Remember former CitPat education reporter Chad Livengood? You know, the one who was beloved by 5th and 6th grade students all across the state, when a story he wrote inadvertently gave them the opportunity to take the super-fun MEAP test again?

Well he is at it again, this time at his new job in Missouri, covering state politics.

He has been busy lately breaking a story involving a cover-up in the Nixon administration, and his efforts to uncover the truth have left him branded as a terrorist.Last month, Chad's newspaper reported that the state kept secret for four weeks a report showing there were high levels of E. coli in Lake of the Ozarks in the heart of tourist season.

The internal e-mails he obtained show former DNR Deputy Director sought the report on June 3 to take a meeting in the governor's office the next day.

Gov. Jay Nixon, a Democrat, and his office have denied any such meeting took place, saying the deputy came to talk about other topics.

The DNR quietly released the report to the public on June 26, and Nixon's spokesman said the governor didn't learn about the report until seeing news reports about it in mid-July.

So Chad sent a FOIA request to view the footage from the surveillance camera aimed at the door to Nixon's office.

But the Missouri Capitol Police denied his FOIA request, and cited a post-Sept. 11, 2001, terrorism exemption in the state's open records law for doing so.

Chad spoke with a number of state legislators who crafted the law seven years ago and they seemed perplexed the administration is using it to keep him from seeing the tape.

They said the intent of the law was to keep evil-doers from reading through the state's terrorism response plans at public buildings or a local nuclear power plant.



"They're calling you a terrorist?" one state Senator said. "This is insane."

And even though Chad is a terrorist, the state attorney general is on his side.

The newspaper has appealed the FOIA denial, but the appeal goes before a member of the governor's cabinet. Yeah, we all know how that's going to turn out.

Transparency and Democracy loses again.