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c0lo [soylentnews.org] writes:

Journalists and transparency advocates who have long complained [salon.com] about the NYPD's culture of secrecy. In an attempt to go for the source, MuckRock journalist Shawn Musgrave filed a records request under New York's Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) for the police department's FOIL handbook, the guide officers use to apply public record law.

What happened defies common sense: Musgrave has been told [muckrock.com] the NYPD Freedom of Information handbook is not covered by FOIL, arguing it is protected under attorney-client privilege.
NYPD's roughly 34,500 officers serve a population of 8.2 million people. Question is: when a legal advice becomes public policy, does the attorney-client privilege still apply?

Other background info: during his tenure as the NYC public advocate, Bill de Blasio [wikipedia.org] reported [nyc.gov] (summary) on the transparency of NYC public services [nyc.gov] (full report;PDF): the NYPD received an F, with nearly a third of Freedom of Information requests going unanswered.

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