Memo to Kentucky's senators: You just unanimously passed HB 273, without discussion, creating a new exception to the Kentucky Open Records Act that may or may not apply to court records only (when asked, the sponsor wasn't sure) and that precludes public access to surveillance/ bystander photos/videos depicting the death, killing, sexual assault, or rape of a person.

https://apps.legislature.ky.gov/record/21rs/hb273.html

There is no language in the bill limiting application to court records and, if that was the intent, the bill is dead on arrival as court records are not subject to the Act of other legislative regulation. This is a bill that will preclude access to bystander/surveillance videos like those of George Floyd's, Rayshard Brooks', and David McAtee's deaths at the hands of public employees.

Such records, if in public agency custody, will be exempt from public inspection without consideration of possible public interest in disclosure. So, too, will surveillance video depicting sexual assaults in a correctional facility—all records that may directly bear on public employee misconduct.

A bill that was characterized as an exception for court records aimed at protecting families may well protect records depicting bad public officials and employees. The privacy exception to the Act authorizes nondisclosure when the record reveals nothing about the conduct of a public official/employee. It offers protection in these cases.

Lawmakers are not satisfied.

Add another exception to the ever-lengthening list of exceptions to the open records law (three in this year alone) that does not advance the stated public purpose and may, in fact, imperil the public's right to know.