The Blackburn Campaign Tries To Root Out A Snitch

By Kleinheider Posted on June 11, 2008 at 8:38 am

A Marsha Blackburn campaign volunteer, who requested “volumnious” public documents and emails regarding Congressman Blackburn’s primary opponent Shelby County Register Tom Leatherwood, wants to know how a newspaper got wind of his request.

It would seem the volunteer did not appreciate the violation of privacy. Open record requests, of course, are just as open as the record being sought:

In April, a volunteer for Republican Rep. Marsha Blackburn’s campaign asked for thousands of pages of documents about Republican primary challenger and Shelby County Register Tom Leatherwood, including all county e-mails since 2001.

After The Commercial Appeal wrote about the request, the campaign volunteer, Tyler E. Jones, asked the county for the name and job title of the person who received the request and provided the information to The CA.

Jones said he was interested in finding out how the newspaper “learned about my open-records request.”

In a response dated May 28, Asst. County Atty. Craig E. Willis informed Jones that all record requests are also public records. He went on to say that Jones’ followup letter did not meet the criteria for a records request under Tennessee code.

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Tags: Marsha Blackburn, open records, The Commericial Appeal, Tom Leatherwood