It's not always sunshine with Florida's public records laws

During my time in this class I've learned how blessed we are to live a state with such open public records because of our "Government in the Sunshine". Don't get me wrong I appreciate the efforts of our governors and legislators to make sure our records and meetings stay public. I do feel blessed that we live in a state where you can request public records with ease and go to most public meetings. However, after hearing Tim Nickens, editor of editorials at the St. Petersburg Times, speak about the problems and loopholes in our "Sunshine Laws" I have second thoughts.
As Gil mentioned during the class, reporters are actually a benefit to public officials in keeping them accountable and accurate. Without journalists as "flies on the wall" to make sure officials are competent and doing what they promised our representative government will cease to represent us at all.
It concerns me to know that there are loopholes around keeping public meetings public. In the case of the governor being able to keep his meetings with his colleagues private by simply turning all their "meetings" into phone converstaions is appalling. The idea that these officials think this is beneficial to how our government runs is beyond me. The basis of our representative government is that those represented know that their elected officials are doing their job. And it is our job as reporters to make sure this happens. When officials are masking their meetings as dinner parties all over Tallahassee it seems to me that something in our government is broken.
In the case of public records, things not always sunny either. The debate over electronic media is a crucial one at this time. Most of our records and all other aspects of our lives are being converted into electronic files and formats. People's fears about privacy are blinding them to the fact that public documents, whether paper or electronic, need to be easily accessible to the public. If we start to make court documents for example private for fear that someone online will use the information for evil we will start to go down a slippery slope of making other important documents private.
I understand people's desire for privacy. It can be scary in a world of identity theft and the threat of "Big Brother" like governments. But we cannot let fear keep us from holding the republican ideals that keep our public officials from spending taxpayer money inappropiately or hiding information that is important to public interest.
Again, I still appreciate the laws we have here in Florida. But I want people to be aware that there is still a fight for our public meetings and documents. Thank goodness for institutions like the First Amendment Foundation that are still in the fight to keep our public records "in the sunshine".