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February 25, 2006

A heroic effort for public access

Anonymous The Tribune Star Sat Feb 25, 2006, 09:36 PM EST

Every once in a while, a hero emerges in the fight to keep government records open to the public.

Such was the case in Kokomo recently when a savvy 16-year-old had the audacity to make a public records request of his community’s mayor.

Here’s what happened:

Ryan Nees, a student at Western High School, subscribed to an e-mail newsletter being distributed by Kokomo Mayor Matt McKillip about city affairs. But when the teen also began receiving what he perceived to be campaign messages from the mayor, he decided it might be interesting to see who all was on the city’s e-mail list.

The city would not give Nees that information, so he requested help from the state’s public access counselor, who researched the matter and delivered the opinion that the e-mail was indeed a public record and should be released.

But the mayor ignored the nonbinding opinion and continued to refuse the teen’s request to see the records.

So Nees filed suit under the state’s access to public records law. Again, he won the argument. A Howard County judge ruled that the e-mail list is a public record and ordered the city to release it and to pay the teen’s attorney fees and court costs.

Mayor McKillip is contemplating an appeal. His resistance is based on a contention that those who sign up for his e-mail newsletter should not have to worry about the addresses being accessible to the public and potentially used for other purposes. He also denies using the list to distribute campaign materials.

Unfortunately, there is also a move afoot in the Indiana General Assembly this year to exempt e-mail lists compiled by public officials from the public records law. Such an exemption is a bad idea and would represent a serious erosion in the public’s ability to scrutinize its public officials.

If Kokomo’s mayor or other public officials are serious about protecting the privacy of constituents who seek information from them, there are perfectly legitimate ways to disseminate that information without compiling lists of e-mail addresses. Newsletters could be made available via Web sites rather than e-mail, and constituents could receive Internet alerts about new content that do not require them to give their e-mail addresses.

Once an e-mail list is compiled, however, it should remain accessible to public scrutiny. The potential for inappropriate use of the lists by public officials themselves is too great for them to be sealed from public view.

We hope Ryan Nees gets these public records soon, and we urge lawmakers to resist the effort to further restrict access laws as they pertain to e-mail lists.

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