Summary
Ohio Governor Mike DeWine signed a bill allowing law enforcement agencies to charge up to $750 per video for public records requests involving police body cams, dash cams, or jail surveillance.
Critics, including the NAACP and ACLU, argued the fees could discourage public access to critical footage, such as videos of police encounters.
The fee is optional and capped to reflect production costs, but must be paid upfront.
DeWine defended the bill but expressed openness to revising the law if unintended consequences arise. Previously, public record fees were limited to nominal copying costs.
Seems that charging fees like that will make it profitable to hire video editors to provide a “top notch highlighted edits reel” for every FOI reasons, what could possibly go wrong?