Police at the scene threatened to arrest the journalist if he didn’t leave. Of course, the journalist was the last person that needed to be threatened by police. Perhaps the police should have threatened the assemblyman and compelled him to acknowledge .

Several things I’ve learned through , our weekly Twitter conference on Freedom of Information issues, come to mind. First, video cameras will bring out the worst in public officials and their staff as far as secrecy goes. But few will object to, or notice, a voice recorder. For many reasons, video is far superior to just voice recording, but it is better than nothing. Second, the fact that Mike Gatto is acting like a diva is a story in itself. If this were a special on VH1, it would be understandable why he wouldn’t want unexpected cameras. But as an elected official, paid by taxpayer money, he has no right to exclude journalists (and thereby exclude his constituents) from public meetings. This is a story on it’s own right, and had he let the journalist in the meeting, the journalist probably wouldn’t have found anything as worthy of reporting as Gatto’s power trip.

Lastly, people are becoming a part of government accountability, and officials should embrace this and learn to work with citizens instead of trying to push us out. We’ve talked about the benefits to governments and citizens alike to . Officials can benefit by having justifications for their decisions available and they can also see a decrease in . The benefits to citizens are obvious.

It won’t work to keep us out, we’re already in. Officials need to get with the times and include us in the conversation, or suffer the wrath of informed citizens.