For year and years, Pennsylvania had treated its state payroll as a public record, providing the names, job titles and salaries of its 100,000 or so employees.
But there's a catch. To check on any employee, you must visit the state library in Harrisburg or buy your own paper copy of the records for what state officials describe as "a very nominal charge" (most recently $540 for 2,160 pages).
Last October, the Philadelphia Daily News asked for the same information on a 9-track tape. The governor's office turned down the request. In May, the newspaper sued.
Pennsylvania's Right to Know Law was written in 1957 and doesn't mention computers. But it does provide that any citizen shall have the right to make copies of public records, and leaves it to the custodians of those records to adopt and enforce "reasonable rules" to govern the making of such copies.
The Daily News lawsuit contends it is unreasonable for the state to force the public to deal with paper records when the state itself maintains the information in a computer database. The Casey administration has not yet responded to the suit, which was filed in Commonwealth Court.