i L i n d . n e t

The Coalition of Journalists for Open Government has weighed in with a long letter opposing a proposal by a committee of the American Bar Association that would close a significant number of court records to public inspection. The Coalition’s web site is, more generally, a good source of information on freedom of information issues. I was not familiar with their site and it has been a treat to browse.

Searching for their web site also led me to others, including the Washington Coalition for Open Government, the Virginia Coalition for Open Government, and OpentheGovernment.org. Lots of good stuff out floating around in cyberspace.

If you’ve been staying on top of the news about the Minneapolis bridge disaster, here’s a collection of bridge information resources to keep you busy. And here’s a UPI commentary that puts infrastructure repair costs in the context of our current wars.

Doug White over at Poinography.com has been all hot and bothered about the confidentiality debate over at the Honolulu City Council triggered by Councilmember Djou’s answers to reporters questions following a council executive session. I have to say that I disagree pretty strongly with Doug’s “chaos is coming” approach to this issue. Put simply, it is clear that not everything discussed in an executive session needs to be confidential or should be confidential.

I dislike Djou’s tax phobia as a public policy matter, but in this instance I support his willingness to answer questions of the press and the public. While it creates an internal political problem that he’ll have to deal with within the council, it’s hard to see that the public interest could have been harmed by the kinds of information he provided at the time.

I’ve been at this long enough to have seen executive sessions used many times to keep information confidential that should have been public, past practices which have forced many attempts to amend the law both to close loopholes and prevent abuse of the “executive session” privilege. Sometimes this discussion of nonconfidential matters may be unintentional, other times clearly planned. But while that pro forma vote to go into executive session makes the public disclosure of information discretionary rather than mandatory, it is not, and should not be considered, a vote to mark everything discussed as “Top Secret”.

Can it really be Friday again so soon? The calendar doesn’t lie, so here’s another batch of Friday Felines, led by Ms. Kitten, now with the promise of a good home but still searching for the right name. Just click on her photo to see a few other of our Kaaawa cats.