The ethical redaction of public records.

There are bits of information floating around called public records. They are the evidence of the spending of your power, resources, trust and treasure by politicians and public servants.

Imagine that they are all in one bag.

The obvious next question is, who gets to hold the bag?

It is an important question, because whoever holds the bag, holds the truth. Whoever holds the bag decides what becomes public knowledge and what stays in the bag.

Right now politicians and public servants hold the bag. And they are very particular about what gets surrendered to the public record and what stays in the bag. Even records which enjoy no exception to the NMIPRA can be kept in the bag for years, according to the whim of politicians and public servants.

That model is fundamentally flawed. It makes no sense to put those who may need to hide the truth, in charge of deciding what truth gets told.

All records belong to the people. Some records are reasonably keep secret from the people; not their existence, but their content. And even then, it is usually only a small part of any document that needs to be kept secret. Normally, a line can be drawn through a name for example, and then the rest of the record can be surrendered to public knowledge.

A decision needs to be made regarding every public record as to whether redaction in whole or in part, is justified. The power to make that decision, currently lies with those who might have the most to gain from hiding public records unjustifiably.

The first fundamental fix in government, is to make the redaction of public records an impartial process. And the subsequent surrender to public knowledge, as immediately as is possible. Arguably, most could be posted online in a searchable data base.

Governmental transparency is manifest in the availability of public records. The availability of public records is an important measure of transparency. It may even be the most important measure.

Redaction of public records must be the product of transparent due process without unjustifiable delay. The surrender of public records delayed, is the surrender of public records denied.

Every public record belongs to the public.

They are called public records for a reason.