon's public records law and gives practical advice for state agencies and for people attempting to get public records. The preamble, signed by then AG Hardy Myers, goes on about this for quite a bit. This manual should be posted on the DOJ website where people can google it and use it for its intended purpose.

As you know, previous efforts by the Oregon DOJ to assert its copyright over the Oregon Revised Statutes were ridiculed by the legal community and repudiated by the state legislature in 2008. See http://public.resource.org/oregon.gov/index.html, for example. Attempting to using copyright law to keep a manual on public records off the web - of all things - seems even stranger than this strange episode - especially given your campaign promises to increase the transparency of Oregon's government.

So, I checked a copy of the 2008 PR Manual out of the UO Law Library, scanned it, and I posted the pdf on my official University of Oregon faculty website, at http://harbaugh.uoregon.edu/ORDOJ_PR_Manual and also at http://openuporegon.com. I understand that it is illegal for me to post copyrighted material on the web without permission of the copyright owners. Furthermore, the Oregon PR manual states that copyright of this manual is held by the Oregon DOJ, and as the email below from the DOJ makes clear, the DOJ has explicitly told me not to redistribute the Manual. I am putting it online anyway.

I suppose that you could send me a letter asking me to remove this public records manual from my website, or just request or order UO to do so. Alternatively, you could post the official pdf - which your office already has - on the DOJ's public records website, and make it available to other websites such as http://open-oregon.com. I hope you will do the latter - and also that your office will provide the documents I have requested regarding the Grier investigation without further delay, or unnecessary redactions.

Sincerely,

Bill Harbaugh
Professor of Economics
1285 University of Oregon

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Kron Michael C"
Date: Jul 24, 2009 3:27:11 PDT
To:
Cc: "Green Tony " , "Altenhofen Martin"
Subject: Your request for a PDF of the Public Records Manual.


Good afternoon, Professor Harbaugh.

You requested our Public Records Manual in PDF format. I believe that Tony has told you that, pursuant to our administrative rule, the Manual costs $25. OAR 137-008-0010(4)(d). Upon receipt, you can send a check in that amount to

Publications Section
Oregon Department of Justice
1162 Court St NE
Salem OR 97301-4096

Please enclose a copy of this email with your check.

Our IS people require you to follow the instructions below before we send you the PDF. The State, by and through DOJ, owns copyright to the Manual, and it is not to be redistributed without our permission in any format. This measure is to help protect the copyright. (emphasis added)

If you have any technical questions about the process, please feel free to direct them to Martin Altenhofen, the author of the email below. I would appreciate it if you would copy me on any correspondence with Martin

...

Sincerely,

Michael