Union County Sheriff Howard Wells said not knowing who was asking unnerved his staff. Wells said another law enforcement department went so far as to track down where reporter from the Herald-Journal in Spartanburg worked by tracing her license plate. Law officers should know to whom they are giving records to protect crime victims or their families from being harmed, Moore said. It's also likely to cost you more than a journalist to see what your tax dollars already have paid for, though the law says the fees must be the same for everyone. And it says costs must be reasonable, primarily based on copying and searching costs, and it encourages no charge at all for matters of public interest.
Journalists get it for a quarter.
The rates were set by the county council.