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FOI Columns
Return to The FOI Center


July-August, 2001

By Jennifer LaFleur


BREAKOUT
For more information, visit:
· The National Freedom of Information Coalition, www.nfoic.org.
· The California First Amendment Coalition for complete results of its poll, www.cfac.org
During the past year, freedom of information advocates faced some major setbacks, especially in the historically open sunshine state of Florida. In other places, news from the FOI front brought some steps forward.

Freedom of information advocates, journalists, attorneys and others gathered to share these ups and downs as well as strategies in Newport Beach, Calif., May 25-27 for the annual National Freedom of Information Coalition conference. The conference was hosted by the California First Amendment Coalition.

NFOIC, formed in 1989 in Dallas, joins First Amendment and open government organizations from individual states. Most NFOIC members are state FOI coalitions and other FOI organizations.

This year's conference addressed several hot First Amendment topics including: electronic court records, developing better local sunshine laws and how to conduct a public records compliance audit.

David Byers, an Arizona court administrator and president of the Conference of State Court Administrators said administrators around the country are struggling with online access to court records. He said the conference is developing a model rule that states could use as a basis for changing their laws. The model rule will be presented at a meeting of the organization in Seattle on July 29.

You can see the CSCA position paper on access to court records at cosca.ncsc.dni.us. Check your state court's Web site for state proposed rules.

Byers warned that as documents are being scrutinized, court officials are rethinking which court documents should even be included in files.

Reporters concerned about what approach their states' courts will take should contact their state's FOI coalition.

California Attorney General Bill Lockyer spoke in support of open government and criticized Governor Gray Davis' practice of keeping state energy contracts secret. A strong supporter of open government, Lockyer also spoke on support of privacy when it comes to the Internet.

"Privacy in the infomation age is the parallel of environmentalism in the industrial age," Lockyer said. Other California speakers included Los Angeles District Attorney Steve Cooley who has had a policy of enforcing the Brown Act, California's open meetings law. He said the public has been supportive of his stance. "The public gets this a lot more than public officials," Cooley said.

Cooley noted a pattern of secret meetings among communities who are not in the "market" of a daily newspaper. Representatives from 23 states talked about the progress and pitfalls of FOI issues in their states. Some of the highlights include:

q Results released in May of a poll conducted for the California First Amendment Coalition, found that 86 percent of Californians want details of long-term power purchasing contracts made public. Seventy-one percent of the 1,000 respondents said they are getting too little information on how state officials are responding to the power shortage.

Two states' open records laws went high-tech. Electronic records are now covered by the California Public Records Act and by the Arkansas FOI Act.

Things became less sunny in Florida. "This was the worst legislation year in 10 years," said Sandra Chance, director of the Brechner Center for Freedom of Information at the University of Florida. The Florida legislature created a "chief privacy officer" for the state. The Earnhardt Family Protection Act exempted autopsy photos from the state's public records law. In additon, the legislature sealed reports of accidents or deaths in nursing homes and exempted home addresses and telephone numbers of human resource managers.

In Indiana, Earnhardt -type legislation passed with no questions asked.

Advocates in Mississippi had a better year. The legislature changed rules to open legislative conference committees to the public. They also got mayoral candidates in 14 cities to sign a pledge to that they would follow open meetings and open records laws if elected.

Public records audits were conducted in several states including New York, Connecticut and Iowa and most found patterns of non-compliance especially among law enforcement.

New freedom of information coalitions have been formed or are in the process of forming in Maine, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Washington state.

Jennifer LaFleur is co-chairman of IRE's FOI Committee and the computer-assisted reporting editor for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Before that, she was database editor for the San Jose Mercury News.