AZ budget bill provision allows Dept of Public Safety to block release of all video records

[Nevilledog]

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Dave Biscobing
@DaveBiscobing15
What a cop out response.

“We do not comment on pending legislation,” a DPS spokesperson said when asked if the department helped in crafting the legislation or if it was consulted. “This has not yet been signed by Governor Ducey.”

https://azmirror.com/blog/budget-bill-provision-allows-dps-to-block-release-of-all-video-records/… via @arizonamirror

Budget bill provision allows DPS to block release of all video records
Tucked into a budget bill on criminal justice is a provision that would allow Arizona DPS to outright deny releasing any video records the agency possesses and to heavily edit any videos it chooses...
azmirror.com
6:38 PM · Jun 30, 2021

https://www.azmirror.com/blog/budget-bill-provision-allows-dps-to-block-release-of-all-video-records/

Tucked into a budget bill on criminal justice is a provision that would allow the Arizona Department of Public Safety to outright deny releasing any video records the agency possesses and to heavily edit any videos it chooses to make public.

A previous version of the bill by Republican lawmakers would have given DPS money to equip all state troopers with body-worn cameras, coupled with restrictions on how the footage for those cameras would be released.

But now the language applies to all video footage obtained by the department, not just video from body-worn cameras.

“It turns the Arizona public records law on its head and acts as an invitation for DPS to conceal video from the public,” media law attorney David Bodney said. “This just drives a locomotive through the public records law.”

*snip*

[SWBTATTReg]

1. Just curious, don't they have a public records mandate, to allow public inspection of all public

records, including videos, etc.? Sounds rather dictatorship in scope, eh?