Florida Today

Your right to know

Sunshine Sunday targets rising effort to shut citizens out of government actions

Slamming the door in your face when it comes to getting information about your own government sounds like the policy of a Third World dictatorship.

But it's happening every day in our state and nation, with a rising tide of secrecy washing away your right to know what's being done by whom- and why.

The fault lies with public officials who are unaware of their obligation to openness, don't care or who purposely do all in their power to keep you in the dark.

That's why newspapers around Florida mark today, Sunshine Sunday, with a call to protect the public's right to know. That right is in danger, as a recent survey by 41 Florida news agencies, including FLORIDA TODAY, shows.

Instead of getting a quick response to citizens' requests for public information from 224 agencies statewide - as required by law - 42 percent of those requests were rejected or roadblocked.

In Brevard County, the agencies surveyed — the county manager’s office,
Sheriff’s Office, School Board and Titusville City Hall — were responsive to
requests for e-mail records and other information.

Any failure by public officials to grasp the ideas behind open government is particularly galling, considering Florida's 100-year history as a national leader in open records and constitutional requirements for government-in-the-sunshine.

But instead of building on that reputation, Florida lawmakers seeking cover for themselves or for deep-pocketed business interests have passed hundreds of laws slowly choking freedom of information to death.

In fact, says Barbara Petersen, president of the non-profit First Amendment Foundation in Tallahassee, more public-records bills were proposed leading up to the 2006 Legislature than in all of 2005.

Not all such measures are harmful, but most are.

And lawmakers keep passing them, even though in 2002 a solid majority of Florida voters OK'd a constitutional amendment making it much harder to get new exemptions.

Citizen access denied

Among the 100-plus proposals they hope to pass this session are:

- A bill to exempt from public records the e-mail addresses of citizens gathered by public agencies. Governments may get them from citizens seeking alerts or newsletters, and say keeping those addresses secret would cut e-mail spam.

But using that rationale, what's to stop a local government from sealing property records so you can't compare your real estate taxes to other properties? They could claim they just wanted to protect your address from junk mailers.

- Another bill would stop the public from seeing any images of the remains of crime victims if the images provide information about a crime or for an investigation.

Instead of citizens being able to view these as a check on law enforcement, the courts would decide who can see what, and when.

Under this bill, if Martin Anderson, brutally beaten last month by guards at a state boot camp, had died then instead of the next day, the tape showing the attack would have been off-limits.

It was only the public's ability to see the videotape that triggered a needed investigation into the cause of death.

- A third bill would let those making court filings decide what information they want to keep out of the public record. Anyone needing the blacked-out details would have to hire a lawyer and get a judge to agree to their request.

That would be so time-consuming and costly, it amounts to state-sanctioned stonewalling.

A federal shutout

In Washington, the Bush administration has turned secrecy in the federal government into official policy, often under the guise of "national security."

It has restricted application of the Freedom of Information Act, expanded executive privilege to keep its activities under wraps, and refused congressional requests for records on then-Supreme Court Chief Justice nominee John Roberts

Bush and numerous agencies ignored requests from Congress for records tracing their disastrous response to Hurricane Katrina.

Meanwhile, warrentless domestic wiretapping by the National Security Agency has been carried on in secret. And last week, cowardly GOP members of the Senate Intelligence Committee blocked a public probe into this illegal use of presidential power.

Plain-spoken President Harry Truman was right when he said "Secrecy and a free, democratic government don't mix."

If the day comes when the public fails to fight for that freedom, the nation is lost.

Reproduced courtesy of Florida Today.
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