For the last three years, leaders from across Virginia have been looking at improving the Virginia Freedom of Information Act. But now that they’re done, critics say the final result won’t do much to improve transparency.
Want to see the police report for the robbery that happened on your block? Forget about it. What about an email from your university president? Nope. How about internal memos from your state senator? That’s secret too.
Adam Marshall at the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press points out another big exemption to the state's FOIA law -- people who don’t live in Virginia can be denied any public record.
“There are all kinds of online news organizations that might want to make records requests to states that they don’t live in and then report on them both for the benefit of people within the state but also for people across the nation," says Marshall.
Megan Rhyne at the Coalition for Open Government says she would have liked to have seen a few of the 170 exemptions spiked from the law — especially the one covering local and state employees.
“We have seen some instances where the exemption has been used to cover anything where an employee’s name has appeared.”
Rhyne says she was expecting to see some movement on that issue. But that effort died at the last minute, which means that personnel records of state and local employees will remain secret.
