Letter to Snowbirds

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By Jane E. Kirtley

It’s been a long, snowy winter in Minnesota, but the end is in sight. It’s finally above freezing, so it’s time to get our ice house off the lake and send the kids down to Florida for Spring Break. And pretty soon, all you snowbirds will be packing up and heading home for the summer.

Since it’s Sunshine Week, I thought maybe you’d like an update on what’s been happening, freedom of information-wise, while you’ve been away.

I know Garrison Keillor says it’s always quiet here, but geez, I think it’s been crazy all winter. Everybody’s been talking about that former USA Today reporter, Toni Locy, who’s facing big fines in Washington, D.C. because she won’t say who her confidential sources were for her stories about those anthrax attacks back in 2001. But at least she was served with a subpoena, fair and square. That’s not what happened to Tom Lyden, a reporter for the Fox TV station in St. Paul, after he asked for a copy of an arrest report last summer.

The report is public under our open records law, but the St. Paul police wouldn’t give it him for some reason or other. So, somebody leaked it to Tom, which made somebody else mad. But instead of asking Tom who gave it to him – I guess because they knew we have a strong reporter’s shield law, and he wouldn’t have to tell them – the St. Paul police secretly seized his cell phone records. Pretty sneaky, huh? Tom had no idea. It only came out in December because the Ramsey County Sheriff filed an internal affairs complaint about it. The St. Paul police chief said he wasn’t trying to intimidate Tom, but it sure looked like it to some of us, especially when it turned out that they seized more than two months’ worth of his phone records. It’s hard for a TV reporter to do his job if he can’t keep his sources confidential, especially from the police.

Speaking of TV, I know you've gotten used to watching coverage of trials on the news in Florida. They’ve had cameras in courts for more than thirty years. But not us. We’ve got these rules in Minnesota that say that if anybody involved in the case objects, the judge can keep the cameras out. After some media groups asked the state Supreme Court to reconsider, they put together an advisory committee to look into it. They held hearings this winter. Judges and lawyers from places like Wisconsin came and testified that cameras in the courts actually help the public get a more accurate picture of what happens there. But other people opposed any change in the rules. They had all kinds of reasons, but for most of them, the bottom line was that they were afraid that the coverage would be “too sensational.” That seems kind of silly to me, but the advisory committee bought it. Guess we won’t have cameras in the courts up here any time soon. You have to wonder what they’re hiding.

Speaking of hiding things, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported in February that the federal district court here has a secret docket with sealed criminal cases – cases the public can’t know about. Some of them have been secret for years, going back to 1998. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, which includes Florida, says that’s unconstitutional. The court here says they’re trying to protect victims and informants. I guess they have a point, but it doesn’t sit right with me. I trust government as much as the next guy, but don’t we have a right to know who’s being charged and convicted of crimes?

I think we do, especially if the “crime” involves freedom of speech. Speaking of that, you know the Republican National Convention will be held in St. Paul in September, right at the end of the State Fair. I don’t know what genius thought that timing was a good idea. Anyway, with traffic and protestors and all, the St. Paul police seem a little skittish. It seems they have a new set of policies for investigations involving “First Amendment activity.” They’ll go undercover to monitor groups that might be coming to St. Paul to commit “unlawful activities or terrorist acts.” The ACLU is worried because there won’t be any independent oversight to make sure the surveillance is limited to that. The St. Paul police say this has nothing to do with the Convention. Right.

Well, I guess that’s about it. Have a safe trip home. Bring me some of those chocolate-covered coconut patties, will you? And while you’re at it, bring some of that Florida-style sunshine in government, too. We could use it.

Jane E. Kirtley is the Silha Professor of Media Ethics and Law at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Minnesota. From 1985-1999, she was the Executive Director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press in Washington, D.C. Her e-mail address is kirtl001@umn.edu Her office telephone number is 612 625 9038.

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