It's time to stand against the government's secrecy
It's time to stand against the government's secrecy Contra Costa Times Article Launched: 01/27/2008 08:13:19 PM PST EVERY PUBLIC Records Act request filed in California is a test. understand the law and their duty as a public servant? Inserted from <http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_8095723?nclick_check=1>
Want to know your local government's commitment to transparency? Go ask for something that you have a right to see: A worker's salary. A dog license. A building inspector's report. A letter to or from the mayor.
What happened? Were you simply told no?
Were you told your request was burdensome?
Were you asked why you wanted it?
Were you asked to fill out a form?
Did it take an unreasonable amount of time?
Did someone in a powerful government position tell you that complying with the law to allow you to review records simply isn't their job?
Did they tell you that you asked for too much information?
If you asked for "all" of something -- say "all" letters to a mayor or a supervisor -- were you asked to narrow your request to a specific letter?
Did someone in the government ask for an extension of time when all you did was ask to look at some papers?
Was the document you were shown pocked with the black smudges of a censor's pen?
Did you get a letter that began, say, by stating that "transparency is paramount" to so and so government agency but then listed a bunch of excuses why your request can't be fulfilled?
Could you simply not shake the sense that you got jerked around, that you encountered a concerted effort to do everything other than give you what you asked for?
Did you get the sense that the person to whom you made the request, at best, didn't
Did someone in the government tell you that if you don't like their answer, go ahead and sue them?
If you had to assign a grade to the experience, would it be anything less than the "A" that we should all demand of government at any level?
Welcome to the reality of requesting public records in this state, a reality that exists despite overwhelming laws and conditional rights that demand disclosure.
More than three years after voters amended the state constitution by passing Proposition 59 to require that government bureaucrats take the broadest possible view of disclosing public records on a request-by-request basis, too many of those requests still result in failing grades.
The question for 2008 is, What are we going to do about it?
The time for timidity about government access has long passed. Those who continue to counsel conciliation in the face of government recalcitrance, no matter how well intended, are enabling an unresponsive government.
It is not an overstatement to say that it is the duty of both journalists and ordinary residents of this state to aggressively confront and challenge the governmental roadblocks to public information.
It is here where the words of Ronald Reagan come to mind: Trust but verify.
What, then, are we supposed to do when the bureaucrats tell us to trust them but block the path to verification?
I keep on my desk a copy of a book published in 2000 titled "In Search of Deep Throat -- The Greatest Political Mystery of Our Time." It was written by Leonard Garment, who succeeded John Dean as White House counsel under Richard Nixon and escaped the disgrace of Watergate.
In the book, Garment misidentifies a Nixon aide, John Sears, as the secret Washington Post source "Deep Throat." We now know Deep Throat was FBI Agent Mark Felt. But despite that error, Garment's writings on the lessons of Watergate still hold value, and I am often drawn to a passage on Page 250 in which he offers a pretty darned good definition of news:
"It is assumed that the most important -- and thus the most newsworthy -- things that happen in public and corporate life are kept secret because, if known, they would damage powerful people.
"Thus, what is newsworthy about an organization, almost by definition, is whatever the organization wants to hide."
"It follows in this view," Garment continues, "that a good reporter is one who is one who has an adversarial relationship with whatever people or organizations he or she is covering."
Garment's words no longer apply only to journalists. They are appropriate, really, to anyone who intersects with government, wants information and encounters impediments -- impediments that should not exist.
The only answer is to fight back. A government that is not subordinate to the people is a government of tyranny.
Voters didn't pass Prop. 59 for it to be ignored or parsed to bits by government lawyers bent on maintaining secrecy.
They passed it because the government -- and the government's information -- belongs to them.
More than three years later, too many failing grades remain. Timidity in response to tyranny is no response at all.
The time to fight -- to, in Garment's words, pursue adversarial relations with power -- is long overdue.
Peele is a Times investigative reporter and the winner of numerous awards for reporting on freedom of information issues. The Watchdog appears monthly. He invites reader questions and comments on public records and government access issues. Reach him at tpeele@bayareanewsgroup.com.
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