When a county attorney advises local officials to break the law, citizens should be alarmed.
That's exactly what Johnson County Attorney Janet Lyness did when she instructed University of Iowa officials to ignore requests for copies of subpoenas served on the university. The subpoenas are related to a sexual assault investigation involving members of the Hawkeye football team.
Lyness offered no legal foundation for her order to ignore the law. She said her approach is to treat this case like a grand jury proceeding, which receives different privileges. Only thing is, this isn't a grand jury proceeding. It is a criminal investigation that happens to involve Iowa football players. Nothing in that scenario is legal grounds for a gag order, though university officials might wish it so.
What's equally troubling is that, according to Lyness, the attorney general's office backs up her call for restricting information about the case. Surely the state's highest law enforcement office should understand and enforce the state's open records law. However, this is not the first time that Tom Miller and staff have been less than enthusiastic about compliance with open meeting and open records legislation. Advocates of open access have criticized Lyness' actions, and one Iowa newspaper has sued the university for the records.
All this takes place while the federal government is strengthening Americans' most powerful tool in holding government officials accountable. President Bush last week signed into law an amended Freedom of Information Act, giving even more teeth to journalists' rights.
Changes in the law include creating an independent ombudsman to resolve citizen disputes, as well as a system to help citizens track information requests. It also does more to help recover legal costs for media outlets and others who have to sue to get the documents they were legally permitted to see in the first place. In addressing these areas of concern and improving the law, the federal government got it right. Access to public documents is fundamental to government accountability.
Unfortunately, that message rings hollow in Iowa City, where the county attorney is sending the message that laws were made to be broken. If there is any doubt about the importance of the Freedom of Information Act, the Iowa City investigation makes the case. Despite reinforcement of the Freedom of Information Act on the federal level, cases of government officials prohibiting public access are still all too frequent.
Editorials reflect the consensus of the Telegraph Herald Editorial Board: Jim Normandin (publisher), Brian Cooper, Ken Brown, Monty Gilles, Amy Gilligan and Sharon Welborn.
