The Salt Lake Tribune won a GRAMA case against the Public Service Commission this week over release of customer names, addresses and phone numbers in complaints filed against utilities.

The state Records Committee on July 10 voted 4-1 to order the release of the information -- in this case contained in complaints filed against Questar.

An attorney for the PSC argued that because GRAMA makes the home phone numbers and addresses of state employees, former state employees and applicants for state jobs private -- as well as addresses and numbers of people required by law to provide the information to government -- the classification applied to all home numbers and addresses contained in government documents.

He lost that argument, although he declined to speculate after the hearing whether the PSC would appeal to district court.

The attorney kept hammering the point before the Records Committee that any time GRAMA referred to home addresses and home phone numbers it did so by way of declaring that information non-public. But that argument is flawed, going against the old saying that the "exception proves the rule."

The attorney overlooked or ignored one of the key provisions of GRAMA -- 63-2-201(2) -- that states "all records are public unless otherwise expressly provided by statute."

It's a good cite to remember.

The PSC attorney also brought up the recent Supreme Court ruling see my earlier post here to bolster his argument that names could be withheld to protect privacy. But he missed the main point of the ruling, which is great for open-records advocates. That is that the "private" designation applies to information that, if released, would result in a "clearly unwarranted invasion of privacy." Often there are legitimate reasons for requesting release of records that may violate privacy, rendering it a "warranted" invasion and therefore public under GRAMA.


-- dh