Public records on a house/Freedom of Information Act question (law, assessment)

[totallyfrazzled]

I know that anyone can get a copy of any public record about a house (assessment data, building dept records, name of owner, etc) by just going to the Town and filling out a form and paying a small fee.

Does this also mean that the owner of a house can find out who has requested the records on their house? In other words if we want to know if anyone has gotten a copy of any of our house's records by filling out the Freedom of Information request, would the Town give us copies of those requests, or tell us verbally who the requesters were, if we asked them?

[mrradio]

Regarding property records, things were a lot more readily accessible before FOIL requests became the norm. The purpose of it regarding previously already-accessible records is to keep an eye on who is asking about what and for governmental agencies to cover their... Yes, a property owner can find out who's been making inquiries, FOIL in reverse. Years ago I would walk in and look at records-no more. So much for "freedom". It is important to note that previously, unlike now, I paid no fee, I just went and looked or an employee brought me the document(s).

To be fair, many previously unavailable records are now available or, in the worst case, you must be given a reason for denial and you may appeal an adverse decision. Still, in many ways it isn't as open as it used to be.

Whenever lawmakers incorporate terms like "freedom", "fair", "equal", etc. in a new law's title, you can be assured that in reality the law will not provide the stated benefit. Terms such as these are used to make it harder for opponents of the law to vote against it or, alternately, to hide the real intent of the law which is, in the case of FOIL, to learn who is poking into governmental files.