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

Sun Apr 17 07:00:00 UTC 2011

I want to add another barrier that I think is releveant to the discussion,
if less "legal" than others - the non-creation of information. I mean the
policy of certain bureaucrats to run various internall processes with no or
minimal documentation. This is legal in the sense that it is a problem where
no general common law rule or specific legislation make it clear what
meetings should have minutes taken, what they should include, where a
detailed transcript is required, what information must be collected, etc...

Roy

2011/4/17 Tim McNamara <paperless at timmcnamara.co.nz>

>
> 2011/4/17 Brian Gryth <briangryth at gmail.com>
>
>> So just to follow up with the group on my thoughts:
>>
>> Here is my list of potential legal barriers:
>>
>> Open Meeting Laws
>> Open Records Laws/Records Retention (here I am think of all the exceptions
>> to the open record rules and defining what a record is.)
>> Procurement/Appropriations
>> Privacy (protection of PII and other sensitive information related to
>> citizen)
>> Section 508 compliance
>> Security/Unauthorized disclosure (The video Alex pointed to raises the
>> issue of an employee inadvertently exposing his or herself to violation a
>> disclosure law by saying something on a social media site).
>> Intellectual Property
>> The regulation of speech in a public or semi-public forum.
>>
>> Further thoughts?
>>
>
> Brian
>
> This list, and the prior discussion, seem very focused on the USA. Is that
> the scope of your talk?
>
> Over to you, but I wouldn't focus on specific areas of law so heavily. I
> would use them of examples of broader themes.
>
> *Legislative drafting*
> Policy creates a (narrow) law which is intended to facilitate democratic
> participation. The law is given a strict interpretation by the judiciary.
> This in turn undermines the original intention of the legislation, to
> facilitate democratic participation. From the outside, the open meeting
> requirements seem absurd.
>
> *Inconsistent legislation and/or policy*
> Many laws intersect in this area. This makes it very difficult for
> legislation to be consistently interpreted. Additionally, it can be
> difficult for politicians creating legislation to create consistency.
> Sometimes, it's hard to determine exactly what open government actually
> means.
>
> *Multiple policy objectives*
> Even if parts of government would like to open, it meets inertia. Several
> government-controlled agencies use fees and levies to service their
> operations. This may have been established when another mode of operation
> wasn't conceived. Constitutional legislation acts as inertia by design. Now
> those agencies are in place, it is very difficult to shift to a new model.
> *
> *
> *Licencing*
> Many government agencies, in my experience mainly local governments, use
> very restrictive licencing with associated fees. Each of those licences may
> be slightly different. Every new licence adds compliance costs to third
> parties seeking to make use of that information. Notionally, prices are set
> on a cost recovery basis.
>
> Regards
>
>
> Tim McNamara  |  @timClicks <http://twitter.com/timClicks>  |
> timmcnamara.co.nz
>
>
>
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