Sunshine Sunday
A Times EditorialThis is a day to remember the value of government transparency, which is vital in these times when the administration in Washington and the legislators in Tallahassee have been striving to keep the public and press in the dark.
Published March 12, 2006
With a rollover Congress that appears more interested in justifying the president's questionable assertions of executive power than in investigating them, the role of the press has become even more vital to ensuring government accountability.
Were it not for dogged reporting by journalists at some of this nation's leading newspapers, we would not know, for example, that President Bush authorized warrantless wiretapping of people in this country or that the CIA maintained secret prisons in Eastern Europe where terror suspects were sent for interrogation and torture.
On this Sunshine Sunday, a day when news outlets around the country remind the public of the value of government transparency, the issue of official secrecy takes on an even greater sense of urgency than in past years. The Bush administration, the most secretive since Richard Nixon was in the White House, is engaged in a broad assault on freedom of information.
At every turn, from the vice president's refusal to share details of his meeting with the Energy Task Force, to former Attorney General John Ashcroft's memorandum that the Justice Department will defend government agencies that plausibly seek to withhold information from a Freedom of Information Act request, keeping the public and press in the dark has been one of the administration's overriding goals.
Since Bush took office, the number of documents classified annually has nearly doubled to 16-million and the number being declassified has markedly declined. The administration is even reclassifying documents that had been in the public domain in an attempt to put historical information that might be uncomfortable for intelligence agencies indefinitely out of reach.
Now the administration is dusting off of a 90-year-old espionage law to threaten government whistle-blowers who share and reporters who obtain classified information. By broadly interpreting the law as a type of official secrets act, the administration is claiming that anyone who provides or receives top secret information can be prosecuted.
Undoubtedly, this is a response to the revelations over the National Security Agency's program of spying on Americans without a warrant and other embarrassing leaks. But it is a stunning and dangerous overreaction. To understand the danger, had this interpretation of the law been utilized during the Vietnam War, every news outlet to which Daniel Ellsberg sent the Pentagon Papers could have been charged with espionage.
Open government is under attack not only in Washington but in state capitals, including Tallahassee. During the current legislative session, there will be dozens of efforts to remove certain categories of information from Florida's strong sunshine laws. It happens every year, with the Legislature to date exempting more than 1,000 categories of records.
Here are some of the worst bills on deck so far:
Thanks to a public records exemption that is up for renewal, the governor's office initially refused to release any details surrounding the $400,000 in state, county and city tax credits approved for the discredited defense contractor MZM Inc. This is the same company whose owner pleaded guilty to federal corruption charges after paying illegal bribes to California congressman Duke Cunningham. The tax credit has since been rescinded. Still, questions linger over how the company qualified for that pot of money.
SB 734, a Senate Commerce Committee bill, would re-enact the public records exemption granting confidentiality for records held by an economic development agency regarding the actions of a private company. This re-enactment certainly shouldn't pass if the public is barred from knowing about who gets what kind of tax incentives and why.
As court records make the transition from paper to electronic form there is the difficult task of determining what parts of case files should be made public and what parts are legally required to be held back. HB 1563, sponsored by Rep. Will Kendrick, D-Carrabelle, would transfer the responsibility for making that judgment from the government to the person who files the court records. The filers would be free to hold back any material they thought was exempted from public disclosure.
The proposal would turn our public records policy on its head by presuming privacy rather than public access. The bill is being pushed by local court clerks as a way to shift responsibility for records management. It should not pass.
A measure that would exempt all personal identifying information of people applying for a concealed weapons permit is being sponsored by Rep. Sandy Adams, R-Oviedo, and Sen. Mike Haridopolos, R-Melbourne. SB 1162 and HB 687 would prevent, for example, the victim of domestic violence from finding out whether their estranged spouse has applied to carry a concealed weapon. It would prevent employers from knowing whether an employee has such a license and might be bringing a firearm to work. There are times when public safety outweighs personal privacy and this is one of those times.
Private companies leasing a public hospital would not be subject to the state's public records laws if Rep. Joe Pickens, R-Palatka, and Sen. Jeff Atwater, R-North Palm Beach, have their way. They have sponsored HB 675 and SB 1190, respectively, which would remove these taxpayer-funded resources from broad public scrutiny and oversight once they are under private management.
There are plenty of other examples of bills that would hide vital information and hobble the press in its role as a watchdog for the public. And then there are the many shell bills filed as mere placeholders for proposed records exemptions to come.
When government operates in the open it is far more likely to act in the public interest than on behalf of special interests. Sunshine Sunday recognizes that a transparent government is an accountable one and citizens who are kept informed are more likely to make responsible choices at the polls.
Maybe that is why the Bush administration in Washington and the legislators in Tallahassee are so intent on keeping the press and the public in the dark.