The American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada has sued the Metropolitan Police Department over what it called excessive fees on public records requests.
The lawsuit was filed by the ACLU along with two news organizations and a local law firm last week in Clark County District Court. The legal action alleges that Metro violated the Nevada Public Records Act by purposefully overcharging for access to public records.
“Government agencies throughout the state are charging these types of unlawful fees for public records, and the costs are becoming more and more prohibitive,” ACLU of Nevada attorney Samantha Kroner told The Center Square. “For that reason (we have) really serious concerns about government transparency, as well as the ability of the public to hold the government accountable – which is precisely what the Nevada Public Records Act is designed to promote.”
The Nevada Public Records Act was designed to give the public quick access to government records within the law to “foster democratic principles,” according to the document.
The state law says government agencies can charge for public records requests but adds, “Such a fee must not exceed the actual cost to the governmental entity to provide the copy of the public record unless a specific statute or regulation sets a fee that the governmental entity must charge for the copy.”
Under the public records act, Nevada government agencies cannot charge more than the minimal fee for obtaining public records.
“We’re fortunate in Nevada that, at least on paper, there is one of the strongest public records acts in the country,” ACLU Legal Director Christopher Peterson told The Center Square. “The goal though is to make sure that’s not just ink on a page.”
The case comes in response to several public records requests by the ACLU, The Marshall Project, The Nevada Independent and Edgar Flores Law. The requests resulted in multiple different prices per minute for body-camera footage, despite Metro having a standard $87 hourly price listed for body-camera footage.
Metro did not respond to questions from The Center Square for this story.
The lawsuit also alleges that the department charged the organizations for costs, such as labor, that would have been incurred outside of the public records requests, in violation of the Nevada Public Records Act.
According to the ACLU, the high costs of public records requests is a purposeful violation of public records law, which it argues keeps public information out of reach for regular citizens. Metro asked for more than $6,800 for June 2025 ACLU public records request for body-camera footage, according to the lawsuit.
“The NPRA applies to the public, not just the members of the public that can afford to pay thousands of dollars for these requests,” Kroner said. “They are not able to hold the government accountable if they can’t access the records, and these fees are so high that they are barring people from that access.”
The ACLU told The Center Square that a court hearing for the case against Metro was scheduled for Aug. 20 but that no other dates in the lawsuit had been announced.
The organization said its lawsuit is about government accountability more than any price.
“The public records act specifically is a way to avoid this problem – that we don’t have to accept the government’s word for what happened here,” Peterson said. “We can see for ourselves what’s going on here. And this litigation is not only about reducing costs. It’s overall about reducing barriers and addressing those sorts of problems.”
