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Thursday, January 28, 2010

Ind. Law - "Enforce guns laws, don't keep secrets" Déjà vu?

Supplementing this ILB entry from yesterday, today's Indianapolis Star has this editorial that begins:

It ought to shock you to know that lots of people in Indiana obtain permits to carry guns despite a history of violence.

It ought to offend you to be told by your elected representatives that you're not supposed to know.
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A free press got the word out, by way of a recent Star investigative report warning that government has compromised public safety through failure to follow the law.

Thus far, government's response to the wake-up call has been to roll over and pull up the quilt.

Tuesday, the Indiana House resoundingly passed a bill to deny the press and public access to the public records from which The Star learned that Indiana State Police routinely grant gun permits to individuals known for violence. State law allows for the denial of permits, local police often object to the granting of them, and those who get them sometimes go on to commit crimes.

The newspaper would not have learned this without entree to the total gun permit archive, with its names and addresses. The Star, in its online database, did not publish those names and addresses; only general information about gun permits by race, gender, age and ZIP Code.

That was enough, some lawmakers have said, to scare and even outrage them as to the endangerment of privacy, Second Amendment rights and life itself. Gun owners and non-owners alike bombarded them with pleas to keep the bad guys from knowing who might have a gun in his house and who might be unarmed, supporters of secrecy declare.

Far fewer have spoken up for the cause of open and responsible government. No one thus far has proposed a legislative inquiry into lax enforcement of a legislative mandate governing deadly weapons.

Why Déjà vu? The ILB recalls another situation where newspaper investigations into public records led to the General Assembly making those records secret.

According to ILB entries from 2004, in September of 2003 Indianapolis' WTHR requested a copy of the state pension fund's computerized database to investigate purported inequalities. In March 2004 the NWI Times wrote that it had requested PERF records:

to disclose whether the fund is paying pensions to former Lake County officials convicted of using their public offices to line their pockets dating back to the 1980s and '90s. Leisa Julian, general counsel for the fund, replied last month that state law exempted those records from public disclosure. "We must deny your request," she wrote The Times. The Times made a second request under the Freedom of Information Act last month to divulge whether any of 19 convicted former officials were even fund members and, if so, their years of service.

Julian failed to comply within seven days as the law requires, despite being informed by Michael Hurst, Indiana's public-access counselor, that names and years of service are public documents. She provided the information only last week after The Times threatened to sue and demand the award of attorney's fees.

See ILB entries from March 11, 2004 and March 14, 2004. A Star editorial from March 19, 2004 reads in part:
Legislators, who receive four tax dollars for every dollar they contribute, are the biggest beneficiaries of the newly secret funds, which also enroll judges and prosecutors. It hardly seems a coincidence that the law denying access was passed retroactive to requests by news organizations to view the records. Media investigations in other states have turned up millions in misappropriated public employee pension funds.
The same March 19, 2004 ILB entry (worth reading in full) begins:
Last evening Governor Kernan announced that he had signed into law HEA 1285. As a result, the law is now in effect, retroactive to September 1, 2003. This new law will prevent anyone from accessing PERF information, other than member names and years of service, through a FOIA request.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on January 28, 2010 09:04 AM
Posted to Indiana Law