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Perhaps the immediately obvious effect of government transparency is transparency as a tool to battle corruption and to uncover unethical behavior.

Social media, the internet, and technology in general consistently change the scope of public records. So it makes sense that most people don’t consider text messages when using , since it is a relatively recent technological development.

Of course, many government officials use government-issued phones to fulfill their daily duties. And because of the casual nature of text messages, they can be particularly revealing as to the nature of relationships.

In , the Daily Herald was able to confirm suspicions that by having a romantic relationship. They did this by requesting text messages exchanged between the officers’ phones. Being able to for those text messages, and the city’s ability to fulfil that request, was crucial to uncovering that scandal.

But not every city is able to provide those records. In between city employees after the city was unable to fulfill a FOIA request asking for text message records. Until the city figures out how to resolve that issue, communication must be in an archivable format. It makes sense for the mayor to take the issue seriously, because when questions of openness aren’t resolved locally, they will be resolved in other ways. In , the Wind Gap requested text messages from police Chief Craig Armitage and in March of this year, Pennsylvania Office of Open Records has ruled that the . Kudos to the for making the city accountable to its citizens. The borough originally responded that it did not keep such records. If no such text message record exists, the open records office ruled, the borough is required to provide an affidavit saying that.

There seems to be much that isn’t decided yet on the matter of open government and text messages, and it seems many governments aren’t prepared to make such records available. Please share any experiences or information you have regarding text messages and open records requests.

(I began researching the matter after joining today’s , a live chat on every Friday from 2-3 pm EST. I’ve found it to be a thought-provoking, and it’s a great resource for speaking with open government advocates and FOIA experts.)

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Transparency has taken root in Oklahoma. In the past year two of the local entities, and , earned perfect scores on Sunshine Review’s transparency checklist. Now the state, which has a , is playing host to a transparency conference next week.

What is exciting is the number of officials coming to listen to why transparency will be better for politicians and constituents alike. The conference is going to help representatives understand how crowd sourcing and social media will lead to a more engaged constituency.

stands for Government 2.0, the application of increased connectivity and new technologies to better help government achieve its goals by being transparent, participatory and collaborative. The benefits of this approach include increased efficiency, improved services, greater accessibility of public services, as well as more accountability.

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The U.S. Supreme Court will hear Doe v. Reed today, a case from regarding the confidentiality of names of petitioners attempting to repeal Referendum 71.

expanded the state domestic-partnership law to further grant certain marriage benefits to gay and lesbian couples.

The issue in question is whether . If the court rules it does, that would keep private all referendum and initiative petitions in Washington, and potentially those in the 12 other states that allow citizens to put measures on the ballot.

The has never ruled on the implications of signing a ballot-measure petition. It can either be private, political speech deserving of protection, or it can be considered the equivalent of legislators making law, an action with no expectation of privacy.

Those who oppose making the petition signers’ names public include traditional-values organizations, think tanks, and individual-rights groups like the ACLU. They oppose making names public for several reasons:

* Signers could face harassment if their identities are revealed. This happened to supporters of California’s Proposition 8 in 2008.
* Harassment or the threat of it could discourage citizens from actively participating in government.
* The jobs of petitioners could be put in jeopardy if petitioners hold different beliefs than employers
* It’s an example of government-regulated, limited speech.

Stewart Jay, a University of Washington law professor, thinks the court will decide to keep names private. The Supreme Court has ruled before that gathering petition signatures is core political speech protected under the First Amendment, Jay said, and he added the court has a tradition of protecting anonymity for political actions such as leafleting, especially when related to elections.

Those who support making names available include gay-rights supporters, the , 23 states, and media organizations (including the Seattle Times and most of Washington’s daily newspapers). The arguments for making petition signers’ names public include:

* The fact that such information is subject to disclosure upon request, as required by the , according to Washington Secretary of State Sam Reed
* Along the same lines, names should be public because it is a part of transparency needed for people to trust their government.
* Out of 24 states that allow citizen referendums or initiatives, 23 disclose petition signatures as public records.
* There is no evidence that petition signers face harassment when names are public.

Supporters say the burden placed on petition signers is inconsequential compared with the “very compelling, very strong government and public interest in transparency, accountability and fraud protection.” Eugene Volokh, an attorney specializing in First Amendment law, says the state could tell its citizens that their signatures will be public if they want to sign.

Looking at it one way, transparency would dictate that all information be public. This would of course include petition signers. On the other hand, when we at speak about transparency, we mean transparency as related to the actions of government bodies, officials, and representatives. The actions of private citizens, whether political or not, are not included in our transparency project.

We’d like to know what you think: is making referenda signers’ names public important to transparency? Or is it an invasion of privacy, completely unrelated to transparency? We certainly await the Court’s decision.

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More than the average citizen, journalists have the tools at their disposal and the motivation to thoroughly scrutinize the goings on in City Hall. Which is why it is a key issue to allow them to maintain the full use of these tools in accomplishing their journalistic duties.

Recognizing this, have proposed a .
The bill is called the “Whistleblower Protection Act” and was drafted in consultation with the Wisconsin Newspaper Association, the Wisconsin Broadcasters Association and the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council. (The for 20 years.) The bill goes up for a vote in the tomorrow.

Under the bill, judges could order reporters to produce information regarding a source’s identity only when it is “highly relevant” to the case. Attorneys would have to show they couldn’t get the information any other way and there was an overriding public interest in disclosing it. It also prohibits forcing the confidential source to testify in order to discover the identity of that person. Wisconsin already has court rulings offering some protections for reporters, but no state law.

Supporters of the bill argue that court precedent helps reporters, but it is not as strong as a law with clear guidance for judges. Supporters of the bill include , a former three-term attorney general, and the president of the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council, who noted that journalists benefit form the bill, but the public benefits even more. “A lot of very important stories begin with tips from people who require confidentiality,” he stated.

The Wisconsin State Bar Association’s litigation section is on record against the bill, however, saying it would make it too difficult for parties in lawsuits to obtain non-confidential information from news organizations.

Most states already have Shield Laws. While there is no explicit federal protection, federal courts tend to find that . Kansas became the 38th to enact one last week. Should Wisconsin’s bill pass, it would take effect three months after being signed into law by the governor. If the bill passes, Wisconsin would become the 39th state to enact a .

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Yesterday, I wrote about the strides being taken in into the state’s plans. But Maryland doesn’t have a completely pristine record on the matter, according to some.

An editorial in the this week called the The author of the editorial has experience with Anne Arundel, which he recognizes as having “an award-winning Web site [that] happily provides tons of noncontroversial information.” The author had experience with requests, and in turn faced intimidation and incompetence from the county’s staff on several ocassions. Another problem he noticed was very lax compliance to the , like the lack of a public notice to alert the public of special meetings and a lack of responsiveness from county officials when the problem was brought to their attention.

The Post article concludes with the recommendation that local governments adopt legislation similar to the federal Public Online Information Act of 2010, which would make all documents subject to a Public Information Act request be online and free to the public from the moment of their creation.

I’ve also written about Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal’s mixed transparency record. The governor, like the state of Maryland, has some people lauding his transparency accomplishments, and others saying they are less than perfect. Apparently, his lack of follow-through on his transparency promises has landed . That is the consequence of not addressing transparency concerns.

Whether the problems found in are generalizable to the rest of the state is yet to be determined. However, good transparency recommendations should be addressed, regardless of their premises. Our friends at the have been saying for awhile, the sentiment echoed by the Post editorial, and this may be the opportunity for Maryland to lead the way.

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spoke at the University of Maryland’s School of Public Policy recently, touting the . The governor is particularly interested in how technology can help government and its citizens measure progress openly.

The governor has experience in pairing transparency with technology. instituted CitiStat, an award winning tool modeled after a similar tool in New York City, which aggregates crime data onto a map to determine the best way to deploy law enforcement resources. The Maryland tool is more encompassing than the one it is modeled after and includes performance measures for many city agencies, like waste management and housing. The success of the tool is evident, as CitiStat has been further adopted by governments both in the US and abroad.

The governor stressed the importance of information that is “shared by all” in order to help citizens and leaders understand what is at stake. Another benefit to such tools is that it helps law and policy makers measure the success of their policies. That way, the effectiveness of a new law can be seen immediately, and problem areas can be addressed.

This is just one of the , new ways that technology is being used to help governments be more transparent. We’re interested in innovation that has been going on in your local government in order for government to help meet citizens’ information needs.

Join us tomorrow on Twitter for , our live chat for journalists, transparency advocates, and just regular citizens to share information. We’ll be speaking about innovation in transparency at 2 pm EST, use hashtag #FOIAchat.

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Google’s new tool, the , shows how often governments around the world request user information from Google. This is a change in perspective: we usually just focus on the right of citizens to request information of a government through . But citizens also have the right to know what information requests governments are making.

As the notes, even with the new tool, some information is still unavailable. The numbers available through the tool don’t tell the whole story:

First, Google’s tool only tracks requests that are received as part of an official criminal investigation — which would exclude, for example, the infamous , something that was not part of an official criminal investigation. Second, Google’s tool only counts the number of requests it receives, not the number of user records that were requested. So that single DOJ subpoena seeking millions of records would only counts as a single request! Finally, Google is barred by law from disclosing the number of requests it receives pursuant to National Security Letters, although we know that . All told, the requests that show up in Google’s tool are just the tip of the iceberg.

The National Security Letters, or NSLs, allow the FBI to compel internet service providers, libraries, banks, and credit reporting companies to turn over sensitive information about their patrons. The government can then compile vast dossiers on innocent people. Before an ACLU lawsuit (Doe v. Holder), the FBI had the power to prohibit NSL recipients from telling anyone that the government has secretly requested customer Internet records at all.

It’s interesting to note the vast discrepancy in power between the government and every other actor in this story. The government can request private, sensitive information about any citizen, and then compel the source of the information to stay silent about the request. The information will most likely be granted. On the other hand, citizens and journalists may or not get the information they request, with or without the help of governments. The ACLU calls the tool .

The Google Government requests tool may only be a window, but it may also be a first step to a more open government in an area not normally focused on. Citizens should have the opportunity for having as much information on their side as governments do, and this tool is the first step towards addressing goal.

What do you think? Is this an exciting path towards the transparency we want? We want to hear your views on Google’s new tool.

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The reports that the spends $6 million a year of taxpayer dollars. However, it describes it as a “privately run nonprofit organization.” This begs the question: how is an organization “privately run” when it’s run on $6,000,000 taxpayer dollars?

The Maxine Kilcrease last week, and thus showed some responsibility on behalf of the taxpayers whose money fund its activities. Kilcrease being fired came six months after she allegedly raised her own annual salary to $367,000 without the knowledge or consent of the organization’s governing board.

The association is an advocacy organization for school boards in Iowa. Sunshine Review labels these sort of organizations “,” because they work to advocate on behalf of local governments and are funded by dues paid by those governments. Governments are, of course, funded by taxpayers.

Because the Executive Director did not consult the board on her pay increase, the board stated it felt “misled and blocked from information.” The board fired the now-former executive director under a clause in her contract that allows the association to withhold her remaining contract amount in the case of “moral turpitude.” Additionally, Kilcrease will be required to reimburse the organization for roughly $50,000 in pay, in addition to the $59,000 Kilcrease repaid earlier this month.

The association is also paying for handwriting analysis on IASB documents related to Kilcrease’s employment, a possible indication that there’s some question as to their legitimacy.

Kilcrease’s unauthorized pay increase is worse in context, and seems to be deserving of the label “moral turpitude.” Kilcrease laid off several association employees, supposedly in order to help address a $1.5 million budget shortfall. Kilcrease, meanwhile, raised her own pay and gave major pay raises to three other IASB officials close to her or responsible for her being hired.

But the IASB has even more problems, making some school districts in the organization. The FBI, the inspector general of the U.S. Department of Education, and a team of forensic auditors are all looking into a variety of allegations related to IASB. There are also allegations of nepotism and conflicts of interest.

Even more than mere allegations, there is an actual history of misconduct and incompetence in the organization. Former Chief Financial Officer Kevin Schick allegedly used an association credit card to help pay for a vacation in Bora Bora.

The association board’s treasurer, expressing shock and dismay about Kilcrease’s actions, stated that until recently the board had a long-standing policy that barred the board from accessing any information on the salaries of staff members other than the executive director. The association does not even have internal transparency.

All of the problems these association is having could have been avoided. In New Hampshire, a recent court case has made it so that groups like the Iowa School Board Association have to . Iowa should consider legislation that would do the same. The secrecy, even within the association, has allowed problems to fester, and the saying “sunshine is the best disinfectant” may be overused, but it’s absolutely true. A persistent journalist or a regular citizen armed with a could have prevented some, if not all, of the problems the Iowa Association of School Boards is facing.

More importantly, an organization spending $6 million in taxpayer money is not a private nonprofit. The IASB should consider some as a responsibility it takes upon itself, a responsibility to the taxpayers who unwittingly fund it, even without legislation or a court case compelling it to do so.

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Along the same lines of the I blogged about yesterday, the has come out with an interesting study on states providing online access to government data, concluding that there are no downsides to online in a searchable format, there are only benefits.

In , the authors aim to provide a benchmark for comparing states in their individual road to providing government data online. They start by highlighting several key points about transparency in general. Among these:
*The movement toward Transparency 2.0 is broad, bipartisan, and popular.
*Transparency 2.0 saves money and bolsters citizen confidence.
*Even in leading states, there are many opportunities to improve transparency Web sites.

What does the study propose? Simply put, more—more information, more usability. The study outlines three criteria for Transparency 2.0. First, the portal a government posts its data on should be comprehensive, including all spending data for all levels of government. Second, it should provide all of this information in one site, not make you jump around to partner sites. Lastly, the information and search functions must be user-friendly, allowing citizens to enter a single query or browse common-sense categories.

The study also highlights innovative governments that get creative. , for example, recently launched DataSF, a searchable Web site that provides data on a variety of city issues and allows users to comment on and rank the datasets with the hope of improving government performance in the future. The Web site also provides mobile phone apps that integrate the data and provide residents with useful tools. We at Sunshine Review love that sort of , , , , , , , ,