CJ Griffin Filed an OPRA Suit to Get a List of Users that Borough Officials have "Banned" from Their Official Facebook Pages
Pashman Stein Walder Hayden Partner and Chair of the Media Law Group, CJ Griffin was quoted in NorthJersey.com’s article, “Suit Claims Glen Rock Council Facebook Pages are Public Documents, Subject to OPRA.”
The article reports on a Glen Rock resident who challenges to the denial of an Open Public Records request to the Borough’s Facebook page. This filing continues a legal debate about whether elected officials' social media accounts constitute a government property to New Jersey Superior Court.
"The test for a government record is not who maintained it at any given minute," said Griffin, who added that councilpersons' emails, which are subject to OPRA, are not always handled by a municipal server, and can sometimes be set up informally through a consumer grade provider, like gmail.
In her order to show cause, Griffin cites the Open Public Records Act, which defines a public record as "information made or stored electronically [...] that has been made, maintained or kept by any officer, commission, agency or authority of the state or any political subdivision thereof."
To read the article in it’s entirety please click here.