Indy Star on public access

The Indy Star has a story on public access compliance somewhat misleadingly entitled Keeping secrets. The text of the article explains that the public access ombudsman reported that government agencies wrongly withheld records in more than half of the cases investigated. However, the article suggests that the number of violations probably are not up, the public’s awareness of their rights has increased. And the cases cited don’t seem to be any desire by the government to “keep secrets” but rather a concern over competing laws requiring confidentiality and general bureaucratic inertia over a task they are not set up to do and are not funded to do. Most governmental agencies have specific tasks they are designed to accomplish. The funding levels for these agencies are geared toward accomplishing the tasks — usually inadequately these days. Retrieval and copying of records for random requests are not something generally taken into account in the design and funding for the agency. Not to say the public doesn’t have the rights under the public access laws, but rather the Indy Star’s suggestion that the agencies are “keeping secrets” seems unfounded.