City of Champaign v. Madigan is a 2013 case decided by the Appellate Court of the US state of Illinois, ruling that messages sent and received by elected officials during a city council meeting and pertaining to public business are public records subject to disclosure, even when stored on personal electronic devices. It was the first court ruling in Illinois to hold that private messages were subject to disclosure under the state's Freedom of Information Act. The case addressed a public records request from a reporter for The News-Gazette in Champaign, Illinois, who observed city council members and the mayor using their personal electronic devices to send messages during a city council meeting. City officials denied the reporter's request; the case eventually reached the Appellate Court, which held that public officials have to disclose their records, even if they are stored on a personal electronic device or account, but only when acting as a public body, such as during a council meeting.

Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_Champaign_v._Madigan

_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:

1714:

Johann Sebastian Bach directed the first performance of his Pentecost cantata Erschallet, ihr Lieder at the chapel of Schloss Weimar (pictured). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erschallet,_ihr_Lieder,_erklinget,_ihr_Saiten!_BWV_172

1927:

With the signing of the Treaty of Jeddah, the United Kingdom recognized the sovereignty of Ibn Saud over Hejaz and Nejd, which later merged to become Saudi Arabia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_Saud

1941:

World War II: German paratroopers began the Battle of Heraklion on the island of Crete, capturing the airfield and port in Heraklion ten days later. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Heraklion

1983:

uMkhonto we Sizwe, the paramilitary wing of the African National Congress, detonated a car bomb in Pretoria, resulting in 19 deaths and 217 injuries. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Street,_Pretoria_bombing

_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:

melliferous: 1. (botany) Of a plant or its parts: bearing any substance (such as nectar or pollen) which is collected by bees to produce honey. 2. (by extension) Producing honey. 3. (figurative) Honeyed, sweet. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/melliferous

___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:

The dictum that truth always triumphs over persecution, is one of those pleasant falsehoods which men repeat after one another till they pass into commonplaces, but which all experience refutes. History teems with instances of truth put down by persecution. If not suppressed for ever, it may be thrown back for centuries. … Men are not more zealous for truth than they often are for error, and a sufficient application of legal or even of social penalties will generally succeed in stopping the propagation of either. The real advantage which truth has, consists in this, that when an opinion is true, it may be extinguished once, twice, or many times, but in the course of ages there will generally be found persons to rediscover it, until some one of its reappearances falls on a time when from favourable circumstances it escapes persecution until it has made such head as to withstand all subsequent attempts to suppress it.   --John Stuart Mill https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Stuart_Mill