Plaintiff sued Defendant seeking disclosure under Illinois FOIA of surveillance video of a subway platform that showed one customer pushing another off the platform and onto the tracks at the Washington Blue Line subway station in August 2017. Most of the incident was caught on 3 of the surveillance cameras installed at that station's rail platform. The surveillance footage was used to identify the assailant who was, 2 months later, charged with attempted murder. Exemption 7(1)(v) of Illinois FOIA requires a government agency to show that release of a document could reasonably be expected to jeopardize the effectiveness of its security measures, and the CTA met that burden. CTA's homeland security expert cited examples of terrorist attacks on mass transit systems which resulted in casualties within the community attacked, and he averred that the videos revealed information about the CTA's surveillance cameras which could enable persons to evade these security devices when planning attacks. Plain language of section 7(1)(v) refers to "potential attacks", not actual attacks. Court order requiring disclosure of surveillance video footage is vacated. (MARTIN, concurring; GORDON, concurring in part and dissenting in part.)
Illinois Appellate Court
Civil Court
FOIA