Port: Bill would require personal details about those requesting public records

MINOT, N.D. — North Dakota has glorious statutes defending the general public’s entry to public information.

The legislation begins with a presumption that each document is open to public inspection until there’s a particular statute excluding it. If a authorities entity denies you entry to a document, it should cite the statute permitting you to take action. If they are not following the legislation appropriately, residents can file a criticism with the Lawyer Common’s Workplace and ask for a assessment. You may also take the matter to the courts.

The opposite presumption within the legislation is that the general public does not want a cause to entry public information. There isn’t a requirement justifying or explaining why you need entry to the information, nor do it’s a must to present particulars about your self. The alternative is true. The legislation particularly prohibits our state authorities from asking you about your motivations or your id.

Part 44-04-18

of the North Dakota Century Code reads, partially: “A public entity could require written clarification of the request to find out what information are being requested, however could not ask for the motive or cause for requesting the information or for the id of the individual requesting public information.”

That our state information are public is all of the justification any citizen must entry them.

Sadly, this openness is usually abused. A latest instance comes from earlier this yr when the disciples of sure conspiracy-mongering grifters

inundated state election officers with information requests

. The legislation requires that every of those requests be taken critically by public officers, irrespective of how inane, which leads to a number of time and vitality spent satisfying them.

This can be a dangerous factor. Protecting entry to public information open is a continuing battle.

As I famous again in September,

many in authorities view this stage of entry to state information as folly. A nuisance. Even a menace. They’re on the prowl for justifications to shut it down.

Which brings us to the present legislative session.

Home Invoice 1198

, launched by Rep. Mike Lefor, a Dickinson Republican and the Home Majority Chief, would require that these making open information requests establish themselves and supply private contact data.

Listed below are the modifications Lefor’s invoice would make in situ:

I am going to not impugn Rep. Lefor’s motivations for this invoice, as a result of they’re comprehensible. It’s painful to look at unserious cranks waste the time and sources of our public officers with frivolous requests. It’s rank abuse of an vital instrument for accountability and transparency.

That stated, it is a harmful highway to stroll.

There are legitimate causes to make nameless requests for information. Do not forget that open information requests are themselves open information. Beneath this proposed legislation, somebody attempting to analysis a hot-button political subject, akin to abortion, might see their house addresses, cellphone numbers, and different particulars get shared with the opposition.

Authorities whistleblowers are one other consideration. I’ve written dozens of tales over time based mostly on information collected by an insider who made nameless open information requests.

However probably the most compelling cause? The state does not actually have a necessity for this data. If a document is public, does it actually matter which member of the general public is requesting entry to it?

We won’t begin judging requests for public data on their deserves. That may be a subjective factor. I’m a prolific requester of public information, and I can inform you that fairly often, some political leaders and public servants on this state have thought I used to be losing everybody’s time with some quixotic tilt at a windmill. Perhaps typically they have been even proper, however it should not matter. The general public’s entry to the general public’s information should not hinge on some subjective opinion concerning the motivations of these requesting the information.

Generally we could not like the explanation why an individual, or group of individuals, are requesting information, and typically we might imagine they’re losing money and time, and people are issues we’ll simply have to simply accept.

Chalk it as much as the price of doing enterprise as an open and accountable state authorities.