Tallahassee Democrat by Bill Cotterell, Capital Curmudgeon
July 17, 2019
After a quarter-century defending your right to know what your government is doing, Barbara Petersen is soon retiring as president of the First Amendment Foundation.
The good news is, she’s not leaving for about six months and she’ll still be around in the next legislative session to consult with broadcasters and newspapers. The bad news is, we know legislators will continue chipping away at Florida’s “Government in the Sunshine” laws, and their constituents don’t seem to mind much.
That’s because clouds in the sunshine always come cloaked in good intentions.
Consider “Marsy’s Law,” the constitutional amendment approved last November to protect rights of crime victims. Police in some jurisdictions have taken the edict to mean they can’t even release a victim’s name, while others will withhold only what a victim asks to keep confidential.
That means the news media – and you – are deprived of relevant, factual and important information concerning matters of public interest. [READ MORE]