FOIA at 40: The Struggle for Transparency Continues

The federal Freedom of Information Act, establishing the public’s right of access to government records, turns 40 in mid-2006. It grew out of a years-long media-campaign to build transparency into the government process at every level. Regularly, we come across editorials and commentary citing the importance of the federal act in helping citizens deal with government, in ensuring accountability and oversight of individuals and agencies, and in providing critical data to the media in telling those stories. There are equally as many on the need for reform. Here are some that caught our eye:

• New Order Doesn't Change Administration Philosophy on FOIA
• Executive Order a Small Step on Long FOIA Path
• Executive Order Must Not Slow FOIA Reform Efforts
• Keep a Light Shining on Government
• Secrecy's a Godsend for Bureaucrats
• In Praise of Open Government Legislation
• The Attack on Open Government Continues

States Claiming a Trickle Down Right -- Withholding of Public Records

Perhaps it’s the trickle down effect. Or maybe it’s a shared bureaucratic sense that agency records are just that and not meant for public consumption. Whatever, state and local governments often withhold information in a manner not inconsistent with the method and manner of their federal counterparts. Here are samples of the editorial comment that results:

• Illinois: A Victory for Reason, and Lack Thereof
• Maine: When Public Officials Forget the Obvious
• South Dakota: Shielding Names of Those Who Shot the Birds
• Alabama: Police Are Singing the Wrong Song

Cloaking Counter-Bioterrorism Research in Secrecy

A Senate Bill, 1873, proposes to create a new federal agency to expedite research into vaccines and other means to block bioterrorism threats. It would create a new Bioterrorism Advanced Research and Development Agency to contract with the pharmaceutical industry and academic researchers and grant them liability waivers as an incentive to move boldly and quickly. And the bill would allow the agency to operate in total secrecy, excluding it from federal open records and open meetings laws. Here are samples of editorial comment:

• Seattle Times: Breeding Ground for Distrust
• Kalamazoo: Find a Cure for Mantle of Secrecy
• Galveston: A Dangerous Precedent
• Roanoke: Develop Vaccine Against Secrecy
• Baton Rouge: Stop Secrecy Epidemic
• Albany: Wrong on All Counts

Keep the Deliberative Process Open, Paper Urges

Advocacy groups in Vermont say Gov. Jim Douglas is increasingly closing his administration and keeping documents confidential by claiming “deliberative process privilege.” But the Burlington Free Press argues in an editorial, the deliberative process is precisely what citizens of the state need to know about to make their own decisions on how well the state is being run. If the agencies “are working in the public interest, why should their deliberations be held behind closed doors?” the paper asked. (11/28/05)

Health Department Misuses HIPAA to Hide Its Actions

Cincinnati’s Health Department is citing HIPAA in refusing a Cincinnati Enquirer request for copies citations to 343 property owners for failure to eliminate sources of led poisoning. The paper notes in an editorial that none of the citations contain medical records. It accuses the agency of twisting the law’s medical privacy provisions to hide its actions and make it impossible “to determine if the Health Department is efficiently inspecting buildings for lead contamination.” (10/12/05).

A Little Transparency with the Pork, Please

The Bloomington Pantagraph suggests the Senate is on the right track with its vote to require that the pork in appropriations bills be more clearly identified, along with the congressperson who put in the funding request. Making sure these so-called “earmarked” expenditures can be eyeballed by citizens is a step toward accountability, the paper said, and not just at the federal level. The editorial suggested the Illinois legislature adopt a similar measure. (9/30/05)

Old Chestnut Keeps White House Secrecy Growing

The Baltimore Sun, commenting on the Bush administration’s refusal to provide all the documents Congress sought on chief justice nominee John Roberts, argues that their “chilling effect” on candid advice argument “is the same old chestnut it frequently trots out to justify what has been the greatest expansion of government secrecy ever.” (9/14/05)

Complying With Open Records Request Wins Newspaper's Endorsement

The Atlanta Journal Constitution endorsed a state legislative candidate in nearby Gwinnett County because, among other things, he had taken 40 hours to meet an opponent’s Open Records Act request for his records, even though the request may have been a harassment tactic. “Elected officials at all levels have shown an alarming new penchant for government secrecy,” the editorial endorsement said. (The candidate) has proved that he understands open government is the first prerequisite of good government.” (8/31/05)

Delaware AG’s Autopsy Records Opinion Is Whimsical, News Journal Says

While noting that autopsy reports in Delaware are public record, the state’s attorney general says that state officials are not required to make them public. The opinion comes in a case involving a woman whose husband was found dead in his car in a parking garage. She has sued to block release of the autopsy information. The Wilmington News Journal suggests the AG’s is acting on whim, not law, and suggests her opinion should be challenged in court. (9/14/05)

Hey, We’re Not Talking About a Ball Crawl in the Mall

There’s plenty sinister about the secret negotiation sessions that Virginia’s Information Technology Agency’s with potential vendors for the state’s IT business, the Staunton News Leader writes. The issue, the paper said, is who gets to build and in the process have access to sensitive information on residents and businesses in the state. “Do we want a handful of people deciding that in secret?” (8/29/05)

Meat Inspection Data Goes Bad Waiting to Be Released

When the Department of Agriculture turned over records of 829 instances of non-compliance by meat packing plants to the advocacy group, Public Citizen, one official noted that inspectors had caught all of the violations before any meat left the plant. Would that the department had been as Johnny-on-the-spot in releasing the information, the Lincoln Journal commented. Instead, it took eight months to get the data. “This secretive behavior does the beef industry and consumers no good. ... the government ought to be working to make its inspection system so trustworthy that it can be opened to public view.” (8/29/05)

Administration’s Penchant for Secrecy Goes Over the Top

The administration’s penchant for secrecy has gone beyond reason with its decisions to withhold documents on antiterrorism programs and the work papers of Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr. during his years in the Justice Department and U.S. Solicitor’s office, the San Francisco Chronicle says. The claim of attorney-client privilege in the case of the Roberts papers is “ludicrous,” the paper said. (8/9/05)

Everett Herald: Traveling AG Should Take Next Step, Push New Law

The Everett, Washington Herald used the state Attorney General’s road show touting the new Public Disclosure Act to plug for a still stronger open records law and to urge readers to let him hear about it. While the act does some important loophole closing to make it easier for citizens to get records, it left in place an exemption for attorney-client privilege that allows important oversight information to be kept confidential. (8/29/05)

Governments Chipping Away at Right to Know

The Freeport Journal said recent incidents in northwest Illinois should remind readers about what’s at stake when public officials take away, “even in small increments,” basic freedoms,. One of those freedoms, the right of access to government information, is “being challenged at every turn by governments - national, state and local - who find secrecy much more convenient, and politically expedient, than openness.” (8/29/05)

White House Ignoring Precedent in Withholding Roberts Papers

The Minneapolis Star Tribune terms “outrageous” the White House effort to block senators and the public from seeing all of the memorandums developed by Supreme Court nominee John Roberts when he was working in the Justice Department and for the Solicitor General. “What we have here is an administration that has blatantly turned an act of Congress on its head, and it is ignoring both precedent and a court decision that reject its claim of "executive privilege." ( 8/12/05)

Not All of Those 15.6 Million Secrets Are Needed

Is all the federal government’s secrecy necessary? The short answer, says the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette is “no.” Citing the recently declassified 1975 intelligence report on Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet’s drinking preferences, the editorial observed that “secrecy tends to progressively reinforce itself until it reaches sublimely ridiculous levels.” (7/13/05)

Proposed Record Law Changes in New Jersey Go Too Far

A task force headed by Attorney General Peter Harvey is reviewing New Jersey relatively new public records law to see if exemptions need be made based on national security concerns. The Asbury Park Press said the list of changes is far too long and puts decades of efforts to open government at risk. “Homeland Security” should not be an excuse to seal documents whose disclosure would do no more than make some officials uncomfortable. (8/9/05)

Rare Coin Deal Prompts a Rare Claim of Executive Privilege

Adopting a sometimes presidential tactic, the governor of Ohio has wrapped his administration in “executive privilege” to protect documents sought by the Toledo Blade about the Bureau of Worker’s Compensation and questionable rare coin investments totaling $50 million. The paper called the privilege claim “bogus” and wondered what the governor is trying to hide. (8/9/05)

Secrecy Has Become Government Addiction

With the federal government creating 125 new secrets every minute, the New York Times suggested secrecy has become an addiction, and one that had made “an unnecessary casualty of the openness vital to democracy. The editorial quoted 9/11 Commission Co-Chairman Thomas Kean’s advice that “the best ally we have in protecting ourselves against terrorism is an informed public.” (7/13/05)

You Can Hear City Officials Revving, But You Can See NASCAR Records

State and local government have committed $30 million yet Atlanta officials insist that the bid to land the NASCAR Hall of Fame should remain a secret, lest some other city use the information to lure the shrine elsewhere. The Atlanta Journal Constitution calls that an “arrogant assumption” and notes that at least four other competing cities have released full details of their bids. (8/9/05)

Florida Courts Moving Slowly on E-Record Release

The Palm Beach Post, noting that a Florida Supreme Court commission had reaffirmed the need to make records available online, said the commission’s recommendation that the release of “large volumes” of court records “cannot be responsibly achieved at this time” was a sound one. The editorial suggested that the degree of openness ultimately achieved is more important that the speed with which it is achieved. (7-5-04)

Florida Records Proposal Would Take Court Information Out of Sunshine

The St. Petersburg Times suggests that a committee looking at how to handle court records in the Internet age got off on the wrong foot with the wrong name, identifying “privacy” as the issue under study rather than “public access.” And the paper said the draft report compounds the error by presenting its recommendations in a tone that “betrays an animosity toward public disclosure.” (6/10/05)

Ignorance of the Law Should Not Be Acceptable City Excuse

The Charlotte Observer, in urging passage of a law that would require local government to reimburse requester legal fees if the agencies lose suits on records access, argues that without that penalties too many officials find “it pays to be ignorant” of the law. There’s a simple remedy for those worried about lawsuits, the editorial said: “Don’t break the law.” (6/27/05)

Author (CIA, Blond Ghost) David Corn writes a celebratory column for the Nation Magazine about the National Security Archive, which just celebrated its 20th Anniversary – two decades of prying from often reluctant bureaucracies records about intelligence and defense related activities of our government. He notes the NSA has filed 32,000 FOIA and declassification requests with over 200 offices and agencies and obtained the release of 7 million pages of once-secret documents. One lawsuit preserved 40 million emails from the Reagan, Bush I and Clinton administrations. (12/20/05)

• The Archives 20 Greatest Hits

Cloaking Unclassified Information Would Block Debate

The Senate version of a defense authorization bill would grant to the Defense Intelligence Agency, the military's covert agents, a blanket exemption from the Freedom of Information Act for unclassified and declassified operational files, the Roanoke Times notes in an editorial, suggesting that the proposed proliferation of secrecy would come at the expense of informed debate on actions that would be cloaked. (12/16/05)

How Can So Many Public Officials Get It so Wrong?

That’s a question South Carrolina Attorney General Henry McMasters asked when told a public records audit showed many agencies didn’t follow the state’s Freedom of Information Act. Hmmm, the Beaufort Gazette wondered, how is it the state’s top law enforcement official is so surprised, since the law has no teeth. The editorial suggested compliance won't improve until the law is changed. (12/16/05)

Courts Are Equally Susceptible to Reflexive Secrecy

Too often, writes First Amendment Center ombudsman Paul McMasters, our courts shut out the public from proceedings and records that should be open. “The judicial system is as susceptible as the other branches of government to reflexive secrecy,” he says, citing abuses such as sealed files in divorce cases and sealed dockets in federal drug and terrorism prosecutions. His column takes a close look at an infrequently reported open government issue. (12/16/05)

In Bay State, Dog Racing in the Dark

Dog Racing officials in Massachusetts have doggedly tried to keep state records on their industry secret, Scott Van Voorhis writes in the Boston Herald. He calls it the Bay State version of the Las Vegas promotion,: “What happens at the Massachusetts State Racing Commission stays at the racing commission.” (12/16/05)

Proposed Bioterrorism Agency Its Own Kind of Scary

“Unless a ration of common sense takes hold of Congress soon,” writes Ken Bunting, “a federal agency being created to protect us from the spread of disease and the potential for biological mischief by terrorists will have accountability to almost no one.” The Seattle Post-Intelligencer associate publisher says the exclusion of the Bioterrorism Advanced Research and Development Agency from both open records and open meetings laws could prove more hazardous that the threats the agency is intended to head off. (12/13/05)

• Mark Tapscott: An Agency Without Oversight

FEMA Abuse of Exemptions Shows Need for FOIA Reform

The Heritage Foundation’s Mark Tapscott says that FEMA’s refusal to release results of a survey conducted of hurricane victim satisfaction with the agency’s services demonstrates how two FOIA exemptions are frequently abused and need to be amended. (12/5/05)

Access to Court Records Needs to Be Broadened

The Scranton, PA Times-Tribune says there’s been a collision along the Internet information highway between the public’s right to know and government efforts to control information. It calls a new policy of the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts “needlessly restrictive” because it puts the burden on the requester to demonstrate a court record is public. In doing that, the paper says, it follows the flawed state law on non-judicial records. (11/28/05)

Time to Put Teeth in Massachusetts Open Meetings Law

In Massachusetts, public officials who violate the state’s open meetings law face no penalties. And for four months, the state legislature been considering proposals to put some teeth in the law but done nothing. Eagle-Tribune Newspapers Editor in Chief Bill Ketter explores the difference between the public posturing and official action on the legislation and suggests it’s time elected officials show “greater fidelity to the people's right to know.” (11/29/05)

• The Barriers of Government Secrecy

Can the Ship of State Stay Afloat When Overloaded With Secrets

Our ship of state leaks for a very simple reason – it’s overstuffed with secrets. That’s the message of an American Press Institute commentary on the wave of leak investigations that have washed over Washington. “A ‘leak system’ is ponderous, frustrating, costly and counterintuitive for a nation that values its democratic traditions. But it is absolutely essential as long as our leaders keep secrets that don't need to be kept, and as long as they can't resist putting themselves in the best light by keeping the rest of us in the dark,” the commentary concludes. (11/19/05)

Public Not Corporate Interest Should Prevail in Records Access Issue

Dave Hudson, counsel to the Georgia Press Association, challenges state economic development officials in an op ed column in the Athens Banner-Herald. Hudson says proposals to seal public records on efforts to lure new business to the state “contain potential for great mischief. … To date, no one has been able to point to a single business project Georgia lost because state and local governments are subject to open meetings and open records law>” (11/18/05)

Using FOIA Just Gets Tougher; Who Will Step Up?

Martin E. Halstuk, who teaches communications law at Penn State, notes that it took 173 congressional hearings over 10 agonizing years to get the Freedom of Information Act approved. Writing for CJR, Halstuk says FOIA has frequently been used to expose waste and fraud and to shed light on a host of other problems. But it’s only becoming more difficult to get access through FOIA to government information. He wonders if lawmakers have the political courage to adopt reform legislation now in Congress. (11/1/05)

Illinois Gives Health Care Provider Right to Decide What Data Is Public

The Illinois Press Association announced the winners of a new contest and no one lined up to accept the awards. “The Worsty” awards go to the ten most egregious (a good award word) examples of Freedom of Information violations. Bloomington Pantagraph Editor Terry Greenberg wrote that the association’s goal is to have nothing to honor but “we have a long way to go.” Greenberg then focused on several that hit home, including the state’s refusal to make public a contract for health coverage for state employees. The contract had a clause that let the provider, Caremark, decide what information is public. (10/24/05)

Indiana’s Public Access Officer Needs the Muscle to Pry Open Records

The county’s planning commission denied the newspaper access to a survey it conducted, saying the study contained opinions “collected for various decision-making purposes.” The state’s public access officer issued an advisory opinion saying the records are public. The planners ignored the advice. The newspaper decided not to sue. But West Lafayette Journal Courier Executive Editor Julie Doll said in a column she doesn’t feel good about the decision she made, which is also one many citizen-requesters face: Are the likely results of the fight worth the cost? In the fight for open government, she said, Indiana’s public access officer needs to be given some statutory muscle. (10/24/05)

Proposed Rules Would Deny Online Access to Many Court Records

Media attorney Robert Clothier examined the battle over electronic access to courthouse records in an article in the Philadelphia Enquirer. The critical issue, one many states are wrestling with, is whether the public should have the same access to information via the internet that they have by going to the courthouse. The answer from the Pennsylvania court, says Clothier, is “regrettably … no” because administrators believe that “certain information is more dangerous when available online.” The proposed Pennsylvania restrictions would deny citizens critical information, he says. The column ends with a footnote telling readers how to comment to a special commission studying the access issues involved. (10/25/05)

After Spending $150 Million in Secret, Board Decides to Change Ways

Aver the past five years, The Gwinnett County commission has met secretly to buy 4,200 acres of land at a cost to taxpayers of more than $150 million. Now, a majority has decided the practice should be halted and the state’s Open Meetings Act honored. “Good move,” says Atlanta Journal Constitution columnist Rick Badie, adding the wish that the school board, which also likes to buy in private, might get the message. (10/17/05)

Make Hurricane Recovery Efforts an Open, Internet Book

Saying that nothing is more effective in exposing waste and fraud in government spending than the Freedom of Information Act, the Heritage Foundation’s Mark Tapscott calls on President Bush to make the Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts of all federal agencies and contractors an open book – and an e-book at that. Documents should be posted on the Internet, he says. (9/27/05)

Praise for Officials Who Make It Easier to Get Information

Riverside Press Enterprise Columnist Cassie MacDuff, who has taken many local officials to task for acting in secret, commends local supervisors who have made agenda and other information available on line to search and for adding data on campaign finances. She also reminds readers of other background reports on public officials that can be found online. (10/17/05)

Government Secrecy Is Truly Monumental, By George

The idea of a stack of secret documents towering alongside the Washington Monument is scary but consider one 12 times as high. That’s the image of federal government secrecy the Freedom of Information Center’s Paul McMasters presents in reviewing the lasted report card on the withholding of information. It is, he writes, “a condition of severe democratic distress” in which policy makers have declared their civic compact “largely null and void.” (9/22/05)

The Sun Is Starting to Shine in South Dakota

Sioux Falls Argus Leader editorial page editor Chuck Baldwin also heads the South Dakotans for Open Government which sponsored a “Let the Sun Shine In” essay contest. In a column presenting the winning essays, he said they were not only good reading but noteworthy of a shift in attitude among residents. After decades of neglect, he said, there is growing support for open government, not just among citizens but with select public officials as well. (8/29/05)

• Adult Winner - Let's Push More for Access
• Student Winner - We Need to Investigate Ourselves
• Selected Quotes from Sunshine Essays

AIPAC Case May Create Greater “Chill” than Plame Probe

When it comes to chilling effect on sources, the current investigation of leaks of security information to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee may have far greater impact that the Valerie Plame probe that resulted in the jailing of New York Times reporter Judith Miller, writes Washington Post columnist David Ignatius. He notes that five of the 57 “overt acts” named in the indictment of two AIPAC lobbyists involve conversations with reporters. (8/24/05)

Is It Tougher to Get Records Than to Pull Teeth?

While cautioning that “getting records from the government can be as difficult as trying to scale Half Dome with hands soaked in olive oil,” Contra Costa Times “Watchdog” Thomas Peele gave readers a list of helpful tips should they seek information themselves. And he noted, “Journalists have no more right to government data in California than dentists or mechanics. They are just paid to be aggressively insistent.” (8/29/05)

Wen Ho Lee Case The Greater Threat to Reporters, Sources

Mark Jurkowitz writes the battle over reporters privilege in the Wen Ho Lee case may have far greater long term impact on journalists and sources than will the Judith Miller jailing. The Wen Ho Lee is a civil, not criminal, case and it puts the people’s right to know in conflict with an individual’s right to privacy and protection of reputation. “Lee’s assertion of his legal rights has put journalists directly in the cross hairs. And First Amendment advocates are worried, angry, and fearful that this case will do more damage to investigative journalism than anything that comes out of the Plame probe,” Jurkowitz says. (8/18/05)

Clarence Page: No Privilege Is Absolute

Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page agrees with special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald that there is no such thing as absolute privilege for reporters – or any other American. But he suggests that Fitzgerald has trampled on the “sensible principles” worked out many years ago in Justice Department guidelines after the Branzburg case. As a result, New York Times reporter Judith Miller is “becoming an odd sort of martyr to the value of a feisty, independent press.”

Patriot Act, a Law Drenched in Secrecy

The Patriot Act, back before Congress for extension of several controversial provisions, is “a law drenched in secrecy” writes First Amendment Center ombudsman Paul McMasters. “Much of the rationale for its existence must be kept from us. It provides for secret searches and the conduct of investigations in secret. The Justice Department vigorously fights any request for information about its enforcement activities under the law. Courts are greatly restricted on what can be made public about Patriot Act cases.” (7/24/05)

Robert Kuttner: Prosecutor Pursuing Secondary Charges

American Prospect co-editor Robert Kuttner, writing in the Boston Globe, says he’s come to the conclusion special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald needed the testimony of Matt Cooper and Judith Miller pursue secondary offenses, not the leak of a CIA operative’s name in itself. And he asks, “Is the public good served by helping Fitzgerald learn who at the White House broke the law? Or is it served by having reporters protect Karl Rove? We need a public interest test, not an absolute privilege.” (7/24/05)

Scripps Project All a Big Secret in Palm Beach

It’s time, the Palm Beach Post declared, that citizens be given critical information about the Scripps Research Institute project that has become Florida’s most expensive secret in years. First the state negotiated a $600 million deal to bring the institute to Palm Beach County. Now the county is being just as secretive about the sale of an adjoining 2,000 environmentally sensitive acres. (8/9/05)

The Culture of Secrecy and Anonymous Sources

Washington’s culture of secrecy is thrives on the manipulation of access to information, writes Anthony Violanti in the Buffalo News. No reporter, he says, wants to walk away from a good story just because a source won’t allow his name to be used. “Politicians know that reporters need them to do their job. So, they can use anonymity to leak information.” And he quotes long-time White House correspondent Helen Thomas on administrations in general: "If it was up to the White House, the colors of the walls would be secret." (7/24/05)

The Rationale Behind a Three Year Law Suit, Subsequent Coverage

The Portland Press Herald spent nearly three years in court seeking the names of 18 deceased priests who had been accused of sexual misconduct. The information had been given to Maine law enforcement and the paper believed it was public. The Press Herald won in April and printed its first story, about one of the priests, in early June. In this column, editor Jeannine Guttman explains how the paper plans to use the information and why it would not be responsible to simply print the names. (6/13/05)

No Noose Is Good News, Schanberg Writes

Suddenly, there are stirrings within the Washington press corps, Sydney Schanberg writes in his Village Voice column on the media, citing the recent meeting of several bureau chiefs with White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan in an effort to turn “background briefings” into on the record events. The struggle, Schanberg says, will not be easy but it’s worth the effort. (5/11/05)

U.S. Media Need To Fight Secrecy; The World’s Looking

In a column pegged to World Press Freedom Day.,Cox Newspapers Washington bureau chief Andrew Alexander reviews press problems around the world and then turns to the legal sanctions that as many as 30 U.S. journalists face. He tells of a plea from visiting foreign journalists for the U.S. media to press for greater transparency here. “If America is seen as moving toward greater secrecy and control of its press, they argued, it gives license to their own governments to follow the same path.” (5/10/05)

Justice Department’s Stance Clouds the Future of FOIA

While waiting to testify at a recent House subcommittee hearing on the Freedom of Information Act, the Heritage Foundation’s Mark Tapscott listened as a Justice Department witness endorsed a Supreme Court decision that “effectively says only rich people can challenge a federal bureaucrat’s decision to keep secret government documents that ought to be public.” It’s a dark cloud on the FOIA horizon, he writes. (5/24/05)

Shield Law? A Matter of Whom Do You Trust

Irwin Gratz, president of the Society of Professional Journalists, was asked by a consumers publication why reporters should be allowed he keep confidential sources. His wrapped his response with a question of his own: “How much do you need the "back-channel" we can provide about government malfeasance and corporate shenanigans? Or do you simply trust everyone to do the right thing, all the time?” (7/25/05)

An Old-Fashioned Runaround with a High Tech Ending

The Auburn (NY) Citizen’s Judy Ducayne detailed the runaround she got from school officials when she asked for budget information, including the superintendent’s salary. After a hem-haw routine, local officials said she’d have to fill out a state-required form, a form that turned out to be optional, not mandatory under state law. And, she learned from state officials, the information she asked for was, in fact, posted online – as required by state law. (6/8/05)

Public Not Corporate Interest Should Prevail in Records Access Issue

Dave Hudson, counsel to the Georgia Press Association, challenges state economic development officials in an op ed column in the Athens Banner-Herald. Hudson says proposals to seal public records on efforts to lure new business to the state “contain potential for great mischief. … To date, no one has been able to point to a single business project Georgia lost because state and local governments are subject to open meetings and open records law>” (11/18/05)

Did Monorail Slip By Because Financial Records Were Kept Secret?

Seattle’s financially troubled monorail project is a train wreck that wouldn’t have happened if the public, which approved the project ion 2002 by a mere 877 votes, had been allowed to see the agency’s records, a citizen-advocate against the project writes in a Seattle Post Intelligencer column. Judy Endejan says the state supreme court decision supporting non-disclosure was “one of the darkest moments for open government in state history/” (11/7/05)

Closed-Door Deal Could Provide Huge Tax Break

A Notre Dame economics professor writing in The South Bend Tribune uses documents obtained under the Indiana Freedom of Information Act to explain a deal being negotiated with government officials behind closed doors that will reduce the property assessment on a new power plant by $700 million, give it an additional break by declaring the property “personal” and providing for state-backed bond financing. (9/22/05)

A Civic Activist’s Adventures in Seeking Public Records

For the past 12 years, Scottsdale civic activist Jane White has been requesting records, often from the Arizona Department of Transportation. “Their favorite tactic was delay, delay, delay, trying to wear us down,” she writes in a recounting of dirty tricks and an endorsement of the public records law. (9/15/05)

Secrecy in Washington Like the Old Wild West

Danielle Brian, executive director of the Project On Government Oversight, says there is a Wild West culture in Washington that allows secrecy to spread with no standards or protections against abuse. “The result is that government agencies can easily conceal corruption, errors and security failures,” she writes, noting that there are almost 50 sets of rules among the agencies for keeping non-classified information secret. (8/23/05)

U.S. Shield Law Not Just Important to U.S. Journalists

The managing editor of an annual global survey of media independence writes in the Christian Science Monitor “the current environment, where overzealous local officials and judicial authorities threaten, and in the worst cases, imprison journalists” make a national shield law necessary. Karin Deutsch Karlekar adds that passage would help “protect press freedom at home” and “set a positive example for other countries around the world.” (9/15/05)

Former Senate Leader Dole Backs Reporters Shield Law

One time presidential candidate and former U.S. Senator Bob Dole says he’s perplexed by the events that led to the jailing of New York Times reporter Judith Miller. “Congress can rectify this situationm” he writes in a New York Times OpEd column, by passing the the reporters shield law sponsored by Sen. Richard Lugar and Rep. Mike Pence, both Indiana Republicans. (8/17/05)

Rumsfeld: "Most Things Become Known Eventually"

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld writes in the Wall Street Journal that the Pentagon is trying “in this new information age” to find ways “to better inform the public … Like other large unwieldy bureaucracies, we are doing this through a process of trial and error, and, therefore, imperfectly.” Rumsfeld adds, “Most things — controversial or not — become known eventually. But they become known unhelpfully when they dribble out piecemeal or in highly selective excerpts — as opposed to being presented early, in full and with appropriate context.” (7/24/05)

The Most Heated Sources Debate Since Watergate

Media Lawyer Kelli Sager jumps into the debate over confidential sources, suggesting that what gets lost in the discussion is the benefit to the public in having the sources come forward because they know they’ll be protected. “Our society has decided, in a wide variety of circumstances, that the need to protect certain communications outweighs the need to prosecute criminals — and may even outweigh the rights of a criminal defendant to defend himself,” Sager writes in the LA Times. (3/5/05)

Toughening Washington State's Open Records Committment

Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna, in an op ed piece in the Seattle Times makes the case for “problem solving” changes he’s recommended in the public records laws, including stiffer penalties against agencies that don’t follow the law, and a provision intended to block agencies overcharging for searching for and providing copies of records. (3/5/05)

Sen. Leahy: Government Secrecy At Previously Unseen Levels

In an op ed column sent to Vermont newspapers, Sen. Patrick Leahy, who is co-sponsoring a bill to update and make more workable the Freedom of Information Act, says that the public’s right to know and Congress’s duty to know what government is doing have both eroded. Government secrecy, he writes, is at previously unseen levels. (3/11/05)

Press Association Counsel Reviews Indiana Legislative Session

Hoosier State Press Association general counsel Stephen Key provided an assessment of the 2005’s performance on open government issues for state newspapers in a op ed column. His conclusion: some plusses and minuses but overall a lot more promises than fulfillment. (5/31/05)

Georgia AG: Open Government Requires Vigilance

Open government should be something the public citizens can depend on, Georgia’s Attorney General Thurbert Baker writes in the Athens Banner Herald, but that’s not the way it’s working. Instead, citizens must remain vigilant, he says, noting that the current legislature is considering exceptions in the name of “good business” practices. “Government was not created to compete with business, however, and the ultimate goal of each is very different. (2/25/05)

• A Legislative Cloak of Secrecy

Recalling a Failed Effort to Open Records

On the 30th Anniversary of Connecticut’s Freedom of Information Act, retired UConn professor John Breen recalled the time a group of his students took his lecture on open government to heart – and filed a FOI complaint to have student evaluations of professors made public. The students won an administrative hearing but, without legal counsel, lost when the university and the faculty union took the issue to court and got the ruling reversed. (1/24/05)

To Rebuild CIA’s Credibility, Let In Some Sunshine

Media Law Professor Martin Halstuk argues that Congress should pass new legislation overriding the 1985 Supreme Court decision CIA v. Sims if it wants to rebuild the CIA’s credibility. The decision lets the agency determine, without review, what information falls with an exemption for “sources and methods” of intelligence gathering. The Supreme Court said the CIA should be given "great deference" but Halstuck says the result has been that the agency “evade the pressure of public accountability and exploit secrecy to conceal its failures and blunders.” (1/25/05)

Making Good Use of FOIA

The Heritage Foundation’s Mark Tapscott takes a look at the FOIA-based reporting of four York Daily Record staffers who are “way ahead of the big guys when it comes to digging out information that might otherwise never see the light of day.” He suggests journalists in every community could learn from their successes, and offers some of the lessons the four have learned.