FOIA Beyond Our Borders

 

The states with the most media coverage of their FOIA activity in recent months are Illinois, South Carolina, Virginia and Connecticut.

ILLINOIS:  Most of the news about FOIA results from municipal denials of FOIA requests which citizens appeal to a special section of the state’s Office of Attorney General.  When the Assistant AG in this section rules in favor of the appellant, the AAG usually fires a shot across the municipality’s bow.  If the warning isn’t heeded, the AAG can compel compliance.  The Illinois statute has real teeth.

SOUTH CAROLINA:  The legislature floats a lot of trial balloons about tinkering with FOIA.  Notable among them are proposals for legislative transparency.

VIRGINIA:  Much of the activity here concerns partisan political bickering over FOIA adjustments, reflecting transition turmoil prominent in the state over the past couple of years.  There was an uproar when the legislature banned out-of-state FOIA requests.

CONNECTICUT:  The  increased volume of FOIA news in this state can be attributed to privacy issues arising from the Sandy Hook Elementary School tragedy.

On the international scene, Ireland, India and Nigeria have had frequent news coverage of FOIA events.

Bermuda and the Philippines are struggling with initial FOIA legislation.  (Better late than never.)

CELEBRATE SUNSHINE WEEK !

FOIA Reform Scams

I have an issue with the way news media present such rosy prospects for FOIA each year during Sunshine Week.  Year after year, optimism is based, not on new ideas to improve FOIA being enacted into law, but merely on a new bill with a short shelf life being introduced or reported out of committee.  

The ballyhoo over the Issa-Cummings FOIA implementation bill taken up by the U.S. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee just in time for this past Sunshine Week comes to mind.  Publicizing that is like awarding a soldier the Congressional Medal of Honor for telling what he might do in combat someday.

Just as bad or worse, news organizations downplay or ignore efforts to inhibit open government.  A recent example would be proposals put forward by the Michigan State Court Administrative Office.

In RICO cases, the cast of characters consists of three types: (1) racketeers, often con artists, (2) dupes exploited as false fronts and (3) victims.  Sunshine Week works in a similar fashion.  Legislators, press and public.

Let’s hope that annual celebrations by the press of wobbly legislative hints of reform haven’t become a meaningless ritual.  If next year’s Sunshine Week is going to be any different, now is the time to start planning for it.

Energize Sunshine Week

We know the Grinch stole Christmas.  Now we have to figure out who took the "umph" out of Sunshine Week.

Used to be, newspapers would honor the occasion with extensive coverage. There would be salutes to stalwart individuals, many journalists among them, who had, against all odds, patched together information pulled from uncooperative government sources to expose waste, fraud, theft, cronyism, indecision and bad ideas.

For instance, a review of the story last year about the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund extracting Department of Home Land Security documents concerning the department's monitoring of the Occupy Movement would have been commendable.

Closer to home, a summary of Progress Michigan's investigation utilizing FOIA requests for information about Michigan Rep. Roy Schmidt's machinations in changing his party affiliation would have been instructive.

Just a week ago it was reported that the Michigan Chapter of Americans for Prosperity was told it would have to pay the Michigan State Police about $19,600 for copies of a few hours of video tape recorded last December.  That, too, would have been a worthy subject for discussion during Sunshine Week.

Also during past Sunshine Weeks, there would have been a recounting of the year's efforts to strengthen Freedom of Information statutes to make it easier for the public to acquire the records their tax dollars had paid for; and especially, to expose corruption and ineptness in government.

What happened this year?  I suppose editors could have pointed out that last September Rep. Mike Shirkey introduced in the Michigan House a watery bill, intended as an improvement on Michigan's outdated statute, to speed up FOIA compliance, reduce costs and increase fines against government offices that failed to comply.

Unfortunately, the bill expired in December.  But wait!  Shirkey reintroduced the bill in January.  It continues to languish.  Wow.  There's a scoop. 

"Sunshine" Week and the prospect for FOIA reform

Here we are again in "Sunshine" Week, more than a year after a bill was filed in the Michigan House to add the Michigan Legislature to the list of state government functions subject to the state's ancient Freedom of Information Act.  That bill expired in December at the end of the previous legislative term.

Another bill, designed to encourage more prompt government responses to FOIA requests and establish lower, uniform retrieval and copying costs, was filed last September.  It, too, died at the end of the last legislative term, but was resurrected by Rep. Mike Shirkey at the beginning of the new term in January.  Shirkey's bill has had the active support of the Michigan Press Association.

The flaw in both of these proposals to amend Michigan FOIA is that they are based on the old FOIA model, which requires a request to a government unit's "FOIA Coordinator" in order to obtain public information, subjecting the request to the scrutiny,  approval and convenience of personnel in that particular unit.

Genuine reform, now being implemented to various degrees in most federal agencies, requires that non-exempt public information be posted on searchable websites (often referred to as "reading rooms") by the various government offices as soon as the information is created or acquired.  In this process, government staff do not play gatekeeper; nor are they distracted from other duties in order to conduct a search.


This proactive approach for public access to government records should be adopted by the states.