Entries from April 2007
That’s how Roger Matus describes it at Death By Email and I don’t see any reason to mess with perfection.
The case was the result as an effort to get the emails of suspended Pinal (AZ) County manager Stanley Griffis. He allegedly purchased guns and ammunition with public funds. But the investigation grew until, according to AZ Central, Griffis pleading guilty to six felonies, agreeing to pay over half-a-million dollars in restitution and the possibility of serving up to 51 years in prison.
The Republic asked for the emails to do an investigation and the country agreed to release them. Griffis then filed to block the release arguing that the emails were private. The Court said that Griffis claim was not sufficient to convince the court that the emails were not public records. So, now a judge must review them.
Of note here is that while the trial court that first heard the case sided with The Republic’s view that the emails (having been produced on a government computer) should be assumed to be public, an intermediary court overturned that judgment. (That’s alarming.) The Arizona Supreme Court had to overturn that court’s decision, which it did here: Arizona Supreme Court decision in Griffiths v. Phoenix Newspaper.
The Reporter’s Committee for Freedom of the Press covers it here: Judge must decide whether email is private. They note:
The court said when a public official proclaims documents stored on a government computer system to be private, requesters must be able to ask a judge to look at the disputed records in chambers to determine whether that claim of privacy is valid. Otherwise, the court said, those public officials could too easily circumvent the strong presumption of openness in Arizona’s public records law.
To say the least.
Categories: Arizona open records · the email question
The Shelby Watchdog in Memphis, Tennessee argues this morning that what is needed for real ethics reform are substantial improvements in open records.
Citing a recent corruption case that sent a public official to jail, the blogger says:
…the single most important thing that needs to be done to improve public ethics is open records and transparency in government. All requests for proposals (bids), all responses to those RFP’s (request for proposals), all purchase orders resulting from the bids, the selection process for awards and the reasons for the selection, and all purchases orders should be available in real time on the internet. Also all professional contracts should be advertised and bid and the results put on the internet. Furthermore all salaries, benefits, overtime and pensions should be public information and available on the internet.
In terms of promoting transparent government, I really like the approach of mandating that certain records automatically be posted to a government agency’s website in real time. (The other main approach to reform is broadening the open records laws, so that when citizens ask for these records, they have at least some chance of getting them.)
At the WikiFoia, we just added a page where people can start to list Transparency Reforms like those the Shelby Watchdogger is asking for.
Categories: Tennessee open records · transparency reforms
Newspapers around Pennsylvania take note of new sunshine blog, Pass Open Records.
Allentown Morning Call: New blog is tool to open public records.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Newspaper group pushes for broader open records law.
The Citizen’s Voice: Pennsylvania needs more open records.
Doubt the effect of public scrutiny on government operations and public officials’ conduct?
Consider the results of a court case brought by several news organizations against the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency, over its refusal to disclose details of its spending by appointed agency officials and state lawmakers who sit on the PHEAA board of directors.
The courts forced the public agency to release public information that detailed lavish spending well beyond the appropriate purview of a public agency. PHEAA since has adopted a code of ethics and spending regulations.
Those pushing sunshine reforms in Pennsylvania note that their laws are among the worst in the nation, earning an “F” and beating out only Alabama and South Dakota.
One purpose of the new blog is to allow anyone in Pennsylvania who has struggled with getting records from a public agency a forum where they can share their story.
Categories: Pennsylvania open records
The active movement in Pennsylvania to strengthen their open records legislation has been joined by a strong voice: Pass Open Records.
Categories: strengthening FOIA laws
Bill Myers of The Examiner notes this morning that District police lose track of 1500 open records requests.
The District of Columbia police department allowed more than 1,500 open records requests to “slip through the cracks” — an unacceptable record that flies in the face of D.C.’s open government laws, a leading D.C. Council member said.
Phil Mendelson, D-at large, sent a letter to newly confirmed police Chief Cathy Lanier, demanding that her department account for its handling of Freedom of Information Act requests. According to the police department’s own records, officials lost track of some 1,500 requests in fiscal 2005 and 2006. The department replied to less than one out of every seven FOIA requests it received in those years, Mendelson’s letter states.
It makes you wonder if yesterday’s open records story out of the District–where District law enforcement officials quickly complied with an eight-month old request after a lawsuit was filed–happened not because law enforcement officials were stonewalling on the original request, but because they lost it.
Myers goes on to note:
Civil suits filed for FOIA violations cost D.C. taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars. There are criminal penalties for interfering with a FOIA request, but officials in the attorney general’s office told The Examiner the office has never opened an investigation, let alone filed charges.
According to the Open Government Guide, the District of Columbia offers no proactive assistance to people who file open records requests.
The duty to comply, and training requirements, are described in that guide:
All employees of the District government are responsible for compliance with the provisions of the D.C. Act. D.C. Code Ann. § 2-537(e). Each public body also must designate a Freedom of Information Officer who is to receive a minimum of 8 hours of training regarding implementation and compliance with the D.C. Act. § 2-538(d). Each year, the Mayor requests from each public body and submits to the D.C. Council a report covering the public record disclosure activities of each public body during the preceding fiscal year. § 2-538(a).
Categories: District of Columbia
Judicial Watch is a national group known for filing federal Freedom of Information requests. It also takes on FOIA projects at the local level, including an ongoing project about how municipal police departments do (or don’t) cooperate with federal immigration officials.
As Judicial Watch details here, it asked for relevant documents from the Washington, DC police force in August 2006. The police force did not cooperate by providing the documents, so Judicial Watch filed a lawsuit in early March 2007.
Shortly thereafter, the DC police force provided the documents that had been requested eight months earlier.
I’m always concerned that stories like this will deter regular citizens who don’t have a big legal budget to back them up from filing open records requests. The process sounds daunting, does it not?
Categories: District of Columbia
State Police Reject Many Requests for Public Information.
A new report shows that Illinois state police have a woefully bad record in responding to FOIA requests:
In 2006, for example, state police received nearly 700 requests under the Illinois Freedom of Information Act. They granted 175 requests, denied 146 others and reported in 81 cases that they couldn’t find the document being sought. But in more than 200 cases, there was no record of whether state police responded at all.
One interesting statistic that emerged from the study by the Springfield State Journal-Register is:
Lawyers, insurance companies, crime victims and others outnumber journalists by about 20 to 1 in making FOIA requests to the state police.
Categories: Illinois FOIA
The Argus Leader, South Dakota’s largest newspaper, is suing to require the state government to release the names of people who attended the governor’s 2005 pheasant hunt.
The pheasant hunt was coordinated by the Department of Tourism and State Development in order to attract businesses to South Dakota. Therefore, according to the attorney representing the forces of transparency, it is “official work product” and ought to be made public. As he says:
“A closed executive branch is the perfect opportunity to take democracy away from the people.”
I agree, but the attorney arguing in favor of keeping the guest list secret doesn’t.
He notes that in South Dakota, state law defines public documents as those that the state is required to maintain. Since the state is not required to maintain things like invitation lists, it has no obligation to make the list public.
Furthermore, if the invitation list were to be made public, South Dakota would be harmed because neighboring states might go after those businesses:
“If they are forced to make public these business prospects, Nebraska can get them, Minnesota can get them,” Fulton told the court.
Arguing that bad consequences will flow to the state if some documents are made public is not a convincing argument for secrecy.
If U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales filed a brief saying “If I release departmental emails pertaining to how the decision was made to fire some U.S. attorneys last spring, it would make the government look bad, so I shouldn’t have to” we would not be persuaded.
This issue is in front of the South Dakota Supreme Court because the Argus Leader’s attempt to gain the invitation list lost when argued before a circuit judge last year.
South Dakota tied for last place in the Better Government Association’s 2002 state-by-state ranking of open records laws.
Categories: South Dakota · open records litigation
