UWisconsin Chancellor’s message on academic freedom and open records
news.wisc.edu
news.wisc.edu
Frankly, I've worked in a state University (Florida) and these request are very common. The Professor can't complain here, state employees from the governor all the way down to the lowly secretary can receive such request.
I many cases these things are vital, for example the media makes heavy use of these and this is why I think they are important and should be kept. State employees need to be better informed about this because that should affect how they use government ressources. Your work email should be strictly for business.
My point is just that the Professor in question shouldn't have been surprised by the request. There will always be people abusing whatever the government gives them the right to do. The professor was directly attacking the request and the fact that the person who requested it didn't have to state his intentions (an important protection in the FIA) (this was from a previous article).
I'm against the motives here but strongly support open government and the right to get information like this.
In fact I think the whole controversy has just done exactly what the "executive director of the state's Republican Party" wanted. Intimidate and cause a huge stupid story showing how the "liberals" can't handle being open blah blah blah.
Concurred. I found the Chancellor's message re: "academic freedom vs. right to know" objectionable based on the premise that all should be equal under the law. (Personal information such as interactions with students or casual interaction with colleagues are of course rightfully exempt)
Specifically exempting documents on the basis of ensuring that "the development of ideas can be undertaken without fear of premature exposure or reprisal for unpopular positions."
To give you a concrete example of why it is necessary to prematurely expose unpopular ideas, in Australia there was a proposal within some circles to log all internet traffic. What do you mean "log all internet traffic"? Do you mean like HTTP URLs or IP addresses or what? Is it only against bad people or based on keywords or what? Well nobody really knew. What was known is that bureaucrats had been holding meetings with ISPs to discuss something about data retention.
So, there's a sort of secret idea being investigated using public money - the public has a right to know what it is and how far along is it, especially if industry are allowed to know, right? FOI request comes back.... pages filled with only heading numbers and black ink: http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/no-minister...
> The Attorney-General's Department legal officer, FoI and Privacy Section, Claudia Hernandez, wrote in her decision in releasing the highly-censored document that the release of some sections of it "may lead to premature unnecessary debate and could potentially prejudice and impede government decision making".
Doesn't it seem obvious that people will try to "impede decision making" (via their elected representatives) of an unpopular decision? Isn't it a waste of public funds to explore an idea thoroughly without first consulting with the most populous stakeholder?
In this case, what you're dealing with isn't just an idea anymore: it's a proposed policy. Academic freedom does not mean making policy in secret.
It's more important that we ensure there are never any excuses for not complying with open records than it is that we make sure open records aren't "abused" for political purposes. "Political abuse" is not an exemption for open records.