Public outcry helped stop the state’s worst proposed amendments to weaken Freedom of Information laws. But the new law still makes it harder to hold the government to account.
It’s still bad for transparency—it severely restricts materials on who travels with the governor, how much it costs, and the activities of the Arkansas State Police—but it doesn’t ravage citizens’ rights as badly as the first version would have. That’s thanks to the power of the people.
Beware, though: This won’t be the last time Arkansas officials try to take away some of the hard-won rights enshrined in the state FOIA. Laws like Arkansas’ FOIA are a crucial element of the public’s ability to participate in our democracy and provide oversight of government policy, bloat, and malfeasance. In each state, they entitle people to access government documents and are intended to empower the citizenry of our democracy; people need to be able to understand how government decisions are made in order to hold their government officials accountable.
While legal exemptions exist to block access to certain categories of sensitive information, like Social Security numbers or police investigatory techniques, there are plenty of other ways that government agencies try to circumvent having to disclose information that they think could embarrass them or expose them to criticism.
Attempts to update state Freedom of Information laws often face a lot of resistance from government officials, law enforcement, and businesses, who usually find that the more the people know, the harder it is for the government to just do whatever it wants.
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