Known as FOIA, this varies from state to state and the federal government also has its own rules. The federal government's rules are not very good - they can, if they want, take years to respond to a FOIA request. Follow the link here for a FAQ about federal FOIA laws. The website describes FOIA as "the law that keeps citizens in the know about their government." If you're interested in what the federal government is doing and can't find the information you seek on various agency websites, you may need to file a FOIA request to get your answer.
Virginia, the state where I live, has a FOIA law that is a bit stricter than the governments. For one thing, localities and state agencies have to respond within a given amount of time. Virginia has a Freedom of Information Advisory Council that citizens and government employees can use when questions arise. The state's Freedom of Information Act is also posted on this website, in its entirety.
As a long-time news writer, I have had to utilize FOIA on a few occasions. Mostly I have had to invoke it to force local governments to stop meeting in secret. Your local town council or Board of Supervisors or whatever it is called in your locality can only meet in "closed session" for certain things. If they talk about other things during these closed sessions, they are in violation of the Freedom of Information Act, and if someone takes them to court about it, they can be fined for talking about things behind closed doors. I've never taken a locality to court but I have threatened to do so a time or two.
Since I have long been a fan of open information, I find closed doors and secret meetings especially loathsome. In my opinion, governments discuss many things behind closed doors that could be addressed publicly with a little forethought and imagination. For example, it is okay to talk in closed session about a company wanting to buy property and move to the community. In my opinion, this only needs to be discussed once in closed session. After that, they should designate the company as "Project X" and the location, if it must be withheld for whatever reason, could be called "Location Y" and then afterwards, in open session, they can discuss Project X at Location Y in public. But most localities do not do this. Actually I've never seen a single one of the many I have covered do this, but hopefully it happens somewhere.
I have also used FOIA to request information about something the government was doing. Sometimes as a reporter one simply acquires a "gut" feeling that something is amiss, and occasionally one needs to ask for supporting documents. For the first 20 years of my career, I did not have to resort to FOIA requests because I had a good relationship with county administrators, town managers, town council members, and supervisors. Some of them did not like me but they could not fault my reporting. I was what now would be referred to as an old-school news writer. I kept my opinions to myself and simply wrote the facts about what happened. I explained things as best I could so that the public could understand what was happening with their tax dollars. I considered it an honor to educate and inform and I wasn't there to make my own opinions known.
This openness with elected officials and public employees changed when President George W Bush took office, especially with federal agencies. Where I once could go talk to forest service people and obtain information and stories, I suddenly found I had to go through an information officer. This wall crept into local governments soon thereafter, so that many communities now have an (unnecessary) information person that the news media must go through. No longer can they get the information directly from the person the people actually elected, or the county administrator the people are paying for. I have heard many reasons for this - to keep county officials from being bothered, or to keep them safe, or whatever - but mostly it is to keep people from knowing what is happening and to ensure the government gets its own "spin" on the issue.
I wonder, if the person you elect isn't willing to talk to you, then why would you vote for that person again?
After 35 years of watching various government entities, I have found that elected officials frequently forget they are elected, until it's time to be re-elected. They have their pet projects and the things they want to accomplish, and they don't want the citizens to know what they are doing because they know someone will object. Objections can become loud, noisy, boisterous, and stressful, so doing things in secret makes sense if you aren't into democracy. Democracy is loud, noisy, boisterous, and stressful, when it is successful.
Most citizens pay little attention to their local government, and this is where they need to pay attention the most, because this affects them greatly. Newspaper coverage has declined significantly in recent years and many local community papers have folded, or have been bought up by larger conglomerates. These larger companies then fire the seasoned reporter to replace him or her with someone not long out of school who has no historical community knowledge and no understanding of what is actually going on around them. If the reporter lasts three years then that person will be a seasoned and valuable member who can contribute. However, in this day and age I don't think many reporters last that long. When old reporters leave newspapers, or when newspapers die, the community no longer knows what its local representatives are doing. They don't know if their tax dollars are being spent wisely or foolishly.
This is giving rise to "community journalists" - or people like myself who once were journalists who attend meetings and who then sound the alarm wherever they can when things look weird or off or iffy.
It is up to us, the electorate, to watch what our elected officials are doing. Go spread a little sunshine and attend a school board meeting or a town council meeting.
You may be surprised at what you learn.
Great post, Virginia. And, thank you for being an old-time journalist. Fortunately, we still have a couple such local reporters. I've often wondered about what goes on in closed sessions. Maybe that's where all the supposed decisions about new developments are truly made.
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