Editors don't get the struggle

Journal editors are much impressed, link, by the change in
the law regarding the surrender of public records to public
knowledge. According to the new law, if a record exists as an
electronic record, it must be surrendered in that format.

This represents a significant step forward. Some state
government agencies have been charging up to the dollar per
page allowed by the law. (The law allows for the actual cost
of making copies - the agencies who charged a dollar per page
never had to explain how it cost them that much to make a
copy that would cost less than a dime at any retail copier.)

It was a convenient way for politicians and public servants
with something to hide, to make it as inconvenient as it could
be made, for anyone to view the record of their public service.

The editors write;

"This ... law ... will make it easier for the public to see how
its government is working ..."

That conjecture is true only if the stumbling block was actually
the copying of records; it is not. The real stumbling block is
the redaction of the record. Politicians and public servants
are allowed to redact their own record. The easiest form of
redaction, albeit illegal, is to hide the whole record. The new
law does nothing about to prevent the most incompetent and
corrupt politicians and public servants from simply refusing
to surrender the record, as a hard copy or in an electronic form.

The fact that the records are now inexpensive and easy to
transfer does not address the fact that there are public
records of incompetence and corruption that are still subject
to redaction by the people with something to hide.

Take for example the Caswell Report. It is a public record
create by a private investigator who investigated the public
corruption in the APS Police Department, link. His report
details felony criminal misconduct by APS senior administrators.

Anyone who wants to read this record has a bigger problem
than paying 50 cents a page for copying. They will find the
entire report is "redacted" by suppression. The leadership
of the APS doesn't want anyone to see this record and they
can continue to hide it with their legal weaselry. They will
spend tax dollars, operational funds destined for classrooms,
to litigate their exception to the law.

The Journal editors don't understand this, or they wouldn't
be so impressed by a law that making the willing surrender
of records easier but that does nothing to compel the unwilling
surrender of public records by corrupt politicians and public
servants who will continue to hide their record from public
view, just like they always have.