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Gov. Haley Barbour
JACKSON — Here's a quick interview with Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour about openness in government:
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Q: What does transparency in government mean to you? When should access be limited or denied?
A: "Clearly when you're talking about legal cases, when you're talking about personnel, when you're talking about competitive bidding situations where, quote, 'openness in government' would let one bidder know what the other bidder is doing or how they're trying to achieve something — I mean, those are some very obvious ways that it would be unfair and inappropriate to have it spread all over the newspaper.
"As governor, I can tell you I don't want the people who advise me to change or subdue their advice to me because they're worried it will show up in the newspaper. And that's why we have the doctrine of executive privilege, so that presidents and governors can get unfettered and unfiltered advice from a variety of sources, and I think that's also very important.
"Being a top of mind response without thinking about it any further, I'm generally comfortable with whatever else being open. I mean, how we spend our money, obviously, the public's got to know that. They've got a perfect right to know that."
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On the Net:
Mississippi Center for Freedom of Information: http://www.mcfoi.org
I would like to know the public record regarding the Toyota debacle.
Did you notice that the examples he gave are all situations that most people don't really expect to be out in the open?
Of course people don't expect for the bidding process to be open while the bidding is in progress. But those records should be open for review after the bidding ends! Otherwise, how do we know the contract award was fair?
As for personnel records, most of us don't care what's in Joe Blow's personnel file unless there's misconduct that warrants legal action and then the relevant information will come out in the case.
Regarding legal, once the case enters the judicial system, of course, it should be public record.
He didn't really answer what the question was really about now did he?
He tried to throw out a bunch of red herrings and gave a non-answer.
All of you Haley fans should be really proud!!
As for me, I can hardly wait for 2012!