John Phillips wrote:
> An Open Records Act
or an Open Meetings Act is a sword that can cut many ways. And WE could
be
the ones that pay for it with (ironically) less effective and efficient
government actions and deliberations.

One important point is to distinguish between records which are (in the
parlance of our state) "exempt from disclosure", and those that are not.
Exemptions are generally developed as part of the legislative process by
elected representatives. I have no problem with that, and believe such
records should not be released to the public. Those exemptions are
ideally developed in an open legislative process. Many states, for
example, have exactly such exemptions in place for the kind of "private"
deliberations John cites. What should not happen, however, are arbitrary
barriers to records that are not exempt from disclosure, erected by
members of an unelected bureaucracy. Most of the so called "harassing"
requests have nothing to do with whether a record is exempt or not.

In addition, there are also legitimate concerns about access to details
of interest to identity thieves. This is one of the reasons why many
public records - otherwise open to public access - are not readily
available on the internet. To be honest, this is still an area where the
technical capability is far outpacing policy tools.

Regarding news organizations, I often find representatives of such
organizations are more concerned with "special access" to otherwise
exempt personal information. I'm also opposed to that.

A proper public access law in my opinion (1) respects privacy; (2)
starts with an assumption that all records are open; (3) builds
exemptions to that openness via an open legislative process; and (4)
supports the development of systems to deliver on these commitments. In
my opinion, the waste is not related to the nature of the requests or
the requestor; the waste is due to a failure to meet these 4 parameters.
The problem I have with trying to control the occasional harasser is
that its not going to be possible without stifling legitimate access.
Its kind of like saying some folks kill people with guns, therefore we
have to severely limit all private use of guns. 

Dwight Wallis, CRM
Records Administrator
Multnomah County Fleet, Records, Electronics, Distribution and Stores
(FREDS)
1620 S.E. 190th Avenue
Portland, OR 97233
Phone: (503)988-3741
Fax: (503)988-3754
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