Nevada Press Association The best in Nevada journalism since 1924
Related Articles
http://www.courthousenews.com/2015/01/14/city-sues-newspaper-in-reverse-foia.htm
The problem here may well be the city’s personnel policies, rather than its open-records policy.
Many governments — local, state, federal — go to great lengths to hide performance reviews, disciplinary actions, firings and malfeasance among their employees from being examined by the public who pay their salaries.
And, most disturbing to me, some government workers will scoff and roll their eyes when I make that argument to them. They’re tired of hearing that just because they work for ‘the government’ they are under extra scrutiny.
Frankly, I think it’s a major contributor to the lack of trust in government in the United States today. We’re supposed to trust they will act in the best interests of the taxpayers; we don’t.
A wider problem, though, is the vast collection of information by government, which then refuses to share it.
Why can’t we know what they know? The reason, obviously, is that bureaucracies tend to collect far more information than they need. And then they horde it because … well, what if it gets in the wrong hands? That’s the kind of circular reasoning — create a problem, then create a solution that only perpetuates the problem — defined as kafkaesque.
