More than journalists benefit from Freedom of Access requests

AUGUSTA – Despite the Maine Freedom of Access law’s reputation as a tool for reporters, most of the applicants at the DEP are not journalists, but are people or organizations directly affected by agency decisions.

The same is true in other states and at the federal level, according to Charles Davis of the Missouri-based National Freedom of Information Coalition.

Access laws aren’t just for reporters anymore – if they ever were.

“I think the perception is out there that FOI is a special interest of the press,” Davis said, but most of the people and groups using federal and state access laws are not journalists or news organizations.

In Maine, the law protects most access to public records and to government meetings at all levels of government within the state, but it is not all-inclusive.

The public-records section of the law has about 15 exceptions, including legislators’ working papers and documents relating to negotiations. And the open-meeting section of the law allows closed-door meetings under several circumstances, such as to discuss personnel matters, disciplinary action against students, real estate deals or labor negotiations.

Although there is no centralized clearinghouse for who is requesting what under the Maine law, several high-profile cases show that the law is not a weapon wielded by the news media, but rather is something anyone can use to get information from the government.

One of the most sweeping examples involves ongoing efforts to clean up the Androscoggin River. Recent requests filed by environmentalists, businesses and news organizations looking for information about the cleanup plan triggered the release of important documents on former DEP Commissioner Dawn Gallagher.

Those documents showed that Gallagher blocked a violation notice against International Paper in Jay around the end of 2003 to try to win support for a river cleanup plan from state Rep. Thomas Saviello, a Wilton Democrat who is the Jay mill’s environmental manager. Gallagher resigned in December.

Using access laws is “part and parcel of environmental law and environmental-science work” and regulated Maine businesses are now “making use of FOA access at a level that is unprecedented,” said lawyer Steve Hinchman of the Conservation Law Foundation.

Individuals, too, should use the state’s law, he said, because it can provide valuable information on how the government is handling everything from the construction of a road to the installation of a street light.

The Christian Civic League of Maine used the law in recent months to obtain information about a December trade mission to Cuba led by Gov. John Baldacci, as well as on Baldacci’s decision to sign an oil deal with Citgo Petroleum. That company, which is owned by the Venezuelan government, agreed to provide discounted oil to Maine this winter to help poor Mainers heat their homes.

The league has been highly critical of both ventures. It used its Web site to report what its FOA requests turned up, including photographs of Baldacci and other Maine politicians meeting with Cuban leader Fidel Castro, whom the league describes as a “detested dictator.”

Tim Russell, the league’s spokesman, said his organization filed multiple FOA requests with the governor’s office; House Speaker John Richardson, D-Brunswick; and Dr. Donald Hoenig, the state veterinarian. Baldacci, Richardson and Hoenig all took part in the trade mission. Hoenig did so because Maine had sold 33 dairy cows to the Cuban government a few months earlier and the December trade talks dealt in part with the possibility of additional cattle sales.

Russell noted that the law “is usable by an individual citizen,” and without too much difficulty. “I think if more people realized how easy it is, they might use it more readily,” Russell said.

On the national scene, the federal Freedom of Information Act, or FOI, has become “a very valuable research tool,” said Shenna Bellows, executive director of the Maine Civil Liberties Union.

Last June, the MCLU joined other state affiliates of the American Civil Liberties Union in sending federal FOI requests to the FBI, asking if that agency had files on various individuals and organizations. The FBI disclosed that it had an e-mail in its files that the Maine Coalition for Peace and Justice sent to members in February 2004, asking people to attend a rally in Washington, D.C., called the Million Worker March.

Since then, the MCLU, working with other groups, has filed new federal FOI requests with six branches of the Department of Defense, asking if they have monitored the activities of various Maine groups and organizations. Those FOI requests are pending.

“Government is as transparent as the people make it,” said Davis of the National Freedom of Information Coalition, and one way to assure transparency is for the public to use state and federal access laws. As Hinchman, the environmental lawyer, said of the Maine law: “It’s an open door to the workings of government.”