Louisiana Lawmakers Seek to Limit Public Access to Government Records

lailluminator.com...

Public safety is the justification for Cloud’s Senate Bill 482, which would create one of the broadest ever public records exemptions for state government. Her proposal would deny access to records “reflecting advisory opinions, recommendations and deliberations comprising part of a process by which governmental decisions and policies are formulated.”

That’s nearly every public record — at all levels of government.

when she says 'public safety' I wonder if she means 'safety of government officials'.

Cloud said the 2004 state case Kyle v. Louisiana Public Service Commission already allows government entities to reject public records requests for deliberative records. But one of the state’s leading experts on government transparency disagrees with Cloud’s assessment.

“If the privilege that is contained within SB 482 were the law of Louisiana, we would not have been getting public records all this time,” Scott Sternberg, an attorney with expertise in media and public records law, said in an interview. “I have no knowledge of an existing privilege that is anything like SB 482, and neither does any other journalist or lawyer that I know.”

anyone with more knowledge or? I'm not sure I quite understand it.

I do know that democracy dies in the dark.

I don't like the thought of restricting public access to public records, but I do know that doxxing is bad. maybe this is an attempt to address that issue?

a reply to: Coelacanth55

Government should have zero privacy from public scrutiny.

a reply to: Coelacanth55

If this doesn't tell citizens of Louisiana to start looking into the dealings of their state government, I don't know what would.

An entity with nothing to hide, does not make it to where no one else can look into their records.

a reply to: Coelacanth55

I think the saying goes something like "If you did nothing wrong then what do you have to worry about?"

Louisiana state government needs a deep investigation by it's people.

Do you know what the ex gdr citizens did when the wall came down? They stormed the STASI HQ and secured everything that was there so that evidence of political misdeeds could not end up in the shredder.

a reply to: Coelacanth55

seems like for safety reasons they don't want the public to have knowledge of the basis on which they make decisions or policies. Advisory opinions will be confidential? For safety. Can you absolutely imagine if the government implemented the masks, based on Fauci's opinion, but didn't tell us it was Fauci's advice. Wouldnt tell us WHOSE advice that was? For safety.

Or anything else. You need a shot. You need to do this. You need to do that. We made this law. And you ask, based on what information? and they say we can't tell you for safety reasons. Wow.

I thought Louisiana was cool, now becoming another liberal hell-hole I guess. Information censorship. Not telling us how they come to make their decisions. Because something is coming down the pike and they're worried for their own safety after they implement whatever they're gonna do.

Some FOIA type changes I agree with for some reasons. Florida now modified their sunshine law to where only parents of deceased child can obtain actual autopsy report. I think this is good because there was a flap awhile back where this youtube ghoul sold autopsy photos of a little boy who died in Florida. So that shouldn't happen. I wish we didn't have to make laws like that but in the words of Slipknot, people=#.