The case for open government, open records

The tug of war between secrecy and openness in government has existed since the development of a social order in which we humans decided we couldn't do everything for ourselves and became dependent on the organized efforts of a few to benefit most of the rest of us.

In the last decades of the 20th century, the fresh air of open meetings and open records swept much of the country as state after state adopted some version of what has become known as Sunshine Laws.

These laws are intended to shine a bright light into the darkness of government secrecy. Missouri's version is known as the Open Meetings/Open Records Law.

The Missouri Sunshine Law states:

It is the "unless otherwise provided by law" clause that is casting so many shadows over government operations these days.

All kinds of exceptions have been made in the name of privacy, competition and public safety. There are strong arguments for some of these exceptions, and there are equally strong arguments against them.

In the aftermath of last year's terrorist attacks -- exactly six months ago today -- state legislators have been bombarded by various special interests to close more records and meetings, this time in the name of security.

For example, there currently are several versions of legislation in Jefferson City that would exempt from disclosure (1.) security plans for public buildings, (2.) meetings of public governmental bodies specifically to discuss such plans, (3.) blueprints of buildings and (4.) the costs of security measures.

Arguments for turning blueprints into secret documents and for making a secret of how much security plans cost are weak. Proponents of this bill, if they want to clamp down further on openness, would do well to scrap both of them.

But the arguments for protecting security plans and meetings about security plans evoke the emotions of legislators and their constituents who are over-sensitive to the reality of terrorism.

By now, every American is painfully aware of how an open and free society makes it easier to be a terrorist, as Tim McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber, and Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, so aptly demonstrated.

Surely, however, we learned in the days after Sept. 11 that a free society cannot remain free if it caves in to every possible restriction necessary to guarantee no more acts of terrorism.

The curbs on our activities, our communications, our jobs and our thoughts would be too much to bear. Most of us have decided that the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is risky in the face of terrorism, but it's far better than the alternative.

While the emotional appeals based on security issues have some merit, the case has not been made that we must close the doors on government and lock our records away in order to be safe.

Indeed, the strongest argument against such actions is the knowledge that even those restrictions would not guarantee us against another deadly attack.

There is far too much of government that has already been shut off from its citizens.

Meetings and records that could help us understand our government already have been closed off to us.

And the pendulum is swinging back toward the assumption that if we aren't permitted to know what government is doing, then it must have something to hide.

If our security, which is precious to all of us, needs the protection of secret government, then let the case be made.

Simple arguments about security without overwhelming justification, however, should never be accepted lightly -- and certainly should never be the basis for bad laws.