The intrepid reporter Nate Raymond, who covers New York City federal courts for Reuters, recently decided that, as a pet project, he would use the Freedom of Information Act to try to obtain booking photos of criminal defendants in his bailiwick. It has been a Kafkaesque journey.
Since 2012, the official position of the Justice Department and the U.S. Marshals Service is that “the weight of legal precedent” prohibits disclosing mug shots of accused federal criminals….
via Why is DOJ fighting to keep mug shots out of reporters’ hands? — On the Case