22 exemptions added to public records laws

By Alan Gomez

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

TALLAHASSEE — It's not easy to please Barbara Petersen. But somehow, legislators in Tallahassee did just that this session.

Petersen heads the First Amendment Foundation, the state group dedicated to upholding the constitutional rights of open government, and has become accustomed to wrangling with legislators as they try to pass more and more bills restricting public access to government-held information and government meetings.

But this year, not only did legislative staffers include the foundation in their initial analysis of proposed public records bills, but Petersen said the result was, surprisingly, "just fine."

"I was a little disappointed in the number of new (public records) exemptions created this year," Petersen said. "But in terms of good versus bad ones, we had few very bad ones. In fact, just one."

Legislators created 22 new exemptions to public-record law and the Government in the Sunshine Act. The one Petersen was referring to deals with information held by Florida hurricane insurance companies.

The bill passed during the session that ended in early May deals with hurricane damage information collected by individual insurance companies and used to develop so-called "loss projection models." Each company uses those models to set rates for different parts of the state — even down to specific neighborhoods — that is then used by state officials and universities to develop public loss projection models.

The bill (HB 1939) protects insurance companies — and keeps them participating in the public program — by guarding their "trade secrets," or information and procedures they use to compete with other companies. But Peterson said it goes too far, complaining that the bill —yet to be signed by Gov. Jeb Bush — also guards individual insurance claims.

The governor's office staff has not reviewed the bill yet, a spokesman said Friday.

Peterson said if government officials are given house-by-house information on how the insurance companies pay out, Floridians should have access to that to make sure they were paid comparably to others.

"If you are insured by State Farm, for example, you want to make sure that State Farm is paying you the same thing they're paying out to everybody else," Peterson said. "This exemption would preclude you from verifying that."

Another bill lingering in the minds of people in Tallahassee is one that didn't even pass the legislature. The bill (HB 111), which would have provided law enforcement officers with a quicker method to expunge false arrest records, passed the House unanimously but died in the Senate.

Current law assumes individual law enforcement agencies will request expunging a record when they make a false arrest; the proposed bill would require each agency to apply to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to expunge any nonjudicial arrest record made contrary to law or by mistake.

Critics blasted the bill, saying it would clear the way for officers who engage in constant racial profiling or who erase arrests for friends or influential people.

But bill sponsor Rep. Charlie Dean, R-Inverness, said the bill would have done just the opposite.

He said the expedited process to expunge false arrests was an attempt to clear innocent people's names quicker. He said the bill actually would have cut down on racial profiling or other patterns of false arrests by requiring officers to sign an affidavit when filing for the expungement.

Doing so, he said, would make it easier to spot officers who routinely make false arrests.

"That's a pattern you can see," Dean said. "What stupid agency would do that consistently if there were affidavits showing they did it? This does not hide a record of anything. This ensures that an innocent person doesn't have a record, that's all."

Dean promised to file the bill again next session.

Legislators also renewed an exemption that would make diagrams, some photos and security plans of seaports off limits to the general public.

Before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, some of those items were not only available to the public, but provided on seaport Web sites and information guides. Port of Palm Beach Executive Director Lori Baer said she was pleased to see the security guidelines remain in Florida law because the state's 14 major ports remain potential terrorist targets and access to their critical information needs to remain under seal.

"It's just a statement of the times we're in," Baer said. Allowing the public records exemption to expire "would expose those areas that are sensitive from a security standpoint. It gives me a comfort level to know that these things are out of the public realm."

Legislators also skirted another potential controversy when they watered down a bill that would have exempted information dealing with absentee ballots.

Sen. Bill Posey, R-Rockledge, had sponsored a bill (SB 2178) that would have prevented people from reviewing the date that an absentee ballot was requested by a Floridian, the date the ballot was delivered or mailed, the date the supervisor of elections received the ballot and "any other information the supervisor deems necessary regarding the request."

Those requirements could have precluded the public or the media from reviewing the status of absentee ballots, which were hotly debated in recent elections.

But legislators toned down the bill, exempting only personal information like Social Security numbers, their driver license number and Florida identification number.

With that change, Petersen, as she was with most other exemptions passed this year, sounded pleased.

"The law they passed is OK," she said. "Overall, I think the laws passed this year speaks very well of both (Senate President Tom) Lee and (House Speaker Allan) Bense. They are paying attention to public records, they've shown that they care about it and they care deeply."

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