Bills water down access to info
A healthy democracy requires a confident public that has the skills to participate in the democratic process, balanced against institutional policies that promote accessible, transparent and accountable government to ensure meaningful public participation. Illinois’ civic health is on life support and anti-democratic government policies that deter public participation are increasing.
A review of the Illinois Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), the statue that mandates when the public can access government records, is illustrative: In 2009, the General Assembly overhauled the statute, amending the previous ineffective language (due to excessive exemptions, lack of enforcement, and a pervasive government attitude of optional compliance) into something that Illinoisans could boast.
Immediately upon implementation, public bodies cried foul. Without meaningful documentation to justify claims of expensiveness, burdensomeness and public abuse of process, a piecemeal dissection has been advanced. Senate Bill 2203 and House Bill 340 are examples. The bills allow public bodies, among other things, to:
Ÿ Create a “vexatious” category that penalizes requesters who make an arbitrary number of FOIA requests during an arbitrary time frame;
Ÿ Mandate that the Attorney General’s office keep a McCarthy-like list of “vexatious” requesters;
Ÿ Charge up to $25 per hour to find documents after a certain time;
Ÿ Charge undefined “actual costs” if documents are held by a third-party storage company;
Ÿ Determine the format to produce records, rendering them useless in many cases. Forget that the public already paid for and owns the records, that liberal access to government information is crucial to meaningful democratic participation, that only a minuscule portion of our society is civically engaged, and that such provisions are virtually nonexistent in other state’s FOIA bills.
Such bills serve no purpose except to establish anti-democratic barriers to public participation. Our goal should be democratic renewal. Where do you stand?
Terry Pastika
Executive director/community lawyer
Citizen Advocacy Center
Elmhurst