Editorial reaction: 'a disturbing trend' among public officials

Here are excerpts from newspaper editorials in response to the Arizona public records access audit organized by Associated Press Managing Editors:

Tucson Citizen

Open government is such a fundamental key to the success of our republic that it's a wonder so many still question its value. Those who understand that value must be vigilant and persistent.

Fight for more access to public records. Vote against politicians who try to shield their actions and those of others from public view.

Government is for the people: the people who pay for it, not those who run it. ...

Even the Arizona attorney general has no authority to enforce public records laws. "You have to sue to get enforcement," a spokeswoman for the office said.

Unfortunately, most people can't afford to hire lawyers to take their requests to court. And that leaves government agencies more prone to defy the law.

Several states have enacted laws to make it easier, and cheaper, to get public records. Arizona should follow that lead.

The Sun, Yuma

We are deeply concerned about the resistance of any law enforcement agency to providing full public access to its records since it holds the potential to hide abuse of its power. Such a policy also risks damaging the public's confidence in the agencies.

Unfortunately, the Arizona Attorney General's office does not seem to have any particular interest in enforcing our state's Public Records Law, preferring to let the public fight its own battles. Apparently the AG's office does not understand that protecting the public's rights is its highest priority and responsibility.

Similar public access audits in some other parts of the country have resulted in strengthened laws to guarantee the public's access to their records and to enforce requirements that they be provided. We hope this audit will increase awareness of the problem we have in Arizona so something can be done about it.

Sierra Vista Herald

While government has the right to withhold some information, such as the name of a confidential informant in a police investigation and a few other privacy-related circumstances, we believe that the more open government and government records are, the better served the people.

When information is kept from the public, the sense of distrust grows and the fabric of our democracy slowly begins to unravel.

Too often politicians and government bureaucrats wrap themselves in the veil of privacy refusing to disclose the information the people must have in order to make quality, informed decisions about public policy and how to cast their votes. ...

We look to the Arizona Legislature to defend and protect our right to good, open government. And we encourage the people of Arizona to demand politicians and bureaucrats understand it is our government, first and always.

East Valley Tribune

Safford Police Chief Dennis Thompson nicely summed up reluctance among police departments to release public records. He told the Associated Press that it stems from their mistrust of journalists.

"We have a feeling that the news media is out to rip us," said Thompson, as reported in Tuesday's Tribune. "They are trying to find fault."

What a terrible thing that would be, to find fault. It's as if the media, which turn over their findings to the public, the taxpayers, the bosses of all public employees from the president on down, shouldn't have the right to evaluate public officials. ...

Police officers who sign on to the public payroll should recognize that it's their boss walking in that door asking for public records he or she paid for. This may be "any person" — even those who might find fault.

It's the law.

Casa Grande Dispatch

A disturbing trend involves some cases where government agencies seek to beat requesters to the punch by suing them first. By doing so, they hope judges will not require them to pay attorney fees if they are in the wrong in refusing records requests. An assistant city attorney in Tucson recommended this tactic at an Arizona League of Cities and Towns seminar just last fall.

With the explosion of use of the Internet and other sophisticated data-handling methods, there is widespread fear of loss of privacy. The state must make a clear distinction, however, between protecting personal privacy and matters that are public in nature.

Along with the records law, Arizona has an even better one to guarantee that public bodies act in public. The open meetings law has been strengthened over the years and now gives the state attorney general and county attorneys powers to ensure that public bodies comply.

In light of the results of the audit, a new effort is needed by all agencies to ensure that they obey the public records law. The Legislature should consider ways to strengthen it and see that it is followed, not ways to weaken it.

The Arizona Republic

The investigation reveals an extraordinary tension building between government agencies and the public, including their representatives in the press.

On the one side are government officials who are increasingly aggressive in hiding documents they deem private. In many cases, the officials simply invite the person requesting documents to sue, knowing that daunting legal fees will shut them up. Increasingly, too, agencies are leaping into court first, heading off media institutions on the bet that, even if they ultimately lose, the odds of being forced to pay substantial media-lawyer legal fees will be lessened.

On the other side are the media, as well as an increasingly system-savvy public, for whom notions of privacy take a distant second seat to the public's right to know. In an age when governments have become enormous warehouses of information — often very personal information — the line between what is appropriately public and what truly qualifies as personal often blurs. ...

All citizens, including government officials, are better served by a government that is free and open with the information it holds in the public's trust.

Arizona Daily Star

If the APME project is an indication of anything, it is that Arizona needs to delegate one agency — the Attorney General's office seems a logical choice — to educate other government agencies about the meaning of the law, and then enforce it. There may also be a need to clarify the law, to delineate those circumstances where information must be released and where it may be withheld because of personal privacy issues or where release of the information might endanger someone's life, for example.

As it now stands, the law is wide open in terms of what a citizen has access to, but it is essentially a broken law because, as one lawyer noted, it may take three years and up to $30,000 in legal fees to challenge an agency that doesn't comply with a request. Not many institutions or individuals have the time and money to invest.

In other words, unless a citizen is ready to sue the offending agency, enforcement is impossible. The Arizona Legislature can remedy this travesty by setting up and funding a public records enforcement division within the Attorney General Office. Otherwise, the public records law makes a mockery of a citizen's right to know.