Make Public Information Free and Online From Its Creation

"The test of right-to-know laws is the accessibility to the information that public officials don't want to give you," writes J.H. Snider in an opinion piece for The Washington Post.

Snider details the difficulties and struggles he's encountered trying to obtain public information from officials in Maryland.

He argues the state should adopt legislation that makes information online and free to the public from the moment of its creation. He also suggests document creation be separated from control. "Until now, the only practical option was to give the foxes control of the chicken coop; that is, creators of public records also had control of access to them," writes Snider. "But with the advent of the Internet, this argument no longer holds." An independent body could be used to archive and post materials online, suggests Snider.

What a "Presumption of Openness" Means

The Janesville Gazette in Wisconsin reports it battled with the Rock County corporate counsel, Jeff Kuglitsch, to obtain documents related to the resignation of former Human Resources Director John Becker. Yet it took the newspaper two months and four letters to obtain the documents, which were sitting in Kuglitsch's office the whole time.

Attorney Robert Dreps with the Wisconsin Newspaper Association was outraged when he learned of the tactics used to respond to the newspaper's records request, calling them "semantics" and noting, "Open records law provisions aren't determined by where you put the document or what you call it."

For his part, Kuglitsch maintains he followed the law.

Pennsylvania Enjoys Signal Improvement on its Right-to-Know Law Anniversary

As the one-year anniversary of Pennsylvania's Right-to-Know Law approaches, open records advocates are hailing the improvements the Commonwealth has made under the new law.

The new law provides a first-stage appeal with the taxpayer-funded open records office, whose lawyers issue binding opinions. It also established a new presumption in the law that almost all records are open unless the government proves otherwise.

While the improvements are being praised, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette notes there have also been criticism of some rulings the office acknowledged as mistakes, tensions with the Governor's administration, budget cut fears, and concerns that the new process is bogging down instead of speeding up the process.

Learn more here.

S.D. sees open-government legislation as first step

An editorial that ran in the Argus Leader praised the South Dakota bill that presumes records are open to the public. The bill passed the Legislature and is expected to be signed by the governor. For the future, the paper writes, "However, it should concern all of us that the price for getting this bill passed appears to have been a blanket exception for all officeholders, allowing all correspondence and work documents, even their appointment calendars, to remain closed to the public. Despite the challenges in the new law, though, it's important to remember that this was a key first step."

Let's make at least one thing clear.

The open records bill that passed the Legislature is historic.

It's a major step forward for South Dakota that should be celebrated.

More here.