Four States Propose Restrictions to 911 Call Recordings

In a troublesome shift away from transparency, Alabama, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Florida are proposing legislation to limit the media's access to 911 call recordings.

Alabama calls for all emergency recordings to be private and exempt from freedom of information laws unless a court order issues, although transcripts could be available.

Ohio would restrict 911 recordings, banning public access to recordings while allowing transcripts to be read on air. Ohio would levy monetary fines of $10,000 for violations by media outlets.

Wisconsin would keep all audio recordings confidential and would make transcripts available upon request. A proposed amendment would allow the media to inspect, but not copy or disseminate transcripts.

Florida would make audio recordings confidential unless obtained by court order, and would only release transcripts after 60 days.

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Three States Weigh Keeping 911 Calls from Public

Alabama, Ohio and Wisconsin lawmakers have proposed barring the release of 911 calls, citing privacy concerns and a potential chilling effect on people's willingness to call 911 for fear of the call being broadcast later.

Open government advocates disagree, arguing that the calls should be public as they can aid public safety and news organizations should be able to air the calls on a case-by-case basis.

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EPA Database Reveals Tainted Water in Schools

The Charleston Daily Mail reports that an Associated Press investigation of water in schools revealed thousands of schools across the nation with unsafe levels of  lead, pesticides and dozens of other toxins.

"The AP analyzed an EPA database showing federal drinking water violations from 1998 to 2008 in schools with their own water supplies. The findings:

Water in about 100 school districts and 2,250 schools breached federal safety standards.

Those schools and districts racked up more than 5,550 separate violations. In 2008, the EPA recorded 577 violations, up from 59 in 1998 - an increase that officials attribute mainly to tougher rules.

California, which has the most schools of any state, also recorded the most violations with 612, followed by Ohio (451), Maine (417), Connecticut (318) and Indiana (289).

Nearly half the violators in California were repeat offenders. One elementary school in Tulare County, in the farm country of the Central Valley, broke safe-water laws 20 times.

The most frequently cited contaminant was coliform bacteria, followed by lead and copper, arsenic and nitrates."

Get the complete report here.

Attorney-client privilege wins records case

The Ohio Supreme Court agreed with the Toledo-Lucas County Port Authority, which argued that investigative reports prepared for public agencies by private lawyers are not public record, The Columbus Dispatch reported.

In a setback for advocates of public records, the Ohio Supreme Court ruled today that reports by private attorneys for government agencies are not public records.

The court's unanimous ruling came in a sordid case out of Toledo. That city's newspaper, The Blade, filed a public-records request for an investigative report by a private attorney for the Toledo-Lucas County Port Authority that looked into an extramarital relationship between the president of the port authority and a lobbyist who did business with the authority.

The authority's private lawyer prepared a report investigating the matter and turned it over to the authority's board, which fired the wayward official.

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Sun isn't shining brightly in Midwestern states

In honor of Sunshine Week, the Citizen Advocacy Center released a study on open-government laws in Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota. The research shows that open-government laws are "sporadically enforced," training for state employees on these policies is poor, and citizens are not provided with opportunities to participate rather than just attend meetings. Reports are available for each of the five states on the Midwest Democracy Network Web site, linked below.

While every state in the nation has laws that require public access to government records and meetings, in five Midwestern states that were recently analyzed, documents are often kept secret and doors can remain tightly closed.

According to a study released Wednesday by the Citizen Advocacy Center in celebration of Sunshine Week (March 15-21), open government laws in Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota have systemic barriers that chill public participation and access to government, which weakens our democratic system designed to be by, for and of the people.

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Individual emergency response records kept private in Ohio

A 1992 Ohio law that overhauled its emergency reporting system also made data on individual fire department's response times private. Response times for medical emergencies now are only reported by county.

You are far more likely to need an ambulance than a firetruck.

But Ohio won't let you see the records that show how fast the paramedics in your community respond to calls.

Since 2002, the Ohio Emergency Medical Services agency has kept track of response time for each medical emergency in the state. But the agency issues a report card only for each county, not for each fire department.

That's because state lawmakers decided to keep individual departments' records -- not just individual patients' records -- from the public eye.

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Lawsuit could have deleted e-mails recovered by a forensic computer expert

Editor-in-chief of The Toledo (Ohio) Blade, which requested e-mail records of Seneca County commissioners, says this is "the most important [public records] case in the last 20 years." The ruling could determine whether the court will fight against officials deleting e-mails.

The Ohio Supreme Court on Tuesday grappled with the realities of the computer age as it weighed the question of when a “deleted” public record becomes a “destroyed” public record.

At issue is a lawsuit by The Blade seeking to force the Seneca County commissioners to hire a forensic computer expert at county expense to recover deleted e-mails from an 18-month period, some of which the newspaper contends may contain illegal private communications related to the proposed razing of the county’s historic courthouse.

“We’re talking about a very finite amount of time here, and we’re talking about e-mails from two or three people to one another,” said Justice Maureen O’Connor. “It just doesn’t seem to me to be that overwhelmingly burdensome or such a huge task here for the county to not even attempt to comply.”

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Ohio: New Site to Put Records Online

COLUMBUS – The Buckeye Institute today announced its Center for Transparent and Accountable Government. The center, led by former Statehouse reporter Mike Maurer, will collect and post online state and local government budgets, employee contracts, public records policies and other information.

"Transparency and open government crosses ideologies and is equally supported, and equally opposed, by both major political parties," said Maurer. "The Coburn-Obama bill, of which both Senators Barack Obama and John McCain were initial sponsors, requires federal government contracts to be posted at USAspending.gov. Ohioans deserve the same type of transparency from their state and local governments."

The center's first two initiatives include a candidate transparency pledge and an open government "wiki" Web page.

A Pledge for Transparency and Accountability in Government will be distributed to all candidates for elective office, at all levels of government, from townships and school districts to the General Assembly. It asks that candidates acknowledge the importance of Internet availability, the legal basis of transparency in the state and federal constitutions, and the use of practical, current technology, such as searchable databases and relevant cross links.

The pledge is attached to a White Paper on Transparency published as a Buckeye Institute Policy Brief, describing state and private efforts to make budgets, checkbooks, contracts and awards, and a wide array of government data easily accessible. The report is available online at www.buckeyeinstitute.org.

OhioSunshine.org, a publicly editable "wiki" Web site, is available to all citizens and can be edited by local activists across the state. The site is dedicated to open government, and it will allow citizens to monitor how well state and local governments provide information to the public.

"We like to say that there are 11 million pairs of eyes to ensure good government in Ohio," said Maurer. "While many of our government officials deserve credit for working to provide government data the way it must be provided today, over the Internet, the fact is that Ohio is behind its peers in government transparency."

Examples of state governments that are doing a better job than Ohio include the state of Alaska, which has its entire checkbook online, and the state of West Virginia, which has its entire public employee payroll online.

Buckeye Institute President David Hansen said that open, easily available information is essential to good government.

"The legitimacy of Ohio government rests on the consent of the governed, but that consent doesn't mean much when so much of government occurs hidden, or deeply buried," Hansen said. "Twenty-First Century information technology should be applied to draw back the curtain that stands between government and the people."

The Buckeye Institute for Public Policy Solutions is a nonpartisan research and educational institute devoted to individual liberty, economic freedom, personal responsibility and limited government in Ohio.

Interesting Foster Care Case in Ohio...

Is this case about protecting children from dangerous people, or about protecting the foster care system from scrutiny? I'm asking...

Attorneys argued before the Ohio Supreme Court Tuesday whether the names and addresses of foster care parents should be public record.

John C. Greiner, a Cincinnati lawyer representing the Enquirer, said, “We are not asking for the names of any children.”

Enquirer reporter Gregory Korte made a public records request shortly after the August 2006 death of 3-year-old Marcus Fiesel, seeking an electronic database of all foster homes in Ohio.

Marcus died after his foster parents left him tied up in a closet while they took a weekend trip to Kentucky. Liz and David Carroll Jr. were later convicted in the boy’s murder.

The Enquirer reported in March that Hamilton County court officials discovered 27 foster parents had arrest records.

Greiner said the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services made a policy decision – not legal decision – to withhold foster license records, effectively daring the Enquirer to file a lawsuit.

He said the newspaper never sought the names of foster children, so would not have placed them in danger.

But Assistant Attorney General Henry G. Appel, in defense of the state, said, “This case is about protecting vulnerable children against dangerous people.”

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Ohio Gun Permits: Yours to Memorize

Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann sided with law enforcement and concealed-carry gun advocates in an opinion prohibiting journalists from writing down, or in any way recording, the names of gun owners kept by county sheriffs.

Ohio law allows reporters to inspect records of concealed-carry permit-holders but prohibits them from obtaining copies of the records.

The attorney general opinion stated the ban on copying the records extends to a journalist walking out of a county sheriff's office with anything other than what he's committed to memory.

The legal opinion by the state's top law enforcement officer was recently issued after a request by the Trumbull County prosecutor for clarification of last year's change in the state's public records law to prevent a reporter from copying data on the issuance of permits to carry hidden handguns. "Because the only actions a journalist may take with respect to the names, counties of residence, and dates of birth described [in the law] is to see such information, we read the prohibition against a journalist's copying such information as applying to the reproduction of the viewed information by any means, including those you specifically mention - hand-copying, handwritten notes, and dictation," Mr. Dann wrote in a letter to the prosecutor.

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Ohio Supremes Protect Privacy of Drunk Drivers...All of 'Em.

The Ohio Supreme Court has rejected a newspaper's effort to get the names of all Ohioans convicted of drunken driving.

The court, without comment, voted 7-0 on Oct. 24 to dismiss a lawsuit filed by The Cincinnati Enquirer.

The state contended that the identities were protected by state and federal privacy laws.

The lawsuit followed a newspaper analysis in which the Enquirer reported finding nearly 36,000 drivers with five or more drunken-driving convictions in Ohio.

But state officials refused to provide access to the names in a database of records dating to 1973. Ohio Department of Public Safety Director Henry Guzman filed a motion to dismiss the newspaper's lawsuit, and the court agreed.

Jack Greiner, a Cincinnati attorney representing the Enquirer, called it disappointing that the Supreme Court dismissed the case without oral arguments or full legal briefs.

The Enquirer reported Oct. 24 that "the case raised a novel question concerning the interplay between federal law and the Ohio Open Records Act." The newspaper quoted Greiner as saying, “It is hard to imagine that Congress intended for the federal Drivers Privacy Protection Act to shield the identity of repeat DUI offenders. But that is the effect of today’s ruling.”

Assistant Attorney General William J. Cole, representing Guzman, said that the Enquirer could request driver information from each of Ohio’s 88 counties individually, the newspaper reported. The Enquirer has said such a project would take too long to be feasible.

More here.