Holes in Mass. Halo: Sitting on Public Records.

When I was a young reporter it was very challenging to get information out of the State of Massachusetts or City of Boston. It was like a scene from Citizen Kane. The archives were dark and closed. You had to go through conniptions, do leg work. Later, when chance led me to teach Computer Assisted Reporting at N.U., research uncovered some pretty good availability for different types of records on the Web. It seemed  like it was something of a flowering. But apparently it was a false bloom. Massachusetts has gained renown as a liberal bastion – the state spearheaded abolition, voted for McGovern, legalize gay marriage. But for some reason or other it has become a less than liberal fortress when it comes to public records. The statehouse, judiciary and governor's office all claim immunity from records retrieval, as depicted in today's Boston Globe p1 story : "Mass. Public Records Often a Close Book." It has a great lead-in where a lawyer doing researcher on breathalyzers explains that there are states that share such databases for free, states ( Wisconsin) that charge $75, and Massachusetts, where the State Police came up with a $2.7-million tag to share the data. [When pressed they admitted that they had incorrectly estimated the cost – it should have been $1.2 million.] A cast comes through to criticize the situation: Thomas Fieldler of BU's College of Communication; Matthew Segal, of the ACLU, Robert Ambrogi, attorney and exec-director of the Mass newspaper Publishers Assn; Katie Townsend of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press an others. An interesting decrier of bills ("costly new unfunded mandates")  aimed at fixing the situation is the Massachusetts Municipal Assn. Just as interesting is the cameo article appearance of Sec. of State William "What Me Worry?" Galvin, whose office is charge with helping oversee public records, who has no more to say than that "a type of bureaucratic fiefdom" has built up over the years. Maybe the lottery has diverted that dept's attention, and the responsibility for fleecing the poor should be handed over to the Attorney General, another less than bold piece of furniture. With the three previous House Speakers being convicted of felonies, everyone has been pretty busy, keeping a lid on data. - Jack Vaughan