FOI Links: Teacher firings and a First Amendment summer
By April Dudash | August 10th, 2010
Archive for the ‘First Amendment’ Category
FOI Links: Iceland’s openness, Canada’s Supreme Court and oil in the Gulf
By April Dudash | June 18th, 2010
FOI Links of the Day 6.01.10
By April Dudash | June 1st, 2010
We hope you enjoyed your Memorial Day weekend! Now it’s time to catch up on some FOI news…
Utah SPJ hands out Sunshine, Black Hole awards
By Donald Meyers | March 24th, 2010
As part of last week’s observance of Sunshine Week, the Utah Headliners Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists recognized the best and the worst when it comes to open government.
The chapter gave its annual Sunshine Award to the Utah State Legislature for its Web site. The site allows the public to keep track of what its elected officials are doing. It contains text of bills that have been drafted, both the orignal amended versions. It also shows committee and floor votes for each bill. The site also provides streaming audio and video of the Legislature’s proceedings, as well as archived committee hearings and floor debates.
The chapter also recognizes those who try to stymie government transparency with the Black Hole awards. This year, the chapter honored three individuals for their efforts at keeping people in the dark.
Utah state Sen. John Valentine, ironically a past recipient of the Sunshine Award, received a Black Hole for his work on two bills establishing an independent ethics commission for the Legislature. One of the bills, Senate Bill 136, created an exemption to the Open and Public Meetings Act by allowing the ethics committee to close meetings without having an open meeting first to review ethics complaints. The other, Senate Bill 138, allows the Legislature to keep ethics complaints under wraps. Only a summary report could be released publicly. The ethics bills were the Legislature’s response to an ethics initiative that would have imposed a more transparent and stringent ethics code on the Legislature. Conducting ethics investigations behind closed doors and not disclosing much detail does little to inspire public confidence in the Legislature. Unfortunately, Utah Gov. Gary Herbert signed the bills into law.
The second Black Hole went to Utah state Rep. Kraig Powell, R-Heber, who proposed making public employees’ salaries private information. Under House Bill 266, only elected and appointed officials would have their salaries linked to their names. All other public employees would only be identified by job title and not name. Powell sponsored this legislation at the behest of Del Barney, Wasatch County’s payroll clerk. Barney said publishing public employees’ salaries was creating morale problems in offices. He specifically cited The Salt Lake Tribune’s open records Web site, Utah’s Right, that includes listings of public employee salaries. In an e-mail to an open-government advocate, Powell wondered if the Tribune would post its employees’ salaries online along with public employees. Powell forgot something important. Public employees work for the public, and the public has a right to know how their money is being spent. As anyone who has reviewed budgets knows, personnel costs are one of the biggest line items on a budget. Powell’s bill was sent to interim study.
The third Black Hole award went to Logan Mayor Randy Watts for his policy that the city would only respond to journalists through e-mail. Watts claimed the policy was needed to ensure that “information released to the media is accurate and timely and that all appropriate personnel have an opportunity to comment.” This is wrong for multiple reasons. First, it infringes on an employee’s free-speech rights by denying them the right to speak with a reporter seeking comment on matters of public concern. Second, it slows the flow of information. Waiting for someone to get an e-mail, write up a response and run it past the necessary parties eats up time. In the case of breaking news, it deprives the public of timely information. Finally, there is no guarantee that the information is coming from the person quoted. Most likely, it will be Watts’ spin on the news, depriving the public of an honest account of what is happening in various city departments.
Football coach calls paper theft ‘team building’
By Donald Meyers | March 2nd, 2010
It’s a common story. Student newspaper prints story about popular campus figure getting busted, and the suspect’s buddies/teammates/fraternity brothers/sorority sisters steal the press run to keep the rest of campus in the dark.
But what happened at Texas A&M-Commerce was much different. As The Battalion newspaper reported, when two football players,Stephen DeGrate and Dakota Burch, were videotaped stealing copies of the East Texan reporting a teammate’s arrest for a drug bust, head coach Guy Morris not only told police his players did it — but he praised them for doing it.
“I am proud of my players for doing that,” Morris said. “This was the best team building exercise we have ever done.”
The coach reportedly said that taking a free newspaper is not theft. But only the first issue was free — subsequent copies are 25 cents a piece. But the crime goes beyond the monetary value of the papers or the advertising inside each paper. It was an attempt to withhold information from people. It flies in the face of the First Amendment guarantees of press freedom, and it definitely runs counter to a university being a place where information and ideas can be freely exchanged.
It is even more appalling that Morris, who is supposed to be a mentor and a role model for his players, to be supporting an illegal act. Sports are supposed to teach people character, and that includes obeying laws and rules, as well as respecting other people’s rights.
Morris said that if the police pursue the case, he would likely be the first led out in handcuffs.
We can only hope.