For once, South Carolina's looking better than its peers when it comes to freedom of information laws. Poised to hit the U.S. Supreme Court next month is a Virginia FOIA case. Virginia, along with a few other states, is saying that its public access laws apply only to in-state citizens. In other words, if you'd like information from the Virginia government, you'd better be living in Virginia.
The counter-argument: Article IV of the U.S. Constitution, which provides: "The citizens of each state shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states."
It'll be interesting to see which way this one goes. In the meantime, it's nice that SC has no such limitation on its law, though it could certainly use some stiffening up. If this case goes Virginia's way, however, I predict that may soon change.
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