Fall newsletter

AROUND THE SOUTH

By Tom Bennett

Atlanta, Nov. 3, 2004 -- The region's First Amendment lawyers, plus a handful of diehard volunteers, and to a certain degree the computer, have awakened the sleepy South to freedom of information.

TENNESSEE

Nashville is one of the fountainheads of FOI. The Tennessean newspaper produced Bill Kovach, John Siegenthaler, Paul McMasters and Frank Gibson. The latter two founded SPJ's Project Sunshine in 1990. Now Gibson has taken part-time status in the newsroom to also become the executive director of the Tennessee Coalition for Open Government.

In this first week of November 2004, TCOG is about to commence soon a survey of the openess of Tennessee government, or lack of it, across a sprawling state. "Doing ours next week," Gibson messaged Nov. 1, in response to a query about surveys. "Just came back from two weeks and two thousand miles of training one hundred auditors."

The non-profits and the survey movement are the major trends in U.S. freedom of information. They have brought FOI reality to thousands of government gatekeepers, and restored parity with the federal FOIA in the minds of newsrooms and activists. Now that Tennessee is in the fold, another major frontier has been crossed, sort of Boone's trek, FOI style. In the Deep South, only South Carolina lacks a non-profit organization working on FOI. Only North and South Carolina have not carried out open-government surveys.

 ALABAMA

It turns out that the only logical choice to be the first recipient of the Ed Mullins freedom of information award is Ed Mullins himself.  The chairman of the Journalism Department at the University of Alabama is the namesake for, and also first to have his name etched upon, this new annual prize for the top work on FOI.

Mullins "founded Alacog and instigated the (2003) open government survey," said Bob Blalock, editorial page editor of the Birmingham News at Alacog's first Alabama Sunshine Forum Sept. 30 in Tuscaloosa.

Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press in Arlington, Va., was the speaker. "In the three years since 9/11, an astonishing amount of information has been taken away from the American people," Dalglish said.

"The FOIA lawyers from several (federal) agencies have told me that records that routinely were given out in the past are no longer being given out...

"Web sites created after the 1996 e-FOIA and as a result of it have been taken down...

"There is a case in the U.S. Supreme Court in which there is not record of how it got there...

"The 2002 act requiring first responders in our states (for example police, fire and EMS) must sign confidentiality agreements could trump state open-records laws. A typical state fine for NOT disclosing public records is $100. The federal fine FOR disclosing them is $750,000. Now in light of that, which way would you go?"

Obtaining federal records under the '96 law can take years. When a member of the audience posed a question about the propriety of asking for government records that could fall into terrorists' hands, Dalglish replied with a wry smile.

"Terrorists don't have time to wait for a FOIA request," she said.

FLORIDA

A former Florida Senate president's conviction and 60-day jail sentence for violating Florida's Sunshine Law as a county commissioner was upheld in October by a three-judge panel of the 1stDistrict Court of Appeal.

W.D. Childers, convicted by a jury in 2002 after he discussed public business in private with a fellow Escambia County commissioner, has already served 38 days of his sentence, the St. Petersburg Times reported.

Florida's Sunshine Law requires that meetings between two or more members of the same elected or appointed board or commission be held in public with notice given and minutes taken.

Source: Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press

MISSISSIPPI

The Hattiesburg American , the Associated Press and reporters Antionette Konz and Denise Grones agreed in September to end their lawsuit against the U.S. Marshals Service for the seizure and destruction of tapes of a speech by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. The settlement came after the Department of Justice conceded in court documents that the seizure violated the federal Privacy Protection Act and that the Marshals Service had amended its policy regarding security of federal judicial officers.

Under the settlement, the reporters, the newspaper and the AP will be paid $1000 each in damages as called for under the Privacy Protection Act, and reasonable attorney's fees.

On April 7, Konz, of the Hattiesburg American, and Grones, of AP, were ordered by Deputy U.S. Marshal Melanie Rube to erase audio recordings of a speech on the virtues of the Constitution Scalia gave at Presbyterian Christian High School in Hattiesburg, Miss. Scalia had a policy of not allowing his speeches to be recorded, but no announcement had been made at the event.

Scalia later apologized in letters to the reporters, writing that the action was not taken at his direction and that marshals mistakenly believed they were enforcing his policy. He also agreed to revise the policy, allowing recording for print but not electronic media.

Source: Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press