AP: States decrease access to information

Since Sept. 11, the concern is that information can be used against society.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Some things your government doesn't have to tell you about:
The safety plan at your child's school, if you live in Iowa.
Medication errors at your grandparent's nursing home in North Carolina.
Disciplinary actions against Indiana state employees.
States have steadily limited the public's access to government information since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, a new Associated Press analysis of laws in all 50 states has found. Legislatures have passed more than 1,000 laws changing access to information, approving more than twice as many measures that restrict information as laws that open government books.
The horror of the attacks spurred a wholesale re-examination of information that could put the country in danger, and the state actions roughly mirror those on the federal level. Federal agencies responded by shutting down Web sites, pulling telephone directories and rethinking everything from dam blueprints to historical records.
Lines drawn
In statehouse battles, the issue has pitted advocates of government openness -- including journalists and civil liberties groups -- against lawmakers and others who worry that public information could be misused, whether it's by terrorists or by computer hackers hoping to use your credit cards. Security concerns typically won out.
The AP discovered a clear trend from the Sept. 11 attacks through legislative work that ended last year: States passed 616 laws that restricted access -- to government records, databases, meetings and more -- and 284 laws that loosened access. An additional 123 laws had either a neutral or mixed effect, the AP found.
"What these open-government laws do is break down that wall of government secrecy so that everybody knows what's going on," said Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. "A democracy can only function if we have information. You can only have oversight of government if you have information."
Tracked bills
Associated Press reporters in every state, often with help from their local press associations, tracked the government-access bills introduced since the World Trade Center towers and Pentagon were hit by hijacked planes.
In every state, reporters tallied bills that were proposed each year, and then examined the laws that passed. They assessed the impact of each new measure and rated it as loosening existing limits on public access to government information, restricting the limits, or neutral.
While fear of another terrorist attack drove many new proposals, it wasn't the only motivator. Concerns about identity theft, medical privacy and the vulnerability of computerized records have sparked many pieces of legislation, too.
Lawmakers say they are recalibrating the balance between information that could be used against society and what society at large needs to know.
"Since Sept. 11, we're looking at information like plans for our nuclear plants, the records of our bridges and transportation systems. All of the critical information that is out there that we don't necessarily want to put in the hands of a terrorist," said New York state Sen. Nick Spano, a Republican who had proposed tightening legislation soon after the attacks.
Finding a balance
"It's a very difficult balance between the public's right to know and the public's right to security," Spano said. A different security measure ultimately became law, limiting access to information about infrastructure from airports to cellular phone systems. Last year, Spano authored a law that strengthened public access by setting a strict deadline for state agencies to respond to requests for information.
The give and take of a legislature usually forces changes to such bills -- such as a measure proposed last year in Oklahoma, where freshman state Sen. Charles Wyrick, a Democrat, sought to completely exempt the state's new Department of Homeland Security from the Open Meetings Act and Open Records Act.
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