Miami Herald

For open, accountable government

OUR OPINION: FIGHT LAWMAKERS' ASSAULT ON PUBLIC RECORDS

How informed would you be if you had never seen video footage of the beating of a Fort Lauderdale homeless man or the fuzzy videotape of Bay County officers manhandling 14-year-old Martin Lee Anderson? Most people consider those types of images an essential part of living in an open, democratic society. But some lawmakers in Tallahassee want to take that away. They mustn't succeed.

Public access to information is vital to our democracy and can be a check on the potential abuse of power. Consider: Release of the boot-camp video of Martin's beating prompted Gov. Jeb Bush to appoint a special prosecutor to oversee the criminal investigation into the boy's death. Maybe the appointment would have happened anyway, eventually. But public airing of the video and the outrage it provoked got authorities moving.

Open-government laws

Yet politicians and lawmakers at the national and state level are trying to roll back laws that guarantee transparency and openness in government. In Tallahassee, lawmakers are have proposed a number of changes that would curb Florida's pioneering Government in the Sunshine laws -- laws that allow residents to know when their elected representatives are shading the truth, squandering money, stealing from the treasury or simply not performing their jobs.

One proposal could have forbidden the release of such things as the boot-camp video. Worse, it might have allowed the person who showed the video and others who looked at it to be charged as criminals.

The bill -- S 1898 by Sens. Jim King, R-Jacksonville, and Rod Smith, D-Alachua -- would bar disclosure of photos or videos of a victim who is part of a criminal investigation. It also makes it a third-degree felony for a reporter or other individual to attempt to verify, by viewing the crime-scene photos or video, what state authorities claim about the case.

Video of attack

If this bill had been in effect last year, it could have prevented the airing of the video that captured the vicious attack on the Fort Lauderdale homeless man. That video led to the arrests of three suspects now charged in the murder of another homeless man.

The bill was inspired by the murder of Carlie Brucia. Graphic photos of that crime scene were sealed by a judge in response to a request from Brucia's parents. Appellate courts, however, gave reporters access. Still, it is an example of how rushing to protect a narrow interest can harm the greater public good.

This is what happened with another bill that Sens. King and Smith promoted: the 2001 disclosure exemption that shut down access to all autopsy photos after the death of stock-car racer Dale Earnhardt. The family feared that Mr. Earnhardt's autopsy photos would wind up splashed across the Internet or tabloids. Now families with other concerns bear the cost of unintended consequences of that law.

One woman, for example, asked for photos from her brother's autopsy in Leon County after the medical examiner ruled that the death was accidental. The cause? A self-inflicted gunshot wound to the back of the head. The sister and others who suspect the autopsy pictures may hold clues to a horrific crime or a medical examiner's incompetence shouldn't have to get a court order to do the job that state employees should have done. This exemption, like two dozen others, is set to expire this year unless the Legislature reenacts it. Bill S 592 would reenact the autopsy-photo exemption as is. Lawmakers should narrow its scope.

A family's desire for privacy and the benefits of records access should be reconciled with thoughtful lawmaking. Provisions, for example, could allow family members to ask a judge to seal autopsy photos, just as divorce records may be sealed now, though they generally remain in the public record. The burden should be on the family to persuade a judge that privacy outweighs the public's right to know.

Other anti-disclosure measures lawmakers are considering would close access to:

•• Any information about a public hospital that is leased by a private company;

•• Information about people who apply for or get a license to carry a concealed weapon;

•• Donors to Miami's Vizcaya Museum and Gardens or what is done with donated money;

•• The individual e-mail address of any state-government employee. (No more e-mailing Gov. Bush at fl_governor@eog.state.fl.us).

Florida's first Sunshine Law was enacted in the late 1960s as an antidote to back-room deals and corruption that mocked the concept of open government. Lawmakers mustn't be allowed to roll back the clock.

Reproduced courtesy of the Miami Herald.
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