State leaders in Florida are in a battle with technology: new forms of communications that make it difficult for public officials to follow the law.
The state has one of the best government public record laws in the country. Virtually every public document is accessible to the public. And though the state is embracing the perks of advanced technology — the Legislature just started piloting the use of electronic meeting packets, instead of printing them on paper — the use of cell phones and BlackBerrys is causing concern. It’s simply too difficult to archive all communications.
E-mails sent from a BlackBerry are easily tracked and archived by government servers. But the wireless devices can also send electronic messages in another way called “PINing,” and those communications often are not tracked. The practice stirred controversy last summer when staff members of Florida’s Public Service Commission were caught exchanging PIN messages with a lobbyist for a utility it regulates.
“People need to understand that they cannot use these kinds of modes of communications to conduct official business if they have no way of capturing the record that it creates,” says Anne Weissman of the nonpartisan watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.
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