GRAMA getting run over by fear of transparency

BY NATE CARLISLE
The Salt Lake Tribune

First published Mar 06 2011 08:52PM
Updated Mar 6, 2011 10:52PM


Chip Stewart is 950 miles from the nearest Utah town, but he still weighed in on a bill that would restrict access to Utah records.

“Let’s be real,” Stewart, a media law professor at Texas Christian University, said in a Tweet on Saturday, “what’s happening in Utah is more of a threat to democracy than anything in Wisconsin or under Obama; we must be transparent!”

Criticism of the bill spread beyond Utah over the weekend as open-government experts elsewhere took notice. Law schools and journalism schools often have faculty members who study government transparency and laws like the federal Freedom of Information Act, as well as state statutes.

“Point after point, Utah’s record laws are going to be more backward than a Third World country’s,” David Cuillier, an associate professor of journalism at the University of Arizona, said Sunday. “That’s not hyperbole.”

More >>>

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/home/51374867-76/utah-government-records-law.html.csp

HB 477 is radical, new, irresponsible and a dangerous precedent just as redistricting--or Gerrymandering--is about to begin.

Sorry. Couldn't help it.

More links here:

http://www.cityweekly.net/utah/blog-5226-gov-herbert-veto-the-legislatures-secrecy-grab-in-.html

http://www.cityweekly.net/utah/blog-5227-tastes-like-tyranny.html

Video:

http://www.abc4.com/content/news/state/story/ABC-4-confronts-Governor-Herbert-about-plans-to/ZzH9r7d6p0qhAeKzLBWiMw.cspx

"The Utah bill, HB477, would prohibit the disclosure of text messages and instant messages, allow government agencies to charge fees that can include administrative and overhead costs and require requesters wanting records protected by the government to show with a preponderance of evidence the records should be released."

I believe it also keeps emails secret as well.

Cuillier pointed out that the Mexican Freedom of Information Act specifies that electronic records be public, greatly restricts what the government can charge for records and places the burden on the government to show why something should not be disclosed.

The Utah bill, HB477, would prohibit the disclosure of text messages and instant messages, allow government agencies to charge fees that can include administrative and overhead costs and require requesters wanting records protected by the government to show with a preponderance of evidence the records should be released.


Since 9-11 secrecy seems to be the way around the truth....

HB 477 was unveiled by its sponsor, Representative John Dougall, on Wednesday.

It keeps legislator's voice mails, instant messages, video chats and text messages hidden from the public.

It also might make other government documents harder for the public to obtain, as well as increasing the cost of obtaining them.

The public has the right to know what their employees are doing and saying
Otherwise no corporation has the right to know what their employees are doing

One part of the world is going in one direction, forward; liberty, transparency, freedoms.

Our part of the world seems to be going in the other direction, backward; repression, secrets, obstruction, exploitation.

Up is down, wrong is right, war is peace.