‘No Video For You’: N.J. Supreme Court Rules Against Citizen Watchdog

ESSEX COUNTY, NJ — The New Jersey Supreme Court has ruled that Bloomfield municipal officials do not have to release security camera footage taken outside Town Hall, a decision that may set the tone for future citizen information requests in the Garden State.

The court’s Nov. 22 decision comes as a blow to watchdog Patricia Gilleran, who had demanded that town officials release five days of camera footage taken outside the municipally run building, later narrowing down her request to a single 24-hour period.

See the full court decision here.

Gilleran had alleged that the recordings would reveal “high-level” Democratic officials and other politicians visiting the Municipal Building on a regular basis and having an influence upon the town administrators. She had sought the camera footage in an effort to determine “whether certain people had entered the municipal building.”

Gilleran argued that the camera was in plain sight and captured video of a public area, which makes it a government record subject to access under the Open Public Records Act (OPRA).

Municipal officials countered that the camera - which was concealed by smoked glass - provided security for the Town Hall and the adjacent Law Enforcement Building that would be thwarted by release of the security videos.

In addition, town officials argued that the videos might include footage of confidential informants, domestic violence victims, police officers and “others whose safety could be jeopardized by release of the footage.”

When the township denied her original OPRA request, Gilleran began a two-year legal battle that drew support from the ACLU of New Jersey.

However, despite earlier trial and appellate court rulings in her favor, Gilleran’s effort ran into a roadblock last week when the state supreme court decided that releasing a day’s worth of video from outside the town hall in Bloomfield “would undermine the security purpose of the camera.”

“The wholesale release of videotape footage from a surveillance camera, which is part of a government facility’s security system protecting its property, workers, and visitors, would reveal information about the system’s operation and also its vulnerabilities, jeopardizing public safety,” Associate Justice Jaynee LaVecchia wrote as part of the Nov. 22 ruling.

File Photo: Flickr Commons

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