This weekend, Tim Gleason, dean of the University’s School of Journalism and Communication, wrote a piece for the Oregonian in which he highlighted some of the Oregon legislature’s latest proposals to add more exceptions to the Oregon public records law. He argued, persuasively in our view, that the increased exceptions must be looked upon with some concern.
Public records laws are one of the single most important safeguards against tyranny in a free democracy. Strong public records laws are the people’s first line of defense against illegal actions by their government; they provide, among other things, that most all meetings of policy makers that result in new laws or government actions are open to public scrutiny and input. They also require government agencies to release documents, reports and financial details applicable to nearly everything they are doing. Without the provision of transparency afforded under the public records law, politicians might be easily able to hide from the public many of their less popular or even illegal actions.
Because of this importance, it is absolutely essential in our view that any attempt to undermine, weaken or increase exceptions to public records law be looked upon with wariness by the public. It is critical to the future of democracy that the people and the press maintain as much access to the proceedings of their government as is reasonably possible. While we acknowledge that some exceptions are within reason – such as denying the public access to personal health records, some personnel matters, and legitimate national security concerns – the creation of undue exceptions to the public records law could rapidly become an abuse of otherwise reasonable privacy provisions. This abuse is far from trivial, and could ultimately cost the public the protection of its right to an open government.
Despite the gravity of this potential threat to our freedoms, year after year the Oregon legislature has been increasing the number of exceptions allowed to the public records law. This year, even, the legislature is pushing a somewhat celebrated and bipartisan exception that would close public access to concealed handgun licenses. There are often good arguments on both sides of an exception proposal, but it is important to remember that the more we cave to the pressure to hide government action from scrutiny, the less we’ll be able to know exactly what our government is doing.
In this particular case, the privacy of individual gun owners is cited as chief concern. This is no doubt grounded in reasonable objection, as concealed gun owners are often subjected to unjustified stigma and sometimes even persecution, simply for exercising their Second Amendment rights. This was a case in recent news at Western Oregon University, where a student was even suspended from school for lawfully possessing a firearm on campus.
But as members of the press concerned with the long-term implications of restricting access, we must consider some of the larger consequences that might result from curtailing access to these kinds of records. What if, for example, the government began issuing licenses to people not legally allowed to have them, or worse, begins issuing licenses only to people of a certain political ideology, religious affiliation or economic class? The result could be an intentional bias in the population that is armed. Granted, this seems highly speculative and unlikely, and the exception does provide some allowance for disclosure in the case that the public interest might justify it. But the primary point still stands: even in places where exceptions might be reasonable, as is this example, there creates room for government abuse if the public record is kept secret.
Oregon has been a trailblazer in public records transparency for many years. Salem enacted the public records statute in 1973, not long after the federal government passed the Freedom of Information Act. And yet, year after year, we allow the legislature to keep reducing the power of that landmark law, with little public objection. It is the intention of the Emerald Editorial Board to begin raising objections now; and to say clearly that we cannot allow the legislature to keep whittling away at the public records law – even if in some cases it might seem reasonable – as the law is of such vital importance to the functioning of our democracy.
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