Credit Gannett’s Honolulu Advertiser for following through with legal action to force the University of Hawaii to disclose the list of those who traveled to the Sugar Bowl at public expense.
UH did belatedly respond, but the list actually released fell short of full disclosure, with 45 names (over 8 % of the total) blacked out or left off. According to articles today in the Advertiser and the Star-Bulletin, 45 people left off the list were UH staff and family members represented by the Hawaii Government Employees Association. The university contends the release of their names would be “a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.”
Hmmm. It’s important to understand that this is a pretty high standard to meet. Simply being an invasion of personal privacy is not enough to justify withholding. Even a potentially unwarranted invasion of privacy doesn’t trigger these protections. This standard is even higher, requiring something to be “a clearly unwarranted invasion of privacy” before it’s legal to declare the information confidential and not subject to public disclosure.
Okay, then, what kind of things fall in this “clearly unwarranted” category?
Hawaii’s law governing the handling of such information, known as the Uniform Information Practices Act (Modified), Chapter 92F HRS, provides substantial guidance for interpreting the “clearly unwarranted” standard . The presumption of privacy is reserved for things like medical or psychiatric records or histories, records from investigations of possible crimes, welfare files or applications, personal financial records, job applications, etc. And even these types of normally private records are still subject to disclosure “if the public interest in disclosure outweighs the privacy interests of the individual.”
You can click here to read the section of the statute dealing with personal privacy.
In this case, however, we aren’t talking about the medical records of UH employees, their psychiatric histories, whether or not they ever had a sexually transmitted disease, or used birth control, had an abortion, or faced allegations of on the job misconduct. We’re merely talking about disclosing the names of those who traveled to the Sugar Bowl game at our expense. How can that possibly be equated with the disclosure of medical records and such?
Then there’s the attempt by UH to further circumvent the law by allowing employees to reimburse the UH for their Sugar Bowl travel in order to keep their names off the list. Six people reportedly chose this option. The problem with this is that it actually creates additional public records subject to disclosure. There are the original travel records showing who was part of the official UH delegation or who traveled on the planes chartered at UH expense. And now there would be another set of records, the receipt of their repayments which also government records subject to disclosure. So the UH-HGEA smart aleck response actually digs them deeper into the hole and opens the door for additional disclosures.
Attorney Jeff Portnoy should be able to deal UH another embarrassing legal defeat in this case.
Interestingly, neither the list nor a press release are available on the UH web site today. Nothing on the UH Manoa website, nothing in the list of current UH news. And although the UH news archive includes three other press releases dated yesterday, there’s nothing regarding the disputed travel records.
And so it goes on this Saturday morning.
3 responses so far ↓
1 Andy Parx // May 24, 2008 at 10:41 am
The abuse of the 92F UIPA “privacy” provisions has certainly reached a new low- smart alecky is being too kind. I expect their court argument to be “well everyone else was doing it”… and here I thought we were talking about the college but they sure act like they’re in high school..
The Attorney General refuses to enforce OIP opinions for the 92- the Sunshine law- as the law states (s)he must (92-12). And with 92F it’s justice for those who can afford to pay for it in Circuit Court. That’s why Hawai`i is rated at the top of states as far as the actual laws themselves but near the bottom in effectiveness and enforcement of our open meetings and records laws.
2 stevelaudig // May 25, 2008 at 11:45 pm
It seems to me that only if the individual whose name is being kept secret has, on their own, kept it secret that they went to the game on the public tit then might it actually been considered an “unwarranted invasion of privacy”. Let’s visualize the process here. I’m a UH employee. I hear there’s a shot at milking the public of some value to go to a football game 8,000 miles from Honolulu over the Holidays. There must have been an application process. I apply. If I don’t tell anyone that I applied then I am acting as if it were a “private” matter. If I get approved and I don’t tell anyone that I was approved for travel then I am acting as if it were a private matter. If I travel in disguise then I am acting as if it were a private matter. If I attend the game in disguise then I am acting as if it were a private matter. If I stay in the hotel under an assumed name then I am acting as if it were a private matter. All right I’m getting a bit long here but… does anyone think the people who got the freebies acted as if it were a “private” matter? The only part they want of the whole transaction kept private is that they were milking the taxpayer. All the rest of the transaction was quite public and they have waived any argument that they wanted it private. They had 50,000 witnesses [or however many fans there were] they were probably on television. Arguing it was private is pure shysterism. The Courts not only should not allow such an argument to prevail but should punish any party making it. Sheesh I’ll bet some bragged about how they got UH to pay for the trip. That’s hardly wanting to keep it private.
3 stevelaudig // May 26, 2008 at 3:11 am
here’s an add on thought. post the expurgated version and have a contest to see if the names can be filled in correctly. one can almost always count on a disgruntled [ex]employee to be able to fill in the blanks. Or it might be some unsuccessful applicant for a place in the trough in the first place. Someone knows the names on the list and your site could be the place where the names are known. I don’t see any defamation liability as no one is being accused of a legal wrong. but if someone is “nominated” they could always be asked to confirm/deny.
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