SUNDAY FLORIDA EDITORIAL ROUNDUP

Florida's Government in the Sunshine Act is generally considered one of America's best such public records access laws. Now, the Legislature could approve approximately 40 exceptions to the Sunshine Act during their current 60 day session.

For the past five years, Florida newspapers have been celebrating Sunshine Sunday --- now expanded to Sunshine Week --- as a reminder that the public is best served and government tends to be more accountable when access is open to records and the decision making process.

Every major Florida newspaper today features an editorial in support of our Government-In-The Sunshine law and in strong opposition of current efforts to weaken it through bills which would include approximately 40 exceptions to the Act.

I'll not go through all of them, as they deal with the same subject, but quoting from a couple:

The Miami Herald:

Public access to information is vital to our democracy and can be a check on the potential abuse of power. Consider: Release of the boot-camp video of [teenager Martin Lee Anderson, who was tragically beaten to death at the Bay County Juvenile Boot Camp, now closed] beating prompted Gov. Jeb Bush to appoint a special prosecutor to oversee the criminal investigation into the boy's death. Maybe the appointment would have happened anyway, eventually. But public airing of the video and the outrage it provoked got authorities moving.

The Tallahassee Democrat reminds us that in a companion op-ed piece, First Amendment Foundation President Barbara Petersen quotes no less than the late president Ronald Reagan saying "trust, but verify", then goes on to say:

"There is no better way of describing the fundamental need for government-in-the-sunshine laws. When efforts are made to weaken it - as they constantly are - or to grant exemptions - more than 40 are filed so far this session - they should be considered with extreme concern for the greater good of the governed."

And a reminder from the St. Petersburg Times:

"With a rollover Congress that appears more interested in justifying the president's questionable assertions of executive power than in investigating them, the role of the press has become even more vital to ensuring government accountability.

"Were it not for dogged reporting by journalists at some of this nation's leading newspapers, we would not know, for example, that President Bush authorized warrantless wiretapping of people in this country or that the CIA maintained secret prisons in Eastern Europe where terror suspects were sent for interrogation and torture.

"On this Sunshine Sunday, a day when news outlets around the country remind the public of the value of government transparency, the issue of official secrecy takes on an even greater sense of urgency than in past years. The Bush administration, the most secretive since Richard Nixon was in the White House, is engaged in a broad assault on freedom of information.
"At every turn, from the vice president's refusal to share details of his meeting with the Energy Task Force, to former Attorney General John Ashcroft's memorandum that the Justice Department will defend government agencies that plausibly seek to withhold information from a Freedom of Information Act request, keeping the public and press in the dark has been one of the administration's overriding goals."

You can read the Government in the Sunshine Act --- officially known as Florida Statutes Chapter 119 --- for yourself.