[open-government] [CityCamp Exchange] legal barrier to open government

Sat Apr 16 18:44:59 UTC 2011

Stephen,

Thank you much.  I will read the Bojorquez and Shores article.  (Anyone
interested in the article here is a link to a copy
http://texasmunicipallawyers.com/pdf/OpenGovt-theNet-TTAdmin-Fall09.pdf.)

It seems paradoxical that Open meeting laws would be a barrier, but I would
agree that they maybe interpreted as you suggest and as the Florida AG
opinion states.  For anyone not familiar with the argument, the main barrier
is the notice requirement that requires decision making members of an public
body to give notice of meetings when those decision makers are going to
discuss a topic of government business.  So in the Florida AG opinion, AG
found that if two city council members engage in an exchange on Facebook
then the Florida open meeting law applies because if two or more members of
the council discuss a matter of public concern then notice must be provided
of the meeting.  So even if the discussion was initiated by a citizen, the
members of the council cannot discuss the matter without providing notice of
the discussion.  So the end result is a potentially open discussion between
the public and members of the city council are foreclosed because of the
state's open meeting law.  (Make sense?)

As for contracting issues, I am fortunate to be presenting on the same day
as another attorney is presenting on cloud computing contracting issues.  So
he will hopefully cover most of the computing issues.  My focus is on open
government efforts in general and to provide pointer to the things
government attorney need to keep in mind when advising government leaders on
how to proceed with a open government effort.  (If interested the program
promotional material are at
http://www.cobar.org/cle/photos/ProgramPages/CGAIT.htm.  Once the program
has been recorded the session will be available for purchase individually
from CLE in Colorado).

Thanks,
Brian

On Fri, Apr 15, 2011 at 6:14 PM, Stephen LaPorte
<stephen.laporte at gmail.com>wrote:

> Brian,
>
> Not barriers per se, but attorneys will have questions about the exact
> scope of open government laws. For example, a public employee's Facebook or
> Twitter message can violate Texas' Open Meetings Act. See Alan J. Bojorquez
> & Damien Shores, Open Government and the Net: Bringing Social Media into the
> Light, 11 Tex. Tech Admin. L.J. 45, 61 (2009). The Attorney General of
> Florida posts a yearly manual for the Florida Sunshine Law, which
> illustrates some of these questions: What activity is within the scope of
> the law? Who must comply? What are the procedural requirements? <
> http://www.myflsunshine.com/sun.nsf/sunmanual>
>
> Complying with open governance laws may have some influence on contracts
> with IT vendors. One attorney suggests four general questions for a vendor:
> Where is my data? How do I access my data? How secure is my data? How
> portable is my data? <
> http://www.govtech.com/pcio/Cloud-Computing-Four-Questions-to-Ask.html>
>
> Cheers,
> Stephen
>
> On Apr 15, 2011, at 3:07 PM, Alissa Black wrote:
>
> Brian -
>
> Definitely check out civiccommons.org for information
> on existing policies/directives/initiatives.
>
> I would say legal barriers should be minimal for transparency (if you use
> non-sensitive data), and non existent for the others. If legal comes into
> play for "open" gov it will most likely because because of discomfort. In
> that case you can point to local open gov efforts in SF, Vancouver, and
> maybe others you find on civic commons.
>
> Alissa
>
> On Fri, Apr 15, 2011 at 11:36 AM, Brian Gryth <briangryth at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> Good day all,
>>
>> I am preparing for a talk on open government that I will give in a couple
>> of
>> weeks.  The audience is government attorneys and IT managers.  So I
>> thought
>> I'd crowd source the answer to a few of questions to you all in the open
>> gov/gov 2.0 community:
>>
>> What are the biggest legal barriers to open government efforts?
>> What are the biggest legal barriers to transparency?
>> What are the biggest legal barriers to participation?
>> What are the biggest legal barriers to collaboration?
>>
>> If you have examples of specific laws or policies that would be great.  I
>> know everyone will be tempted to say attorneys, which is fine, just tell
>> me
>> why?
>>
>> Once I get my materials together, I will share them as soon as possible.
>> Thanks in advance.
>>
>> Cheers,
>> Brian
>>
>> Brian Gryth
>> Capital Hill, Denver
>> About Brian Gryth: http://forums.e-democracy.org/p/6lPv5c4wfouTQ0Nyv292Rv
>>
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>>  http://forums.e-democracy.org/r/topic/577LoIW7y6N6LvXCGByDfs
>>
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>
> --
> Alissa Black  | Government Relations Director
> 415.625.9635 | @alissa007
>
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