My friend Doug sees technology as the ultimate disinfectant against “funny business” in local government and elsewhere. He’s been known to bring his shiny new digital camera around with him to various political events and public gatherings and subsequently post the video online. Doug has never suspected corruption on the part of his or any other local government—he’s never expressed it to me that way, anyway—but he believes technology has the potential to spray sunshine into every corner of government, and that adds empirical value to the community. (I trust Doug will correct me if I am misrepresenting his point of view.) I quite agree with Doug in this regard.
But sometimes technology can be used in ways that cast a shadow of darkness over the goings on of public bodies. I must confess that I have not paid especially close attention to HB 377, the so-called Right-to-Know bill. At first blush, HB 377 seems unobjectionable enough; it would essentially classify e-mails sent to a majority of a government body as a public record.
But according to an editorial in today’s New Hampshire Union Leader:
But it is more than a technical update. It defines as a public meeting any quorum of a public body "whether in person, by means of telephone or electronic communication, or in any other manner such that all participating members are able to communicate with each other contemporaneously, for the purpose of discussing or acting upon a matter or matters over which the public body has supervision, control, jurisdiction, or advisory power."
This is a bad, very bad idea. I have already expressed my irritation with the deceptive, almost stealth, manner in which our state legislators have gone about rewriting our state’s marriage laws. Now this? Technology should make governance more public, not more private.