NYPD will not disclose a list of its parking placards in response to a routine Freedom of Information Law request, on the grounds that the names of recipients of the parking perk are far too sensitive to reveal.
The NYPD declined to provide records concerning its roughly 35,000 placards more than a year after Streetsblog submitted a FOIL request for all active NYPD parking permits, including the names of personnel who receive placards. But the department relied on contradictory reasoning for withholding the information, according to a lawyer who filed an appeal on behalf of Streetsblog.
“NYPD has a history of trying to hide records from the public, even though the records belong to the public and the public has a right to access them,” said Michael Linhorst at Cornell Law School’s First Amendment Clinic. “They haven’t made any argument why releasing this would endanger somebody’s life or safety.”…