That’s actually not true but I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt that this was a statement of intent. Hey, I agree, and I welcome any CRS member’s efforts and desires to increase the transparency of their institution!
As it turns out, the Sunshine Act requires release of information from any institution, but never actually demands a timeframe for most of them. So I have fixed this in the draft below.
I think one year is fair for any institution, including the CRS. And since the Sunshine Act already covers classified information and redaction, nothing more needs to be added and the CRS can make sure it doesn’t release anything sensitive.
And to make sure people do what they are supposed to, a resolution to set lenient time frames:
If this is about the CRS then the bill should reflect that. Expecting the Cabinet to go through, I dunno, LegComm’s Lavoret records to determine what’s releasable is absurd. But that’s what the text as written implies if it refers to “other institutions” as a catch-all and makes the Cabinet responsible for defunct institutions.
Speaking of the stick, what happens should an institution fail to release a sunshine report under this new legislation? Clearly there haven’t been many, if any, repercussions so far.
That’s a good point, pronoun! How about phrasing it as “successor institution if it exists, else Cabinet”, and either making LegComm explicit or explicitly rule out LegComm because as I remember, so much involves potential PII that it just might not be worth doing.
I’m … not entirely certain. I could take an educated guess. The answer might be fairly little.
Anyway, I took a look, and the last PM that did a Sunshine Release was @EmC in August 2022, releasing up until Feb 2022. That means the Cabinets under Hya (1 term), Henn (2 terms), Drew (1 term), and Penguin (1 term) all didn’t.
So that was two years ago, and over the course of 4 PMs, they didn’t, it interests me, how it just died off like that, like most forgot about or never heard of it.
Honestly 99% of LegComm/CitComm releases would be either redacted or pointlessly banal — as in, copying the application verbatim — and so I wouldn’t mind excluding that.
One idea I had last year was to introduce a FOIA-esque system. Going through all of your predecessor’s communications can feel onerous — especially if they held many substantive discussions on Discord instead of the forums (or worse, in direct messages, telegrams, etc. meaning you have to go chase people down) and you’re the one left to clean up the mess. It feels different if someone is requesting a specific discussion and you’re not releasing it. I felt there was some good discussion on Discord about a FOIA that might be worth revisiting.
It could also address any concerns over not releasing LegComm/CitComm discussions, maybe? Basically every decision made is publicly visible — accepting or rejecting applications, purging or not purging, etc. — so it’s not like people wouldn’t know what to file a FOIA request for.
Sorry! I am going to ask some questions, since I can’t access Discord, since I don’t have an account, but will this actually force institutions, to always releasing Sunshine Reports? Also, when you mean you’re not the one left to clean the mess, would this actually also, force the person, who created the mess to fix the mess?
Also, I don’t know but what’s FOIA, I am not sure what it stands for?
Honestly, I was going to suggest something similar here. The Sunshine Act, when followed (which in practice it rarely has been), gives highly highly retroactive oversight. By the time a discussion is released, the individuals involved have often moved on, the issue isn’t as salient, and people simply don’t care. The released thread is a flash in the pan but not actually going to have political consequences unless it’s something big big.
A FOIA style system, where members could petition an institution for disclosure of certain records at-will, there are guidelines on what records can be requested, and any possible basis for withholding is identified, would address this problem. To prevent frivolous requests, there could be a requirement for the minimum number of citizens that need to sign a petition for disclosure. At the same time, if a successful petition was submitted, the relevant government agency would need to turn over the records on a specific timeline.
No, the problem is that the person after you cleans up your mess. Most folks here do use Discord (for what it’s worth, I encourage you to check it out, it’s fun to chat with each other!) but if you were to be elected Prime Minister without Discord access, it would be rather difficult for you to identify all of the discussions your predecessor held on Discord in order to release them.
Yeah my original suggestion was actually to just replace the Sunshine Act with an FOIA. I guess the public can’t request a disclosure for a conversation that it doesn’t know took place, but I think anybody who really wants to hide something would just exclude it from a Sunshine Act release or hold that conversation somewhere outside the reach of the Sunshine Act. I think Kris raised the point though that the Sunshine Act is rather helpful for folks interested in regional history; it’s much harder to do historical research if you can’t access anything.
I know that is the problem, and it needs to force the person not after you but the actual person, to fix the mess,
I would definitely try discord, I might join today even, I get that it would be very hard but I have been fine this entire with discord, and I know the prime minister is a big highly elected official for example, but I think in some way he will be fine too
