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Here are a
couple of things that I find particularly impressive:
·
ABQ View caters to several audiences at once, from
ordinary citizens to activist groups and technophiles. The ordinary citizen
will find a simple-to-use interface for looking at the big financial picture
and answering questions about that road project down the street. Journalists,
activists and business owners can drill down into the data to see the details
of individual city contracts, change orders, payment vouchers and city travel
expenses. And perhaps most notably, technophiles can download raw data. (When
you view a report, there’s a pulldown menu in the far upper right that allows
you to view it in HTML, PDF, XML, Excel or CSV.) To my knowledge, this is the first site in New Mexico to post raw
public data in formats that are usable for programmers. This draws a big
‘huh?’ from most of us, but it’s a big deal. Raw data is the prerequisite for
creating a lot of the cool smart-phone applications available for larger
cities – apps that tell you where the nearest bus stop is, or who’s polluting
the air in your neighborhood. Raw data is also the basis for powerful news
reporting on politics, health, the environment, transportation, public
safety, you name it – there’s a
whole movement among journalists called Computer Assisted Reporting (CAR)
that draws on massive government databases.
·
The city built ABQ View entirely in-house, and in the
midst of a severe budget crisis. This shows a strong commitment on the part
of Mayor Berry, who directed his staff to begin the project during his
transition, before he even took office. It also shows that proactive
transparency projects aren’t just a luxury item for municipal or state wish lists
– and they’re not just something to appease the press or groups like FOG and
the Rio Grande Foundation. Rather, these projects can be an integral part of
efficiency and good-government reforms. ABQ View will put more eyeballs on
city finances, helping our leaders find places to save or become more
efficient. Flaws in payroll or the budget will become readily apparent. The
site will also help elected officials, including Mayor Berry and the city
council, get good, up-to-date information when they need to make critical
decisions. And if we’re willing, it will help us citizens get off the
sidelines and participate in government in a more informed way.
Please take ABQ View for a spin. There are
comment opportunities on every page, to send city staffers suggestions for
improvement.
On a final note, I don’t want to suggest that sites
like ABQ View will make the Inspection of Public Records Act, or education
efforts like the Sunshine Roadshow, obsolete. Quite the contrary.
Transparency portals are great because they make it easier to access public
information. But our legal right to access government information is still
dependent upon strong freedom-of-information laws, with the right to sue the
government when necessary. Check out the Aug. 24 posting below – fights like
these, over whether damaging information is public, will never go away.
I’ve come across online postings recently where
open-data advocates are startled to learn that certain government data is being
buried on obscure parts of transparency websites, or not posted as quickly as
it could be. This isn’t startling to anyone who has watched governments
operate. Technology is great, but it doesn’t change human nature. People in
power like to control information, and bureaucracies are naturally secretive.
No matter how sophisticated our technologies become, those technologies will
never obviate the need for engaged citizen oversight, skepticism toward our
political leaders, fact-checking and broad-based democratic involvement. The game
is changing, for sure, but the lessons we’ve learned from decades of fighting
for freedom of information are still relevant and vital.
So sincere hats-off to the city of Albuquerque, and I
hope everyone else in New Mexico follows the city’s lead. If and when they
don’t, I’m still here to take your calls and questions.
_______________________
Aug. 24, 2010
Appeals
Court Hands Down Victory for Access
o Ruling defines personnel ‘matters of
opinion’
If you’ve ever been denied access to an important
public record because it fell under a nebulous exemption for ‘personnel
matters of opinion’, you’ve got reason to celebrate.
The New Mexico Court of Appeals ruled Aug. 16 that citizen complaints against police
officers are indeed public records available for inspection. The Court
(in a ruling written by Judge Linda Vanzi) said that such complaints are not
letters of reference and they are not matters of opinion in a personnel file,
at least not as the legislature envisioned those two protected categories.
In narrowing and clarifying these two popular
exemptions, this ruling should put to rest many of the common arguments for
withholding documents about individual employees.
Here’s how the Court explained its reasoning:
o
Letters of reference are understood to be
statements of support that assist a future employer or licensor in evaluating
an applicant for a job, license or permit. By contrast, citizen complaints are not solicited by the police
agency or the officer, and they are not intended to recommend the officer for
employment or licensing. Therefore, the reference-letter exception
doesn’t apply.
o
“Matters of opinion” in a personnel file are
understood to be those matters pertaining to the employer/employee
relationship. Such matters might
include internal evaluations; disciplinary reports or documentation;
promotion, demotion, or termination information; or performance assessments.
By contrast:
o
Citizen
complaints arise from the officer’s role as a public servant, not his role as
a government employee. The officer’s official dealings with the public
are distinct from his relationship with his employer. And as a public
servant, each officer has a statutory duty to conduct himself in a manner
that justifies the confidence of the public. Therefore, the ‘matters of
opinion’ personnel exemption doesn’t apply.
o
Citizen
complaints do not contain the government’s
opinions in its capacity as an employer. That’s the true spirit of the
exemption.
o
Information in
citizen complaints may lead to an internal investigation and disciplinary
action, but that does not retroactively transform them into matters of
opinion in a personnel file. Therefore, the exemption doesn’t apply.
o
Citizen
complaints do not contain personal information regarding the officer, other
than his name and duty location.
o
When a citizen
lodges a complaint, that information belongs to the citizen. The officer has
no reasonable expectation of confidentiality, since the complainant is
free to share the information as he chooses.
o
The mere fact
that citizen allegations may be untrue, and may bring negative attention to
the officer, is not a basis for withholding that information from the public.
The Court notes that there are other ways to counteract false information
-- the police agency could release the results of its internal investigation,
and it could release tapes of any alleged incidents.
Considering all these points, the Court of Appeals concluded that “citizen complaints regarding a police
officer’s conduct while performing his or her duties as a public official are
not the type of ‘opinion’ material the Legislature intended to exclude from
disclosure.” It would be against New Mexico’s policy of open government to
shield citizen complaints from public scrutiny, the Court noted.
Read the complete opinion here.
__________________________________________
Aug. 13, 2010
Supreme
Court Suspends Problematic Privacy Rules
·
New practices restricted public access
Six weeks ago, new identity-theft prevention rules
began causing havoc in New Mexico’s courts – particularly in overburdened
clerks’ offices. Now the state Supreme Court has stepped in to address the
complaints.
On Aug. 11, the Supreme
Court issued an order immediately suspending the problematic portions of the
new rules. Those portions required partial redaction of social-security
numbers, bank-account numbers and other sensitive information from public
court documents.
The rules went into effect across the state July 1.
Problems arose immediately because in criminal cases, the burden to redact
the information lay with the police or prosecuting attorneys. If prosecutors
failed to file a redacted version of the documents, court clerks were advised
to withhold those documents from the public and refer citizens back to the
prosecuting agency.
New Mexico Foundation for Open Government Executive
Director Sarah Welsh said she received complaints from Socorro, Taos and
Española that routine court documents were suddenly unavailable for viewing.
News reporters were told, pursuant to a memo from the Administrative Office
of the Courts, that they would have to file court motions to unseal the
documents.
“This was certainly not the intended effect,” Welsh
said. “Ironically, the main purpose of the new rules, when you look at their
entirety, is to standardize practices for sealing sensitive cases and to
affirm the public’s right of access. Public court proceedings are a vital
part of our democracy. They ensure fair and equal access to justice, and they
allow public oversight.”
Welsh said non-compliance with the identity-protection
rule placed court clerks in a difficult position.
“No one wanted to create extra work for the court
clerks – that’s why the rules place the burden on prosecutors and civil
attorneys, the people who are filing the documents,” Welsh said. “But we didn’t
account for the fact that those people might simply ignore the rules or
remain unaware of them. That placed the burden right back on the clerks.”
The Supreme Court’s
order suspends the problematic portions of the rules for 90 days, and orders
court administrators to develop best practices for implementing
identity-theft prevention. If the rules need to be amended, the Joint
Committee which drafted the rules may reconvene.
“This is a relief,”
Welsh said. “It’s a quick and effective way to deal with something that was
an unintended, unforeseen consequence of the new court rules.”
The
rules themselves are available online at www.nmcompcomm.us/nmrules/NMRuleSets.aspx.
_______________________
FOG News Archives
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