Senate Bill No. 97

(By Senator Burdette, Mr. President)

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[Introduced January 24, 1994; referred to the Committee
on the Judiciary.]

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A BILL to amend and reenact section four, article one, chapter twenty-nine-b of the code of West Virginia, one thousand nine hundred thirty-one, as amended, relating to exempting from the freedom of information law information contained on the legislative computer system; and allowing such information to be accessed upon the payment of a user fee.

Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That section four, article one, chapter twenty-nine-b of the code of West Virginia, one thousand nine hundred thirty-one, as amended, be amended and reenacted to read as follows:
ARTICLE 1. PUBLIC RECORDS.

ยง29B-1-4. Exemptions.

The following categories of information are specifically exempt from disclosure under the provisions of this article:
(1) Trade secrets, as used in this section, which may include, but are not limited to, any formula, plan pattern, process, tool, mechanism, compound, procedure, production data,or compilation of information which is not patented which is known only to certain individuals within a commercial concern who are using it to fabricate, produce or compound an article or trade or a service or to locate minerals or other substances, having commercial value, and which gives its users an opportunity to obtain business advantage over competitors;
(2) Information of a personal nature such as that kept in a personal, medical or similar file, if the public disclosure thereof would constitute an unreasonable invasion of privacy, unless the public interest by clear and convincing evidence requires disclosure in the particular instance: Provided, That nothing in this article shall be construed as precluding an individual from inspecting or copying his own personal, medical or similar file;
(3) Test questions, scoring keys and other examination data used to administer a licensing examination, examination for employment or academic examination;
(4) Records of law-enforcement agencies that deal with the detection and investigation of crime and the internal records and notations of such law-enforcement agencies which are maintained for internal use in matters relating to law enforcement;
(5) Information specifically exempted from disclosure by statute;
(6) Records, archives, documents or manuscripts describing the location of undeveloped historic, prehistoric, archaeological, paleontological and battlefield sites orconstituting gifts to any public body upon which the donor has attached restrictions on usage or the handling of which could irreparably damage such record, archive, document or manuscript;
(7) Information contained in or related to examination, operating or condition reports prepared by, or on behalf of, or for the use of any agency responsible for the regulation or supervision of financial institutions, except those reports which are by law required to be published in newspapers;
(8) Internal memoranda or letters received or prepared by any public body; and
(9) Information contained on the Legislature's computer system except that the Legislature may allow access to this information upon the payment of user fees as approved by the joint committee on government and finance.

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NOTE: The purpose of this bill is to exempt from the freedom of information law the information contained on the legislative computer system. The bill allows the Legislature to grant access to this information to persons who pay user fees.