Opinion: Attack on public records

Between neophyte legislators who don't understand them and lobbyists who do only too well, Florida's open-government laws have never been in such peril as now. The First Amendment Foundation is tracking more than 130 bills dealing with public records or public meetings. A few are helpful, some are innocuous, but many are deeply threatening to the public's right to know what government is doing with their lives, their property and their trust.

One of the worst examples -- in an otherwise good cause -- is House Bill 1845, dealing with the criminal use of personal identification. This is meant as a crackdown on credit card fraud and other forms of identity theft, but it goes much too far. If enacted as carelessly written, it could be a second-degree misdemeanor just to ask for a government employee's personnel file. Fortunately, the Senate companion bill (CS/SB 254) focuses more precisely on the real problem: the fraudulent misuse of information from public records.

Inexperience isn't a plausible excuse, however, for SB 2170, which would prohibit the Insurance Department from releasing, even under court order, many of its records relating to insurance brokers. The sponsor is a very senior legislator, and the fingerprints of one of her favorite constituencies, the insurance industry, are all over this bill. A Senate staff report warns that the bill is "overly broad" and would seal much information now public. A worse precedent could not be imagined.

The doctors' lobby is trying yet again to seal adverse incident reports that physicians file with the Department of Health to disclose serious errors resulting in death, brain or spinal damage, or surgery on the wrong body part or wrong patient. These bills (SB 692, HB 1067) hide everything, not just the names of patients. If they pass, it will become even more difficult to detect state regulators covering up for errant physicians. The doctors' lobby says their reports should go into a top-secret file because those from hospitals already do, but the Legislature should be repealing the hospital exemption instead. Not to be outdone, the nursing home lobby wants an equivalent exemption (HB 1881) for its own risk-management and adverse incident reports. If only there were a vaccine for secrecy as there is for flu.

Florida's Constitution imposes a heavy presumption against any effort to close public meetings or public records. Ignorance is no excuse even for inexperienced legislators. All of them swore without reservation to uphold that Constitution. Now is the time for them to show that they meant it.

Back to Opinion

Contact the Times | Privacy Policy
Standard of Accuracy | Terms, Conditions & Copyright

From the Times
Opinion page