It’s public information except for the details

By NewsPress Now

Whether you call it trimming the budget or draining the swamp, the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, promises big changes in the way the federal government does business.

For now, DOGE is known for the whims of two billionaires who seem intent on massive firings and the elimination of government programs and possibly entire agencies. Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have diagnosed the disease but have failed to articulate the correct remedy for fixing what’s wrong in Washington. The focus shouldn’t be solely on firing more people but on making more people operate in an open and transparent manner. In short, the federal government should serve the needs of the public and not bureaucrats.

Sadly, it’s a message that’s been lost on Missouri policymakers and state agencies. Missouri seems intent on shrouding the courts and law enforcement in a new veil of secrecy, marking a big step backward in openness and transparency for two critical spheres of state services to its citizens.

The Missouri State Highway Patrol now withholds the names of individuals from vehicle accident reports on its website. At the same time, a 2023 Missouri law – conveniently tucked into legislation with little or no debate – requires attorneys and court personnel to redact from all pleadings, orders, judgments and opinions the names of all witnesses and victims associated with a case.

In both instances, the state justifies the changes by saying the information could fall into the unsavory hands of online scammers. But these new policies contradict state law and constitutional precedents calling for court proceedings to be conducted in public and for law enforcement to release information that doesn’t impede an investigation.

The Missouri Sunshine Law makes it clear that basic information from accidents is not considered investigative, but that’s just a speed bump on the road to more secrecy.

The patrol uses as justification a broad interpretation of the Missouri Driver Protection Act, a law that is intended to prevent the Department of Revenue from releasing personal information from an individual’s motor vehicle and licensing records. But then the patrol reverses itself and says this is public information: as long as you send $5 to Jefferson City and wait for some bureaucrat to get around to sending you the name.

If the patrol feels like this really is public record but it doesn’t belong online, then it should do what it used to do during the halcyon days before the internet: Let the local news media show up in person at Troop H headquarters and look through paper copies of accident reports.

But then patrol wouldn’t be able to do what it wants to do, which is collect a little baksheesh, restrict information and keep the media at arm’s length.

This kind of public records debate is often depicted as a battle between media and government agencies, but that’s a misreading of the winners and losers.

The winner here isn’t the patrol but the public official who wants to cover up involvement in an accident or the prosecutor who doesn’t want some advocacy group looking through court records trying to get someone a new trial.

The loser isn’t the media but the patrol and the state courts, because operating in secrecy only serves to erode trust in these two critical institutions.

It’s the same lack of trust that fuels the fire-everyone frenzy of organizations like DOGE.