A county corrections officer in New York faces felony charges but officials won’t release any details, and delayed a month releasing the officer’s name. The reason for the secrecy? They said to protect the victim (see story). Interesting how the details of every other felon’s allegations are public (regardless of how it might or might not affect victims), but when someone from law enforcement is the suspect then details are cloaked. It’s almost as bad as secretly jailing people at Guantanamo Bay and arguing that the secrecy is needed to protect the privacy of those jailed. And if that isn’t bad enough, many journalists struggle with getting basic incident reports in a timely manner. The New Orleans Times-Picayune was so mad about it that they sued the police department over the long delays and reached a settlement (see story). If journalists don’t stand up and sue to make sure our criminal justice system remains open then we will have a secret police state.

Tennessee will have a stronger open records law, including setting a seven-day time limit to respond to a public records request and creation of a records ombudsman office. The bill, which awaits signing by the governor, improves access in Tennessee, according to Frank Gibson, executive director of the Tennessee Coalition for Open Government (see story and summary by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press). Pennsylvania also underwent major improvements in its public records law. It’s been a good year nationally, more or less, compared to the past 10 years, with more laws opening government instead of fostering secrecy.

A TV cameraman in Albuquerque was attacked, cuffed and cited by a police officer for allegedly not leaving a public street. The KOB-TV cameraman was covering a standoff Thursday and approached a blocked off area of the street. Police told him to go back so he drove back 20 yards. When the police officer was not satisfied with that he came over and restrained the cameraman. See the footage yourself. SPJ President Clint Brewer was quoted in the Albuquerque Journal Saturday as saying “The video is very painful to watch.” The police department is investigating the matter. The main issue appears to be whether the police were clear in their directions and whether it is legitimate for police to herd the media into a staging area far from the scene and prohibit people from being in a public street safely away from the action. True, journalists, like anyone else, should follow police orders at crime scenes for the safety of everyone, but after looking at the video and reading the police report (available at the Journal Web site), it seems to me that the young cop overstepped his bounds in wrangling with a TV cameraman when he should have been attending to his job.

Steven Aftergood, who writes the Secrecy News blog, posted news today of the Bush administration’s proposal to temporarily mark press releases as “controlled unclassified information” to prevent them from being released prematurely. This could be applied to press releases sent out with embargo times or dates. The press release then would be given all sorts of protections from disclosure. It could still be released early, the administration says, but only if a person files a Freedom of Information Act request to get it, which can take weeks or years to get results. Yet another example of how secrecy is out of control when the government starts making secret what it wants to make public. As with a lot of silly federal policies, I could see this trickling down to state and local governments. It already has: In the past few years in Phoenix, Ariz., the sheriff required a few newspapers he didn’t like to submit public records requests for press releases. All the more reason to ignore press releases and do our own reporting!

When big money rides on stock buy-sell decisions, people want to know as much as they can about companies. That need for information has pushed SEC records online thanks to a private company demanding the government comply with FOIA. A Minneapolis company called Disclosure Insight (www.disclosureinsight.com) has started posting on the Web thousands of SEC comment letters after suing the agency. See the letters by going to the Web site and clicking on the “Company Search” box at the top right corner. The SEC for years used blanket denials of legitimate records requests and provided little information online. It took the needs of the private sector to sue and pry the records loose. See a story in the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

Here’s a document-driven story idea that can now be done in California again, along with most other states: Rogue cops who beat the crap out of people.

Request from your police agencies the use-of-force reports or internal investigations regarding use of force, such as choke holds, mace, guns, and tasers. Create a database of the reports going back 10 years, including any settlements paid by tax dollars, and look for trends. Enter in your data the name of officers involved to see if a few cops are doing most of the beating. Now journalists in California can do that story againg because Attorney General Jerry Brown issued an opinion saying the names of police officers involved in critical incidents should be public (see story in the Orange County Register). Since 2006 police have blacked out officers’ names because of a bad court case (Copley Press v. Superior Court of San Diego). Brown said the Copley case allows police to release names of officers who are involved in serious incidents.

Granted, even if use-of-force records are public by law expect a tussle with a lot of agencies. Last winter a student of mine requested use-of-force records in Arizona and got only 57 percent of the state’s 107 law enforcement agencies to even respond, let alone provide the records (only 18 percent complied with the law). A 2006 college student project in Texas asking for taser incident reports from 254 agencies got responses from three-quarters of the agencies, finding taser-caused deaths and leading to legislative change (see story in the Fort Worth Weekly). So be persistent, keep at it and bring light to a dark problem!

Here’s a classic document-driven story that you  can do in your community: Request a list of employees from a government agency that does a lot of contracting with private companies, such as a city, state, or federal agency. Request the list for several years running. Then compare lists to see who have left the agency, and identify those who handled contracts for the agency or were in positions of authority. Then see where those folks are working to see if they are employed by companies they dealt with – and whether they facilitated deals to give tax dollars to the company. Get copies of the contracts they handled, with the official’s signature or memos supporting the deal. This is a conflict of interest because it creates two  issues: 1) while in government the official might have given the company a great deal in order to curry favor with the company for a sweetheart job, which hurts taxpayers, and 2) once the person is hired by the company the official might use his or her influence with the agency to get better deals, further hurting taxpayers.

So given ethics laws and government oversight, could this shady practice ever happen?  Yep. Check out a just-released GAO report (08-485) that found thousands of Department of Defense employees leaving their jobs to immediately work for major government contractors that they dealt with, including Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman. The GAO urges Congress to impose more oversight and transparency for preventing these questionable practices that hurt taxpayers. To conduct the study the GAO compared lists of former DOD employees to those employees’ U.S. income tax returns to see where they now work. Journalists don’t have access to income tax returns, so we have to work a little harder to find former officials now employed by contractors. But it can be done. In 1985 the Wall Street Journal found a former Air Force major who became a consultant for defense contractors who actually supplied classified information to the company. In 1988 the Los Angeles Times documented the corrupt relationships between officials and contractors following the Pentagon procurement scandal. This was a big story in the 1980s – a document-driven story that is an oldie but a goodie!

Embattled Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick is desperate because his lies have been exposed through public records. Now he wants to try to hide more by proclaiming all text messages sent on city equipment as secret. It’s a common tactic of our worst public officials, especially those who have a lot to hide. Just because they say something is secret doesn’t make it so. Check out the story of his edict by the Detroit Free Press, and the latest story today about the Michigan governor moving toward considering his forced removal from office.

Brookfield (Conn.) Police Chief Robin Montgomery acknowledged that he erred in keeping secret the arrest of a member of the Police Commission. The commissioner was arrested on a charge of second-degree harassment, but the fact of the arrest was kept secret. Last week the chief said police have “discretion” over the public release of information about arrests. Yes and no. Yes, police in Connecticut and most other states have some discretion over what particulars to release if some facts might hurt an ongoing investigation, but “no” on keeping it all secret; the basic facts of the arrest, and that an arrest took place, are public. On Wednesday Montgomery set it right, said he was in error, and released the arrest information. This is important for journalists to remember – don’t let police get away with blanket “under investigation” exemptions for releasing basic information, such as the place, time, general nature of the arrest, etc. And journalists should get more information, such as narratives, if those narratives would not harm the investigation. Check your state law for specifics. The cool thing about the story about this situation in The News-Times is that they quoted the law in a breakout box so people could see for themselves.

One of the great sessions at the National Freedom of Information Coalition conference in Philadelphia last weekend focused on comparing state public records law. Everyone always seems to think their public records law is the best or worst in the nation. A few studies have attempted to provide overall ratings, such as the 2002 report by Investigative Reporters and Editors and the Better Government Association, and the 2007 report by BGA and the National Freedom of Information Coalition. That’s great, but in reality it really depends on the part of the law.

The Marion Brechner Citizen Access Project at the University of Florida rates various aspects of state public records laws. Overall for all statutory provisions the best states are Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, Louisiana, Michigan, Illinois, Connecticut, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Indiana. The worst states are Nevada, Pennsylvania (at least until their new law goes into effect), Alabama, Maine, Arizona, both Dakotas, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, and Alaska.

But look at the pieces of the laws and you see a different picture. For example, Arizona rates dead last in the country as far as overall fees for getting public records, however, it ranks as the No. 1 state for fees to getting computerized records. Florida ranks at a lowly 45th for fees for computer records. So it can be difficult to generalize whether a state is great or terrible. It depends on the issue.

If you want to look at your state, piece by piece, check out the Citizen Access Project ratings online (easy to compare states), or the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press Open Government Guide. Then you can really get a good feel for where your state shines and where it needs light.