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

[Steven Clift]

When it comes to participation and interactivity hosted by government, the
lack of good guidence about what an online "limited public forum" is is a
barrier.

The lack of definition allows some in government to use the first amendment
as an excuse to simply not create any legal form of a public forum online
due to uncertainty about what content can be moderated or removed (abusive,
obscene, or simply completely unrelated to the purose/topic of the
space/spam).

For example, I believe strongly that governments should be able to ask for
online public comments on agenda items for upcoming meetings and that other
members of the public should be able to see those comments in real-time.

At a minimum, if posts about making pot legal are posted to an agenda item
about a dog park, they should be "ruled out of order" and placed somewhere
else where public inspection is available. Without policies/rules/laws that
allow for decorum and structures like public meetings, then the divide
between citizens and their government will grow as more participation moves
online.

On a related note, we had open meeting laws cited many times as a reason
public officials can't post/participate in a local public forum. We have had
elected officials in Minneapolis and St. Paul post for years, but in small
towns who in particular rely on legal advice from the state League of
Cities, one legal advisory document mostly based on the legitimate fear of
violations from using private online groups among quroums was generalized to
include clearly public, open, and transparent uses and has essentially
eliminated public government partication potential in our rural Minnesota
online forums.

Steven Clift
clift at e-democracy.org  - +1 612 234 7072
http://stevenclift.com - @democracy
On Apr 15, 2011 9:11 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
>>
>> View full topic, share on Facebook, Twitter, etc:
>> 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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