Mo Radke for House District 48 (Kaneohe)
Why We are Losing Trust in Our Government
When lawmakers do things like make someone turn off a video recorder in a public forum, it makes us suspicious. For example, last week the House Finance Committee held a "public forum" (read the Midweek announcement here) where, as this video shows, Representative Jessica Wooley (House District 47) approached a person video recording the session and asked her to stop recording.
Asking anyone to stop recording at a public hearing is a concern, but I'm also concerned about the other things Wooley said.
1. Wooley asked if the meeting was being recording to use "for political purposes" and asked to get the response in writing. Now, I'm sure the Rep has been burned by people taking her quotes out of context. But the solution to that is not to stop the media and private individuals from gathering information on their own.
2. Wooley told the videographer that she needs to get permission from everyone in the meeting. I'm not sure where she gets this idea. Perhaps if the video was to be used for sale or commercial purposes, but then it would be publisher/distributors responsibility to obtain the correct permissions, not the meeting hosts. I'm not an attorney, but under fair use, I know that nobody at that meeting had any expectation of privacy, and being a newsworthy event, the expectation should have been even less.
3. Telling the videographer that the videotape can be obtained from Olelo is not an acceptable compromise because that probably means that the video would be subject to copyrights and permissions.
Our media and our public's right to information is the only REALLY effective check we have on our political leaders. When they start restricting our access to information, it makes us lose faith in them.
I leave you with a passage from the Hawaii State Guide to the Sunshine Law available in its entirety here.
RECORDINGS
Must a board allow a member of the public to
tape record or video record the meeting?
The board must allow the public to tape record any portion or
all of an open meeting as long as the recording does not actively
interfere with the meeting. The statute does not require a board
to permit videotaping of its meetings; however, given the intent
of the law, if the videotaping does not unduly interfere with a
board’s ability to do its business, OIP suggests that a board
should allow videotaping of its meetings.
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