Reporters don't want to admit it, but there is a growing uneasiness among record-keepers, legislators and worst of all, the general public, that a person's ability to obtain government databases is not the greatest thing in the world.
This uneasiness, which goes way beyond legal issues and FOIA technicalities, could soon turn into a crisis for computer-assisted reporters.
Two examples from here in Washington: I requested court records from our Office of the Administrator of the Courts (OAC), which makes individual court records available without difficulty in every corner of this state. Court records are so readily available, you can access them from your home on-line!
But when I requested a copy of the raw data, new laws suddenly started materializing. The OAC denied our original request based on judges' right to privacy ("huh?" did you say?). The OAC's data dissemination board backed away from this absurd notion later. They said what their denial really meant was that our access to the entire database raises new ethical and privacy dilemmas not considered by the creators of the original freedom of information laws. An entire database is different, they claimed, and new dissemination policies have to be created. (P.S.: They also said they worried about the commercial use of the data.)
So now the OAC's administrators are talking to record-keepers, record-keepers are talking to judges, judges are talking to lawyers, lawyers are talking to other lawyers, meetings are being held, advisors are being called, new policies are being written and in the meantime court officers are scrambling for any reason they can conjure up to delay my access to the information.
This has gone on for months and despite a great deal of rigorous support from my newspaper, our attorneys, local advocacy groups and even other news organizations (including the Seattle Times), no progress has been made.
The OAC insists the delays and tactics are all in the public's interest. The people don't want you to have this data, they claim.
Even though I think they're just trying to cover their behinds, upon casually discussing this situation with friends over beers, basketball games, lunches, etc., I am forced to agree with the OAC - some people do see access to computer databases as a threat. Some really think a new set of dissemination ethics is needed, even though they recognize that the same information is already available in conventional formats. Reporters, me included, fall into shock upon hearing such a thing.
Another example: I obtained a copy of Washington's gun registration database. This file contained demographic and product information about every gun owner in the state. We used the data to run a two-part series on the rise of gun popularity in Washington. Beyond the usual disgust from firearm-rights advocates, whose contempt we would expect even if we had a headline reading 'Handguns are Tops!', there was another, more disturbing development.
In a world where people are inundated with junk mail, telephone marketing and other computer-generated hassles, many find computerized information despicable.
Upon reading the series, a state representative proposed new legislation in Olympia to specifically prevent the further release of the database. Crooks, the representative said, would obtain the database to get the names and addresses of people who own the particular brand and caliber of firearm they would most like to steal. He called the database a 'shopping list' for hoods who would break into your house for the purpose of obtaining your gun (did I hear you say "huh?" again?).
Once again, the representative was claiming that 'the people' need to be protected. The representative was not laughed out of the state, nor was his proposal. In fact, the House included portions of his proposal in its crime bill, and it passed. Now we're crossing our fingers for a governor's veto.
The point is this: There are politicians who are crying out for new public information restrictions designed specifically for computerized information.
And what's most disturbing is that I think if they ever asked for public support - if there were a vote tomorrow - I think restrictions would win.
Reporters, meanwhile, continue to act very sure of themselves - these are records, they are public records, they are available under FOI laws. We act as though because the laws currently say we can get away with it, there is public support for the notion.
But are we really sure the rest of society agrees with us? I can tell you, many don't. In a world where people are inundated with junk mail, telephone marketing, electronic billing and other computer-generated hassles, many find computerized information despicable.
So what are news organizations doing about it? These days we are so busy arguing that current FOI laws protect our rights, we've forgotten to ask who is protecting the current FOI laws.
It's true that groups like the Reporter's Committee for Freedom of the Press are busy lobbying in government. But for what? At best, they argue for the continued acknowledgement that FOI laws are meant to include computerized information - or some version of that point. All of this 'politics' occurs without much consideration about what the public actually wants or thinks is fair.
I think what we need is a good, honest, hard-hitting PR campaign.
The most a news organization ever does to tout the values of computer-assisted reporting is to mention it in a story: "A (your news organization here) computer analysis of (your database here), a computer file containing hundreds of thousands of records concerning (fill-in-the-blank) showed that (nut graph)."
Not only is this line always included in computer-assisted reporting stories, but usually, we put in as if the reader will respond, "Gee, aren't computers great!"
NICAR's Uplink newsletter, which I helped create, is a worst case example of this. We constantly congratulate ourselves over our new found resourcefulness. But we're not the ones that need convincing.
It's pointless to continually stress that stories were made possible with the use of computerized information. What we need to stress instead is that the stories would have been impossible without it - and we need to do this in places other than our own newsprint or broadcasts.