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Tallahassee Democrat Defend your right to open government
The Bill of Rights - the first 10 amendments to the U.S. Constitution - guard many of our basic freedoms, including our right to bear arms, the right to trial by jury and protection against unreasonable search and seizure. Aside from freedoms of the press and religion, the First Amendment gives citizens the right to petition our government for a redress of grievances - protecting everything from the work of those who lobby state government to the right of citizens to question public officials in a public forum. The right of access to public meetings and government records - popularly known as "Government in the Sunshine" - fulfills the desire of those who framed the Bill of Rights that our government is open and accountable to the people. Without these rights of access, you would have difficulty questioning a member of the school board about your child's education, or receiving information from the property appraiser about your property tax bill. Without the ability to petition government - or see government records - a Leon County paramedic might have kept her recent allegations of sexual harassment in the county Emergency Medical Service to herself. And the public wouldn't know a thing. Instead, she bravely came forward. County Administrator Parwez Alam and other top officials responded by conducting their probe swiftly and in the sunshine. By doing so, they protected the public interest and helped preserve public confidence in the county's fledgling EMS division. But from the courthouse to the statehouse, city hall to the U.S. Capitol, your right to obtain the information you need to petition local, state and federal government is in danger. In Wakulla County, commissioners routinely violate state law by requiring citizens to submit their requests for public records in writing. The public then has to wait for up to five days for those requests to be fulfilled. At Florida A&M University, routine requests for the most basic information are subject to delay after delay - most recently, the university held a board of trustees meeting via conference call in which individuals who phoned in to listen had to identify themselves. At the Capitol, more than 40 bills proposing new or continued exemptions to Florida's Sunshine law and public records law have been introduced for the 2005 legislative session. And at the federal level, an Associated Press review shows that government secrecy began to tighten well before the 9/11 terrorist attacks, with a more restrictive climate beginning in the latter years of the Clinton administration. Yet terrorism fears have fueled much of the recent clampdown, centered on the idea that our historically open society poses a potential threat to national security. The climate of secrecy has also grown amid concerns over personal security - more accurately, the security of our personal information. Far more costly than the potential loss of personal privacy is the fact that you are in danger of losing your ability to serve as another element in the elaborate system of checks and balances that makes our republic strong. Restricting some government information to protect personal privacy and national security makes sense. But we must be wary of attempts to protect private interests at the expense of the public interest. Access to government records and proceedings is crucial to maintaining the kind of active, informed and engaged citizenry necessary for our society to meet the challenges of a new century. Most of all, it is your right.
Reproduced courtesy
of the Tallahassee Democrat. |
