In age of e-government, preserve access
It was a different world 40 years ago when the Legislature passed the first state law mandating that the public have access to government meetings and records.At the time, no one could have dreamed of "meetings" using instant e-mail messages or that volumes of "records" would be stored on small plastic discs. The challenge is ensuring Iowa's open-government laws keep up with technological change. That challenge grows as the pace of change quickens.
Whatever the world of government information looks like in the next 30 years, one thing has not changed — and will not change: Iowa's citizens must keep up pressure on state lawmakers and public officials to preserve the ability to watch what is going on in the government.
News organizations, including the Register, which regularly report on the workings of government, see the challenges in getting access to government information. In an essay on today's Opinion page, the Register's Lee Rood reports on those obstacles.
The governor's office has clamped down on access to certain files. Some public agencies are charging hourly fees to "supervise" when public records are inspected. Others are charging hefty amounts for fetching and copying public documents. And, it seems, there is a perpetual problem with some government officials who believe their job is to protect information from being revealed to the public, rather than to make sure that members of the public have access to information about their government.
It's true that we in the news business focus on the exceptions, like reporting on the plane crash without acknowledging the number of safe landings and takeoffs. Day in and day out, no doubt, more citizens gain access to public information than confront secrecy. Still, the anecdotal examples cited by Rood demonstrate challenges that weren't envisioned 40 years ago:
• Elusive electronic information: With the proliferation of e-mails and instant messaging, vastly more public business these days is conducted without face-to-face meetings and with no paper trail. This is a fact of life. It also makes it hard, if not impossible, for the public to tap into the flow of information. The disturbing fear is that government officials will be tempted to destroy permanent records of this rich vein of public exchange.
• Charges for access: In the Information Age, state and local governments feel pressured to profit from online access to public records. Commercial businesses are willing to pay for access to what they see as a mother lode of information about citizens and public business, from driver's-license information to real estate and corporate records. But systems set up to charge businesses are also making citizens pay for access to public information, too.
Regardless of the technology, some simple standards for public access to government information should prevail: No public record should be destroyed with the intent of hiding it from the public. No meetings should be held via instant e-mail messages to prevent public participation. Citizens and taxpayers who already pay for government shouldn't be charged twice for access to public records.
It should not be so difficult to preserve the public's right to know as information technology evolves. The principle was expressed well in laws passed in the middle 1960s: Government information belongs to the people and is open to them unless specifically exempted.
The form of the public document and the forum of public meetings have changed, and will continue to change, but the need for public access has not, and will not
posted by Unknown @ 6:35 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home