In nearly five decades of delivering news to the people in the communities in which I’ve lived and worked, my most constant annoyance has been with public officials who think they should be able to do the public’s business in private.
It’s not a partisan thing. There must be something in human nature that tells people that, when they acquire a public office, no matter how small, that they are entitled to hide what they’re doing.
That’s why I was annoyed, but not surprised, last week when the New York Coalition for Open Government warned about a proposal by Assemblymember Chris Burdick, a Westchester County Democrat, that would impose criminal and civil penalties on individuals who submit so-called “bad faith” or “malicious” Freedom of Information Law requests.
“New York’s transparency crisis isn’t caused by ordinary people asking questions,” said Paul Wolf, president emeritus of the coalition. “It’s caused by government agencies that ignore, delay, or deny FOIL requests without consequence. Penalizing requestors targets the wrong side of the equation.”
Wolf is exactly right.
In theory, New York’s Freedom of Information Law and the Open Meetings Law require the transparency that so many public officials preach, but so few practice. In reality, they do not.
In a letter to the New York State Committee on Open Government — the agency that should be enforcing these things — Wolf wrote:
“New York State’s Freedom of Information Law system is broken — but not because of requestor abuse. Requests are routinely ignored, unreasonably delayed, or improperly denied. New York remains one of the few states that imposes no meaningful penalties on government officials who violate FOIL obligations. Without consequences for non-compliance, the internal appeal process proves ineffective, and most citizens cannot afford legal representation to vindicate their rights.”
And that’s a key. I’m not claiming some special media right to such information, though we only seek it so we can share it with you. This information should be available to everyone.
Occasionally, a large media outlet will take the legal action necessary to get the information improperly held from it. Those organizations can afford it. Many smaller newspapers — and most average citizens — cannot. They shouldn’t have to.
“The disconnect is striking: When our organization has advocated for reform, Committee members have dismissed our concerns as “anecdotal” and lacking proof,” Wolf wrote. “Yet based on a handful of anecdotal accounts from Assemblymember Burdick, the Committee appears eager to pursue legislation targeting requestors — the very people the law was designed to empower.”
He continued, writing, “The Committee itself receives thousands of public complaints annually about government obstruction. The evidence is clear: the problem lies not with malicious requests, but with widespread governmental non-compliance.”
And there’s a simple question: What, exactly, is a “malicious” or “bad faith” request by the public for public information?
The coalition published what it calls “a better path forward,” which is too sensible to ever be embraced by the information misers who populate government at all levels from school boards to Congress.
Instead of punishing citizens, the Coalition urged lawmakers to:
1. Increase funding for the Committee on Open Government.
2. Provide technical support to local governments.
3. Impose real penalties on officials who violate transparency laws.
4. Strengthen — not restrict — public access to information.
“New Yorkers shouldn’t have to hire a lawyer to get information that already belongs to them,” Wolf said.
The Committee on Open Government has always been toothless, but it used to be active. A former director routinely gave his personal telephone number to any journalist who wanted it, and urged us to call him, no matter how late. I took advantage of that invitation a couple times, enlisting his help to challenge clearly improper executive sessions at public meetings.
The legislation proposed by Burdick is an insult to the New Yorkers he and the others in the legislature were elected to represent. It needs to be stopped.