WHAT'S HAPPENING TO THIS THING CALLED GOVERNMENT IN THE SUNSHINE?

The St. Petersburg Times' columnist Howard Troxler has a wonderful piece today on the need to keep our judicial system "in the open", responding to calls to keep most court records out of the public's hands, especially online access.

So far, the Committee on Privacy and Court Records has stressed the right ideas about the importance of public access.
There has been a reasonable worry about how to protect bank account numbers, Social Security numbers and other sensitive information in court files.

Florida's record keepers, our clerks of court, do not want to have to edit such stuff out of the documents they post on the Internet. They say it would be a nightmare. And yet, some kind of step in that direction is essential, because if we are forced to choose between all or nothing, I am afraid the Supreme Court will choose nothing.

Personally, the idea of preventing public access to many records is scary. Certainly, every reasonable effort should and must be made to edit information that could be used in identity theft (drivers license and Social Security numbers, banking information), and if that is additional trouble for the clerks of court, so be it. But Troxler makes one other interesting point:

Besides, this...overlooks a teeny, tiny point, made by Steven Brannock, a lawyer experienced in public-information cases.

"This ignores that the day will inevitably come," Brannock says, "when paper records disappear."