Recognition that an informed citizenry is vital predates U.S. nationhood, and now the ideal of a knowledgeable citizenry with access to the goings on of government is reflected in the statutes of all fifty states, as well as in many state constitutions. The statutes—referred to as Freedom of Information Acts, Sunshine Laws, Open Government Laws, Open Meetings Laws, Public Records Acts, and similar variations—provide the right of access to government records and the right to attend, and sometimes participate in, the meetings of government bodies. While some of the state public records statutes are modeled after the federal Freedom of Information Act, there is no uniform or model act, making a detailed analysis of these statutes in a single volume an impossibility.
There are common themes, however, because public records and open meetings are two sides of the same coin. Public records laws ensure that the written records of public business stay public. Memos and analysis can be seen, e-mails can be checked, financial documents can be reviewed and audited, and the day-to-day workings of a governmental body can be examined through the records that it creates. Open meetings regulations are more difficult to explain because, although decisions are made during public meetings, not all decision-making bodies and not all meetings are public. What is and is not a public meeting can vary wildly from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, just as what must take place in a public meeting varies.
Ensuring an Informed Public discusses and analyzes the features, concepts, and themes shared by state statutes that regulate public records and open meetings, as well as explores some of the significant differences in both the statutes and the case law construing those statutes. The book is divided into two major sections, reflecting the two-sided coin of government transparency laws—access to government records and access to the meetings of government bodies.
The book also includes appendices that identify key features of state public records and open meetings statutes, identify the citations to the public records and open meetings statutes in each of the fifty states and, where available, link to state-produced guides to those laws. Additionally, key elements of the public records and open meeting laws of all fifty states are summarized in two separate tables.
In Chapter 9 of Ensuring an Informed Public, Robert E. Cattanach and Joshua M. Greenbergexplore cybersecurity challenges raised by public records and public records laws. As chapter 9 in the book, it describes the risk of cyberattacks on government information systems and discusses the growing data broker industry, along with the implications of the wider dissemination and use of publicly available information that—prior to the growth of e-government—had only limited exposure. The authors include a call for revising public records laws to reflect a recalibration between transparency and confidentiality.
