Miscellaneous

Open Sesame: How Much Access is Enough?

By Anne Skove, Esq.

Open records are like gossip...wonderful, unless they're about us.

The move of court and other public records from dusty courthouse file room to clean and easy Internet has caused such a ruckus in recent years, pitting privacy fundamentalists (who can find a right to privacy in a bowl of Alpha-Bits) against sunshine Nazis (for whom even TMZ is never TMI).

One strand of common sense we've heard is this: anything available "downtown" should be available online. If the information is too sensitive to be viewed, it should not appear in any format anywhere.

Less sensible solutions run the gamut, from zero online access to posting information that looks like swiss cheese.

In Ohio, the high court hemmed in a proposal to restrict access to information. It did follow through on a plan to restrict access to possibly groundless employer-employee complaints.

The Buckeye State is king of the local court rule, and some say the rules should be left to the state's 88 fiefdoms. (And in fact, most rules do provide ample room for local and case-by-case discretion, particularly with regard to media access.)

What remedies exist when people abuse openness? There are plenty of laws on the books barring fraud, slander, libel, stalking, and the misnamed (unless we're talking Mr. Ripley) "identity theft."

Some argue that more openness actually leads to fewer records. Institutions and individuals could go out of their way to do things OTR if they suspect the public will have access otherwise.

See Ohio Supreme Court Scales Back Plan to Close Public Records, AP (March 15, 2008) -- that's "the" state court administrator, btw! See also Access to Public Records is Mixed Bag in Ohio, Randy Ludlow, Columbus Dispatch (March 16, 2008). Hard to believe that this is Sunshine Week -- Mother Nature sure didn't get the memo!

Meanwhile, the Chief Justice of Oklahoma is asking for increased restrictions on public access to court records. He cites Oklahoma's liberal access policy and the fears of so-called "identity theft" as reasons to review the court's policy. See In Letter, Justice Cites Crime Fears, John Greiner, NewsOK.com (March 15, 2008).

For more about the Ohio proposal, see Almost Always, posted in this very space on February 15, 2008.

Full post as published by court-o-rama.org on March 18, 2008 (boomark / email).