Miami Herald

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Editorial cartoon by Jim Morin

PROTECT FLORIDA'S OPEN GOVERNMENT

PUBLIC ACCESS ENSURES GOOD OVERSIGHT

Florida's Sunshine Law for promoting open government is among the strongest in the nation -- and the public must insist that the Legislature keep it that way. Why? Because special interests and post-9/11 security concerns are fueling attempts to limit access to official meetings and records. Weakening the law would erode government transparency that protects residents from incompetence, cronyism and corruption -- in short, from abuse of power.

That's why the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors has organized a second "Sunshine Sunday," which The Herald joins today. Florida's vaunted Sunshine laws, including an amendment to the state Constitution, enshrines the right of public access to official documents and gatherings. Such invaluable tools of government oversight must be preserved.

These are trying times. A Florida Senate committee met in secret recently to consider a new state system for tracking suspected terrorists. They did so under a post-9/11 rule, one of a number of legislative attempts to shore up security at the expense of access. Now, with better experience and perspective, the Legislature would be wise to revisit laws and policies that restrict public access and weigh that loss against the security improvement.

How secure was the Senate committee's secret meeting, anyway? The public and press were barred from the committee's review of Threat-Net, a Florida Department of Law Enforcement counter-terrorism database. FDLE Commissioner Tim Moore asked for the closed meeting for security reasons. But none of the senators who attended had any special security clearance, either.

Mr. Moore said that he wanted to justify his $1.6 million request for enhancements to Threat-Net. He should, and the Legislature must determine whether the expenditure is worthwhile. But he will have to find a different method for persuading state House members, who have no rule that allows secret meetings. Surely the FDLE can openly demonstrate how a system works without revealing confidential data or clues for hackers?

There are better ways to ensure good security and oversight without trampling over Florida's tradition of "government in the sunshine." Security and terrorist threats are valid concerns, of course. But the threshold for shutting the public out of government business should be exceptionally high and well defined.

Last year, for example, lawmakers closed public access to the blueprints of public buildings. Obviously, some buildings are tempting terrorist targets. But not all buildings are targets -- an elementary school, for instance. Some strategic private sites also will be at risk, like the World Trade Center was. Yet this law now prevents a parent concerned about fire safety in school from getting a blueprint showing where the emergency exits are. One measure already has been filed this session to close access to all blueprints in the hands of government -- to protect, say, Tropicana or Disney World. Such an overly broad approach is unacceptable. Florida's Sunshine Law presumes that government will be open unless there is a very good reason for an exception. Institutions -- public or private -- that would deny access to blueprints or other records should carry the burden of proof for exclusion.

The Legislature should keep that in mind as it considers measures that would weaken our Sunshine Law. Some proposals unjustifiably would hide serious mistakes by pharmacists and physicians. Another bill would deny access to the cellphone numbers, pager numbers, e-mail addresses and billing records of all law-enforcement officers for self-serving reasons. But, then, who protects the public? By obtaining billing records, The Tampa Tribune recently found that a local sheriff's major cost taxpayers more than $6,000 by phoning his girlfriend and other personal contacts on his department cellphone. That's exactly the kind of oversight that must be protected.