California Court Rejects Attempt To Force Reporters, California Governor And Others To 'Return' Leaked Emails

from the how-does-one-return-an-email? dept

While it may not be the Snowden or Manning documents, all sorts of smaller "leaks" happen all the time. And, apparently, some people go absolutely crazy about it, such as the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum Commission, which freaked out that someone had leaked 94 pages of internal emails concerning the Commission's attempt to give the University of Southern California control over the stadium. The emails suggest that the Commission broke certain laws concerning public discussions and procedures. The response, though, is what's fairly incredible. The Commission has been trying to argue that the leaked documents are "privileged communications" with lawyers, and therefore the LA Times (whose reporters received the documents) and various others, including California Governor Jerry Brown and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti should be ordered to "return" the documents.

Thankfully, the court has quickly rejected the request pointing out that there's been no evidence to support the claims of the Commission, and furthermore that the entire attempt to retrieve leaked documents is "grossly overboard."

"You're asking me to have parties, including the governor of California, return documents sent to him?"

The judge seems to recognize the absurdity of this attempt. Clearly, if that was a reasonable move it would basically do away with any possibility of whistleblowing. Of course, now that there's fighting over the documents, a minor scandal is getting that much more attention thanks, yet again, to the weakly attempted coverup.

Filed Under: eric garcetti, jerry brown, journalism, la memorial coliseum, leaked emails, return