Gov. Rick Scott defended his administration’s public records policy to a roomful of newspaper executives at the Florida Press Association and Florida Society of Newspaper Editors annual meeting in St. Petersburg.

Scott has come under fire from the media for charging for more for public records than his predecessor, Charlie Crist, who made a habit of giving away most documents for free. Scott is charging the maximum amount allowed under Florida’s broad Sunshine Law, including costs for his legal staff to scrub the documents of private information.

The number of requests “has skyrocketed” since Scott took office in January, he said.

“Part of my job is to make sure we don’t waste taxpayers money. It costs us money to do it. We pass that cost on. It’s the right thing to do,” Scott said in a brief question-and-answer period.

Scott said he plans to put more records on the internet, but did not elaborate. His office has already put online records his staff has generated – including databases of state employees’ salaries and state workers with pensions worth at least $100,000.

Dozens of demonstrators protesting the governor’s economic agenda shouted “Pink Slip Rick” across the street from the waterfront Renaissance Vinoy Hotel as Scott spoke.

After his remarks, Scott fielded a few questions from reporters.

(more…)

The first set of BlackBerry PIN messages collected as public records by Attorney General Bill McCollum’s office shows, well, not much other than the technology exists to retain and distribute the messages.

Of the first 20 messages since McCollum’s announcement last week, all are benign, like this one sent to McCollum’s Legislative Affairs Director Kimberly Case the same day as the press conference asking, “Why did the AG do that today?” with a subject, “PINs.” Case replied a few minutes later, “Call me.”

McCollum is the first state official to retain PIN messages that pass through his office’s computer server, similar to the way e-mail messages are recorded. PIN messages are electronic exchanges between BlackBerrys, similar to the way a text is sent between phone numbers or an e-mail is sent between e-mail addresses.

Gov. Charlie Crist initially said he would also start retaining those messages in his office, but decided instead to turn off the PIN and text function on his office BlackBerrys and encourage staffers to send e-mails, which are easier for public records officials to handle. More than a dozen state departments have followed Crist’s lead.

McCollum’s office said the 20 PIN messages obtained by The Palm Beach Post was the first time it has handed over PINs as part of a public records request.

(more…)

Gov. Charlie Crist’s office has shut down the ability of its staff to text, PIN or instant message, spokeswoman Erin Isaac said.

At the urging of the governor’s office, several agencies have followed suit.

On Tuesday, Crist appeared eager to follow actions taken by state Attorney General Bill McCollum to start recording instant messages and PINs (messages sent between Blackberry devices, as opposed to messages sent between e-mails addresses or phone numbers).

But it appears Crist’s office has instead decided to adjust its servers so no PINs or IMs can be sent and take the additional step of contacting its mobile phone service provider to shut down text message capabilities.

More here.

Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum today said messages sent between Blackberry devices, known as PINs, are indeed public records and that the state is capable of retaining the documents.

For years, PIN messages — regularly used among lobbyists, lawmakers and governor’s office officials — have fallen into a loophole in state Sunshine Laws because state officials have maintained the messages could not be recorded by government e-mail servers. (Press release here.)

McCollum, who is running for governor in 2010, said today that’s not true. He said PINs and other instant messages can be capture by, essentially, flipping a switch on a server. He said his agency would start keeping those records starting today and urged Gov. Charlie Crist, his fellow Cabinet members, state agencies and the legislature to do the same.

“I think it’s a great idea,” Crist said later in an interview with The Palm Beach Post. “We’ll follow suit.”

(more…)

A criminal investigation of former state House Speaker Ray Sansom has recovered e-mails that a state college failed to release as part of a public record requests from The Palm Beach Post.

The e-mails were among nearly two dozen that Northwest Florida State College officials recently turned over to Leon County State Attorney Willie Meggs but failed to release to media outlets that requested the same documents. In November, The Post asked the college to provide all communications between Richburg and Sansom from 2007 and 2008.

Similarly, The Post reported last week that Meggs’ case file includes e-mails to and from Sansom that House officials insisted did not exist.

More here.

The Florida Supreme Court pushed the judicial system closer to the electronic age by issuing guidelines for electronic filing and keeping of court records.

Clerks of courts have until Oct. 1 to implement the electronic record-keeping standards issued by Chief Justice Peggy Quince today.

“Technology provides benefits for both courts and court users,” Quince wrote in her order.

The courts’ goal is to have electronic court files while in the meantime wanting to allow court users to continue to file paper documents because many do not have access to computers.

A criminal investigation of former Florida House Speaker Ray Sansom, recently indicted on charges of falsifying the state budget, has turned up e-mails related to the scandal that supposedly did not exist when The Palm Beach Post requested the documents from the legislature.¹

The Post asked Sansom’s office Dec. 10 to turn over the previous 20 days of e-mails that the Destin Republican had either sent and received. The request was made to gauge public reaction to news that Sansom may have received a six-figure job from Northwest Florida State College in exchange for funneling millions of state dollars to the school.

The Post also sought messages between Sansom and then-college President James “Bob” Richburg about the scandal.

The House responded with documents that showed Sansom neither sent nor received a single e-mail for 11 days.

But that is not true, prosecutors’ files show. Documents found by Leon County State Attorney Willie Meggs reveal several e-mails from that time, including a conversation among Sansom, Sansom’s communication director and Richburg, who was fired for his involvement in the controversy.²

“We need to be concerned about this,” said Barbara Petersen, president of the Florida First Amendment Foundation, when told about the discovered e-mails. “I’m almost speechless when I see what the legislature is doing and how they’re doing it.”³

(more…)

1. The Palm Beach Post, 04/18/09: Ex-House speaker’s indictment blasts secret budget deals
2. Click here for the e-mails included in Meggs’ case file, but not in a public records request made to the House.
3. Petersen was chairwoman of Gov. Charlie Crist’s Commission on Open Records Reform. The panel issued a report in January that determined the legislature has rules for itself that may be inconsistent with state public records laws.

State prison officials are refusing to hand over videotapes of guard-on-inmate brutality or even tapes of guards taking mail from prisoners unless they are sued.

For years, Department of Corrections staff gave the tapes to the public, the media and lawyers although officials there now say they never should have.

The clamp-down on public records is chilling, civil rights advocates contend.

The shift comes under the leadership of Gov. Charlie Crist, whose first official action after taking office was to create the “Office of Open Government.”

“This whole thing of Charlie Crist saying there’s transparency in government is just BS, at least as far as the Department of Corrections,” said civil rights lawyer Randall Berg, executive director and founder of the Miami-based Florida Justice Institute.

Read the full story here.

In addition to the more newsworthy veto of a State Farm-related bill, Gov. Charlie Crist on Wednesday vetoed two other bills that would have hidden information from the public.

The bills included SB 166, which would have protected the names of people donating anonymously for public buildings such as dorms or art centers.

The measure said that donors may fear identity theft.

“It’s unfortunate,” said the sponsor, Sen. Jeremy Ring, D-Margate. “The reason for doing (the bill) was a sound reason: You’ve got these public-private cultural centers, and what’s happening is people can’t contribute anonymously. It hurts the arts.”

Ring said he was told Crist thought the bill was “too broad.” Ring said he would attempt a similar bill next year.

The second bill (HB 7093) would have exempted some business information that telecommunications companies submit to the state. The public records exemption was tied to a proposed law (HB 7091) that died in the Senate.

In other action, Crist signed HB 7051, which makes it easier for the news media to obtain Social Security numbers for identity verification, and HB 949, which allows Florida courts to ignore defamation suits filed in countries that lack freespeech protections.

Investigators have seized former House Speaker Ray Sansom’s legislative computer in their attempt to prove that the Destin Republican illegally hid money in the state budget to build a benefactor an airplane hangar, Leon County State Attorney Willie Meggs said Tuesday.

Meggs shrugged when asked when the Florida Department of Law Enforcement would finish a forensic exam.

“Since the legislature is building airport hangars instead of funding FDLE, they’re a little behind,” Meggs said.

Sansom was indicted in April after a grand jury agreed that he had disguised a hangar as a $6 million college building in the budget. That item also led to indictments of former Northwest Florida State College President Bob Richburg and Destin Jet owner Jay Odom, who has given millions to Sansom and the state GOP.

Sansom has maintained his innocence. He resigned as speaker but remains a powerful member of the House leadership.

Meggs seized the computer in search of documents not already revealed by public records requests. State legislators are not bound by the same strict “sunshine” laws they impose on other officials. For example, House members don’t have to hand over emails older than 30 days.

But even that time frame does not guarantee records. The Palm Beach Post requested all of Sansom’s e-mails within one 30-day period, but the records showed an 11-day gap for which no e-mails were provided.

Public records and access has remained an ongoing issue in Sansom’s indictment. Some of the grand jury’s most penetrating remarks were saved for the state budget process. Jurors criticized the legislature for allowing the state’s operating document to be crafted by as few as two legislators behind closed doors.

Despite that criticism, Republican leaders in the House and Senate spent 10 days behind closed doors this spring hashing out details of the state’s $66.5 billion budget.

Attorneys for both Senate President Jeff Atwater and House Speaker Larry Cretul have determined that documents created in those legislative meetings are not public record, spokeswomen for the two Republicans have told the Post.

(more…)