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>
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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>
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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>
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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>
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