On Tuesday, June 3,2025, the “Sunlight Report,” a self-described independent civic watchdog, requested notice of public meetings under Wis. Stat. § 19.84(1)(b) for governmental bodies across the state of Wisconsin, including school boards, villages, towns, and other municipalities.
Yesterday, we learned that the League of Wisconsin Municipalities notified its members that the Sunlight Report recently sent additional communications to local governmental bodies that included attachments or links, which may contain a computer virus that could be extremely damaging to an organization’s technology infrastructure. To be clear, we do not have any specific evidence that these communications contain any harmful content, nor does the League’s communication suggest that is the case.
However, local governments maintain vast amounts of confidential information that may be threatened by phishing attacks, viruses, or other cybersecurity risks. This situation provides an opportunity to remind our clients to avoid opening attachments or accessing links from unsolicited communications from unknown organizations. Therefore, we recommend clients receiving requests from any requestor that contains attachments or links take the following actions to protect against data breaches:
- DO NOT click hyperlinks or open attachments contained in correspondence from unknown sources.
- Remind local public officials and employees within your organization to avoid accessing unknown attachments and/or links in any correspondence they receive. (Given the warning from the League of Wisconsin Municipalities, you may want to send out a special reminder about the Sunlight Report.)
- Coordinate with your IT professionals to monitor cybersecurity protocols and to develop procedures for proper screening of such communications.
- Consider implementing a practice of responding to requests submitted as attachments or links advising the requestor that they will need to incorporate their request into the body of the email communication as we do not open attachments of unknown content.
It is important to note that a local government’s obligations to fulfill public records requests and/or requests for open meetings law notices do not change in light of these circumstances.
If you have questions regarding requests submitted by the Sunlight Report or any other organization, please feel free to contact a Renning, Lewis & Lacy, s.c. attorney.
