A sign of things to come? Citing terrorism concerns for witholding public records requests.
Texas - In 2010, concerned about perceived inequities among the Birdville school district's three high schools, a local resident asked to look at blueprints of one school's athletic area. But administrators for the Tarrant County district refused to release the information, which until recently had been posted on its website.
The reason: terrorism.
The building plans "detail particular vulnerabilities of the high school's athletic area to a terrorist attack," such as the location of "fire alarms, sprinklers, electrical outlets, entrances, dimension of walls, and switch boxes," stated a letter filed with the state attorney general's office, which decides open records disputes in Texas. The drawings could "provide potential killers with the outline of their attack."
In July 2010, the attorney general agreed with Birdville, and the athletic center's blueprints stayed secret.
Today is the start of Sunshine Week, an annual celebration and discussion of open government sponsored by the American Society of News Editors. "Though created by journalists, Sunshine Week is about the public's right to know what its government is doing, and why," the event's website explains.
Texas open records advocates say that over the years, legislators have modified the 19-year-old Public Information Act to restrict the public's access to information.
"Every session they change the law a little bit, and almost always, it's adding on more exceptions or making the law more complicated," said William Christian, who has focused on state media law for a decade, including in front of the Texas Supreme Court. He represents the American-Statesman in open records cases.
Public access to information has also been narrowed by application of the state's Homeland Security Act. Though not technically part of open records laws, it can be cited under a catch-all exception that permits the government to withhold information "considered to be confidential by law."
The 2003 security statute was written to restrict access to security-related details to prevent terrorist attacks. But an American-Statesman review shows it has been applied broadly to withhold a wide range of information. In recent years, government lawyers have argued that the law shields diagrams of school classrooms, drawings of underground rock formations and pictures of the outside walls of the Governor's Mansion.
http://www.statesman.com/news/texas-politics/latitude-widens-for-withholding-records-2230405.html
Public records expose wrongs.
Government at every level resists disclosure. If you can track government activities, you can ask tough questions. That's a hard sell for people in power. It's no surprise that there are always reasons to keep public records and data out of the hands of the press and the public. After 9/11, governments routinely turned down records, requests citing national security.
Today, there's a different mantra: the need to protect personal privacy. "In an alarming number of states, efforts have been launched to take data that has long been public and either make it private, or severely restrict what is available," said Mark Horvit, executive director of Investigative Reporters and Editors. "Too often these efforts are portrayed as protecting individual privacy, but they often do more to protect the agencies holding the data."
Do you want to know what kind of deal your state is making to attract new businesses? Proposed legislation in Tennessee would keep the identity of the business owners secret until after the state commits to tax breaks and incentives.
Want to know how courts are handling lawsuits? Judges too often seal all records and make the outcomes secret, according to the Judicial Conference.
Would you like to know how responsive 911 operators are in dealing with emergencies? There have been efforts nationwide to make 911 recordings secret, including a California bill inspired by a call for aid for actress Demi Moore. A Los Angeles Times columnist pointed out that the recording showed jurisdictional confusion, a delayed response and a "churlish" response by a 911 operator.http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/forum/story/2012-03-13/sunshine-week-public-records-journalism/53501270/1