Boston_City_Hall_lit_in_Somalian_Flag_after_2017_Mogadishu_bombings.jpg (800 × 533 pixels, file size: 106 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg )
A Guide to the Massachusetts Public Records Law, Published by William Francis Galvin, Secretary of the Commonwealth Division of Public Records, (Updated January 2017) can be found at https://www.mass.gov/files/2017-06/Public%20Records%20Law.pdf and page 7 says:
"With the exception of situations in which a records custodian is withholding records pursuant to Exemption (n), inquiries into a requester's status or motivation for seeking information are expressly prohibited. [1] Consequently, all requests for public records, even if made for a commercial purpose or to assist the requester in a lawsuit against the holder of the records, must be honored in accordance with the Public Records Law."
Public records are defined in A Guide to the Massachusetts Public Records Law, Published by William Francis Galvin, Secretary of the Commonwealth Division of Public Records, (Updated January 2017) at https://www.mass.gov/files/2017-06/Public%20Records%20Law.pdf on page 40, under M. G. L. c. 4, § 7(26) as:
all books, papers, maps, photographs, recorded tapes, financial statements, statistical tabulations, or other documentary materials or data, regardless of physical form or characteristics , made or received by any officer or employee of any agency, executive office, department, board, commission, bureau, division or authority of the commonwealth, or of any political subdivision thereof, or of any authority established by the general court to serve a public purpose, or any person, corporation, association, partnership or other legal entity which receives or expends public funds for the payment or administration of pensions for any current or former employees of the commonwealth or any political subdivision as defined in section 1 of chapter 32, unless such materials or data fall within the following exemptions found on page 40
{{ PD-EdictGov }}
{{ PD-US-Codes-and-Standards-as-Statutory-Law }}
This is consistent with the statement at http://www.sec.state.ma.us/ARC/arcres/residx.htm :
Note: Works that are considered "public records" but were not created by a state or municipal government agency may be copyrighted by their author; the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution prevents state law from overriding the author's right to copyright protection that is granted by federal law. For example, a state agency may post images online of the final appearance of a building under construction; while the images may be "public records", their creator (eg. architecture/construction firm) retains copyright rights to the image unless the contract with the agency says otherwise. See: Government-in-the-Sunshine Manual: To what extent does federal law preempt state law regarding public inspection of records? . Disclaimer: The information provided, especially the list of agencies permitted to claim copyright, may not be complete. Wikimedia Commons makes no guarantee of the adequacy or validity of this information in this template (see disclaimer ).
Click on a date/time to view the file as it appeared at that time.
You cannot overwrite this file.
There are no pages that use this file.