Lawmakers impose new exception to public's access to information
The legislature's Environment Committee has backed a bill blocking the release of home addresses of Department of Environmental Conservation officers. The state agency fears that angry hunters could use the Freedom of Information Act to find conservation officers at home.
The Freedom of Information Commission opposes the legislation, saying the proposed exemption is too narrow. It's instead seeking to exempt all public officials and government employees in Connecticut, with elected officeholders the only exception.
The proposed change would narrow information available through the 33-year-old Freedom of Information Act and would depart from past practice when exceptions were carved out case-by-case.
The commission reluctantly adopted this position, said Colleen Murphy, executive director and general counsel. Previous exemptions to the Freedom of Information Act have been piecemeal and haphazard, she said.
The commission and its legal staff question the rationale, fairness and the constitutionality of the current patchwork of exemptions.
For example, the FOI Act exempts clerk-typists who work at the Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities and Department of Children and Families. But addresses of clerk-typists at the Commission on Children and Department of Consumer Protection are not exempt from disclosure.
The commission sees no reason for treating differently employees who essentially do the same jobs in different agencies, Murphy said.
The lack of consistency raises constitutional issues for the commission, she said.
For security reasons, lawmakers in 1995 blocked access to the addresses of federal and state judges, police and correction officers, state prosecutors and public defenders. Legislators acted after the release of the names of all correction officers to a recently released inmate who made an FOI request for their names and addresses.
The list has expanded to include firefighters, inspectors in the Division of Criminal Justice, social workers in the Division of Public Defender Services and employees of the Judicial Department, Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities, the Department of Correction and the Board of Pardons and Parole.
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