Our Principles
Preamble
Information empowers and energizes a democracy. The free flow of information serves to keep the process of government honest and robust. To ensure and maintain that integrity and vitality, the public’s need to know must be recognized and the individual’s right to know must be held paramount.
Actions of the government at any level which limit or prevent access to information must serve a clear and compelling public purpose. Even then, those actions should be the exception, and must be limited in scope.
Within that broad conceptual framework, these are open government principles that guide us:
In General
The definition of government information should be as broad as possible and include information regardless of the form in which it was created or obtained.
The definition of those entities subject to open government laws should include both individuals and agencies, and anyone acting on behalf of a government agency.
Information that relates to the performance of a public function, the qualifications of public servants to properly perform their public duties, and the expenditure of public funds, should be exempted from the public record only if a two-thirds majority of the respective Legislature or of the Congress finds as a matter of fact that there is an overriding public necessity to do so.
Bills creating new exceptions to open government laws should contain only the specific exception and should relate to only one subject. Notice that the proposed law will create an open government exception should be prominently stated in the title of the bill. An impact assessment should accompany the legislation at introduction.
In granting an exemption, the Congress or the Legislature must find that there is a compelling public necessity for closure, and that the public necessity is of sufficient magnitude to override the people’s need to know, their right of access and the public policy primacy of openness in a democratic society. Any exemption granted should be no broader than necessary to meet that stated, compelling need for closure.
No exemption should continue beyond the time required to meet the stated need. Lawmakers should recognize that the immediacy and specificity of an exemption request often creates a false sense of weight, an illusion that often fades with time. Exemptions should be for fixed, and brief, periods of time, after which they should expire. Upon expiration, they may be reconsidered, and reenacted if lawmakers believe there is still an overriding public necessity.
The minimum standard for an exemption based on either personal safety or national security should be that the release of the information would pose both an “immediate” and a “significant” risk to an individual or group of individuals or to the nation as a whole.
The minimum standard for a personal privacy exemption should be that the information shielded from public view is of an intensely personal and sensitive nature, that its release would be unreasonably intrusive, and that the information is not otherwise in the public domain.
The minimum standard for a proprietary interest exemption should be that the information is not otherwise in the public domain, is of a sensitive business nature, could not otherwise be legally obtained, and that the release would create a clearly unfair advantage to a competitive enterprise.
The private outsourcing of governmental responsibilities must not be a basis for denial of public access to meetings or records that would otherwise be public.
There should be a method by which any person can make an expedited challenge for administrative review or to a court, or both, to appeal the closure of a record or of a meeting. A person should be allowed to recover legal expenses if court action is required to obtain a public record or open a meeting.
No agency should require the name or address of a person seeking a public record, or attending a public meeting. Nor should any agency be permitted to select the members of the public who will attend a meeting.
Records
Records created or received by any agency of government, or by an entity acting on its behalf, are presumed to be public. Every person has an inherent right to inspect and copy any record that is not specifically exempted by the Congress or by the appropriate state legislature.
Government should collect no data that it considers exempt without first showing that there is a compelling governmental need for the information, a need sufficient to override personal privacy rights or the safety, proprietary or other interests involved.
No information should be exempted from public inspection if the information being shielded is otherwise in the public domain.
An exemption shields specific information, not the document. Portions of a document that do not contain sensitive information should continue to be part of the public record. Documents should not be withheld from the public because redaction of the shielded information is inconvenient or expensive.
Wherever possible, agencies should create documents in a manner that facilitates redaction of potentially exempt information. Redaction should be limited to those instances where absolutely necessary to protect against a particularized, actual harm that would ensue from the release of information.
Public records are presumed to be available for inspection and copying, regardless of form, during normal business hours and without unreasonable delay.
Records should be provided in a timely fashion. Delay in making records available for inspection and copying often constitutes denial.
Agencies and departments should strive to make entire categories of records available without the need for a formal FOI request. Formal requests should be required only when release of the information is discretionary and a prior review by the records custodian is necessary to ensure that exempt information is not disclosed. Agencies should seek ways to fast track most records requests.
The copying of public records must be affordable for the average citizen. High cost is a form of denial. Citizens should never be charged more than the actual cost of reproduction, in whatever form. Overhead, production and administration charges must not be factored in.
Where there is a charge for electronic access, it should not exceed the actual cost of making the record available. This does not include labor and overhead.
Technology should be used to enhance public access, not to limit it. All records/information not exempt or subject to discretionary review should be immediately available electronically. Agencies should create online reading rooms, where all records that are not exempt or subject to discretionary review are immediately available.
Records should be made available in the form requested if the agency has the capability to provide them in that form. If records are maintained only in an electronic database, adequate means to view and copy such records should be made available without cost for members of the public.
No record that is not readily available at reasonable cost to an individual member of the general public should be sold to a commercial information source.
Public officials should be prohibited from discarding or destroying public records, regardless of the medium, except in accordance with procedures established by law, and never while a request for such a record is pending.
Information, once it is public and posted, should remain public and posted, or remain accessible electronically if archived. Prior to removal of publicly posted information, the government agency in possession of that information should provide notice of its impending action and the opportunity for public comment.
The office e-mail of a public official is a public record.
Meetings
Discussion leading to decision-making is as critical a part of the governance process as the final decision and should be open to the public. Any meetings held by any agency at any level of government to discuss or decide public policy is presumed to be public unless exempted by the respective state legislature or the Congress upon a finding of overriding public necessity and after a vote of a two-thirds majority.
A meeting is a gathering of more than two members of a policy-making board or entity, unless two represents a quorum.
Any meeting or portion of a meeting closed under statutory exemption should be recorded in its entirety, with no portion off the record. The recording or transcript should be retained and available for review when the stated-need for secrecy has passed, or if the closure is legally challenged.
A closed meeting of a public agency should be book-ended by a public meeting.
