It is deeply disturbing that LMPD would equate protest with terrorism.

This may be the most cynical and tone deaf — not to mention legally unsupportable — response to an open records request I've ever seen.

The exceptions to the open records and meetings laws for records, and discussion of records, that might advance a terrorist act was enacted in the wake of the events of 9-11. Four years under consideration, it was narrowly drafted, and ultimately adopted, to avoid misuse or overuse.

https://apps.legislature.ky.gov/law/statutes/statute.aspx?id=48230

It is plainly misused and overused here.

The lynchpin of the exception is proof that disclosure of disputed public records "would have a reasonable likelihood of threatening the public safety by exposing a vulnerability in preventing, protecting against, mitigating, or responding to a terrorist act" as defined in the exception.

Those records must fall within one or more of eight records categories. LMPD's apparent claim that these records constitute "antiterrorism protective measures and plans" and "counterterrorism measures and plans" is overblown and unsupportable.

Particularly with respect to the after action reports that LMPD has ignored its duty to create, it is inconceivable that history will repeat itself.

Lower courts have rejected similar claims in the past based on the recognition that future occurrences cannot be prognosticated on a past event. There is no "reasonable likelihood" that disclosure threatens the public safety by exposing a vulnerability in preventing, protecting against, mitigating, or responding to a terrorist act" as defined in KRS 61.878(1)(m).

The misuse and overuse of the exception here is precisely what the drafters tried to guard against.