Friends,
The COVID-19 crisis led to public information shutdowns across the country, making it harder than ever to get reliable information about what our government institutions are doing in our name.
That’s why we have repeatedly called on public agencies to fulfill their obligations under freedom of information laws, despite the pandemic’s challenges. And it’s whywe are now asking the California Supreme Court to take up a case about our right to access pandemic-related data being collected across the state.
We are urging our state’s highest court to grant review ina public records casebrought by a coalition of San Diego news organizations to force the disclosure of detailed data about COVID-19 outbreaks in the community.This data, which is collected and reported by a large number of employers, is key to understanding how the pandemic has and continues to affect the health and safety of workersat plants, grocery stores, offices and more.
This information has been far too hard to access. A recentinvestigationby theMercury Newsrevealed that only one-third of the state’s 58 counties initially produced records with the locations of workplace outbreaks in response to public records requests. Still, the data reporters receiveddemonstrated the vital public interestin having access to this information.
FAC’s own open-government advocacy took us to Ventura County, where officials refused to give us detailed outbreak location data until we filed alawsuit,which is pending.In the California Public Records Act case brought by the San Diego news organizations,the lower courts have endorsed an unacceptable level of government secrecy. In our view, those courts gave too much deference to a local official’s unsubstantiated concerns that public disclosure of this information is not in the public interest.
When government officials block access to this information, communities are deprived of facts relevant to their health and safety. By supporting the San Diego news organizations’petitionfor Supreme Court review, we are hoping the justices take the opportunity to “remind public agencies that the right of access to information is a matter of law, notwhim or unsubstantiated hunch.”
Read our full letter to the California Supreme Court. And find more about the case here.
Thank you, as always, for your interest in our work.
David Snyder
Executive Director
P.S. Did you hear? We launched our first-ever $1million campaign—theFAC for Allcampaign. We’realready 80% of the way to our goal, thanks to gifts and pledges from ourcommunity of supporters!Will you help us meet thegrowing need to defendfree speech, a free press and your right to know?Give today.