Adria Gonzalez Harper: First Amendment Foundation

Adria Harper of the First Amendment Foundation spoke to the class about Florida public records and our right to view them. The FAF is a small, non-profit organization. It's workers are dedicated to enforcing our right to view public records and monitoring legislative activity.

Florida has long held a broad right of access. We have a consitutional right to access public records, whether it be e-mail, video, audio, paper documents or even Post-It notes. The FAF views public records as windows to the government. This is valuable not only to Florida citizens, but to non-locals as well. You don't have to be a citizen to access public records in Florida.
Because we have a broad right of access, there are many exemptions made. In fact, the members of the legislative branch of our government makes their own access laws, which means they are sometimes operating in the dark and avoiding the Sunshine Laws, even though the laws apply to all three branches of government.

The Sunshine Laws basically state that we have access to any public records or meetings, and public agencies must comply and let people access the records in a reasonable manner. A person can request a public record anyway they want to as long as it is a reasonable request. An agency cannot ask you to identify yourself and cannot require written requests.

One problem is that agencies are frequently charging inordinant fees. The only fee that agencies are allowed to charge is for making copies of documents and, again, it must be a reasonable amount.

Ms. Harper said that if we encounter a problem accessing public records, we should put it all in writing: the initial request, what happened and a request for the agency's public records and fee policy. Then, send it to the agency's leader(s). Contact the Office of Open Government or get mediation from the Attorney General's office if you need to.

A constitutional right of access is something that should be enforced, and we should not just roll over if an agency tries to deny us the public records we rightfully request.