Sorry, what I'm not sure about is whether an agency is liable if it releases exempt information. Exemptions allow an agency to deny a request, but the agency still has discretion whether or not to follow the exemption.
> So, if you are not sure - and they are also not sure - then they could ask for a ruling before releasing. Err on the side of caution is good practice when it comes to releasing data.
Again, that is simply not how the law works. Some years ago, elected Washington state legislators and the governor decided the law should make these tradeoffs between transparency and privacy. And until subsequent legislators get together and decide otherwise, that is the law of the land. Washington government agencies do not have discretion to reject requests based on requester identity or motivation, period, nor can they make up their own reasons for exemptions.
The "middle ground" has already been decided -- that's ostensibly how the law got written and signed in the first place. Your line of argument would allow literally any government employee to make arbitrary rejections -- the law was codified to prevent exactly that situation.
Your concerns are no different than concerns raised about freedom of speech and the press (and of course, the right to bear arms, but let's not follow that tangent for now) -- e.g. "I'm all for people being able to express themselves, but what if those people say incredibly hurtful and damaging things?". The legislature can pass laws that limit those rights (e.g. defamation laws), and courts interpret whether those laws follow the Constitution, but it is not up to the executive branch (i.e. government agencies) to ignore the law because they disagree with it.
No, but they should decide based on the data requested. And in this case the data requested is none of the requesters business since it involves the privacy of other citizens.
Which definitely could be in contravention of other laws and in cases like that judges usually get to decide which weighs heavier. If I were a civil servant faced with a request that releases information that I felt would infringe on some other law I would definitely not decide to be the one to make the call and release it without a sign-off.
I agree with this -- of course a request can be rejected if it requests something that is explicitly exempted in the law. The metadata of emails to public agencies is currently not exempt from Washington state law.
> And in this case the data requested is none of the requesters business since it involves the privacy of other citizens.
OK, but that is not your or the state government's decision to make. The law does not allow for the government to make a unilateral judgment on whether something is "none of the requesters business" -- isn't it patently obvious how this could be abused?
> If I were a civil servant faced with a request that releases information that I felt would infringe on some other law I would definitely not decide to be the one to make the call and release it without a sign-off.
Sure, if you don't know the law exactly (most employees don't), then you consult your agency's FOI officer, who would then tell you whether the request is valid. If it is valid, and you decide to reject it anyway, you'd probably be fired (I don't think most state FOI laws provide criminal penalties for violating FOI).
I'm not a Washington historian, but I'm assuming the FOI law was passed because legislators had actual scenarios and use-cases in mind. For example, being able to request the emails sent and received by a government employee is useful if you want to know who contacted that employee about an issue, such as a regulatory enforcement action. Maybe there are clear-cut cases where a received email is obviously not work or issue-related, such as emails from that employee's mom. But what if the mom is herself a lobbyist or other influential official? Or how about an email from a guy talking about going golfing and getting a few beers? Is that just personal? What if the guy emails every week about going golfing on his dime, and the guy happens to be a businessperson waiting for regulatory approval on some project?
Apparently, the myriad of ways for unwanted behavior to be expressed via email are so plentiful that legislators decided to err on the side of transparency, because it would be too easy for officials to shut down requests and deny transparency all but to those with the means to sue (usually, corporations and journalists). It is not up to a civil servant to decide otherwise; likewise, the law protects the civil servant from liability for following a lawful request.
> So, if you are not sure - and they are also not sure - then they could ask for a ruling before releasing. Err on the side of caution is good practice when it comes to releasing data.
Again, that is simply not how the law works. Some years ago, elected Washington state legislators and the governor decided the law should make these tradeoffs between transparency and privacy. And until subsequent legislators get together and decide otherwise, that is the law of the land. Washington government agencies do not have discretion to reject requests based on requester identity or motivation, period, nor can they make up their own reasons for exemptions.
The "middle ground" has already been decided -- that's ostensibly how the law got written and signed in the first place. Your line of argument would allow literally any government employee to make arbitrary rejections -- the law was codified to prevent exactly that situation.
Your concerns are no different than concerns raised about freedom of speech and the press (and of course, the right to bear arms, but let's not follow that tangent for now) -- e.g. "I'm all for people being able to express themselves, but what if those people say incredibly hurtful and damaging things?". The legislature can pass laws that limit those rights (e.g. defamation laws), and courts interpret whether those laws follow the Constitution, but it is not up to the executive branch (i.e. government agencies) to ignore the law because they disagree with it.