Posted on: Saturday, May 1, 2004

EDITORIAL
Citizens are free to be 'vexatious requesters'

We trust the state Legislature will swiftly recognize the folly of Senate Bill 3185 and kill it.

This bill would allow the state Office of Information Practices to declare someone a "vexatious requester" if the person has a pattern of abusing the state's open-records laws.

The OIP should stick to helping citizens with the sometimes difficult access to government records. It has no business making it harder for them.

As perhaps the leading consumer of information from government offices in this state, it's not at all infrequent that The Advertiser has to resort to "vexatiousness" to obtain it.

Public is entitled

Remember, public information is produced on behalf of the public at public expense. It belongs to the public, and the public is entitled to see it.

Happily, the lion's share of public information is easily obtainable.

In fact, most information that the media receive from government is unsolicited, and we're pleased to see it.

Much of it supports a symbiotic relationship between government and the press, in which the two institutions cooperate to keep the public informed. The much-maligned press release is the primary fuel for this function.

Of course, a considerable portion of these press releases is less about "informing" citizens than about justifying the performance and the existence of the officials who generate them.

The press consumes a lot of this information too, but with a far more jaundiced eye.

Officials usually explain their reluctance to release sought-after information in terms of the expense and hassle in assembling and reproducing it.

But given the huge amounts of unsolicited information they send forth daily, a marginal increase in requested information is just a wrinkle — one that public servants should be happy to deal with.

In fact, public officials most often try to withhold information when they fear it won't cast them in the most favorable light. The more unfavorable the information, the more tenacious their hold on it.

The sponsors of SB 3185 suggest that the "vexatious requester" they have in mind is the unpleasant individual who makes himself a pest in state offices, tying up staff time and attention.

But this is an age-old problem for anyone who deals with the public, and there are existing public nuisance laws to rely upon. Do the sponsors of this bill imagine that retailers repel unwanted customers by placing restrictions on their products?

Vexatious? So what?

When release of public information becomes uncomfortable, those requesting it, if they are persistent, become "vexatious."

That doesn't mean they aren't entitled to it.

We agree with Beverly Keever, a University of Hawai'i journalism professor, who is critical of the subjective nature of this legislation's application:

"This is a bill that's written for the bureaucrats, not written for the citizens."

Public information belongs to the public. That's their constitutional right.