Your Right to Know

“Your Right to Know” is available for publication at no cost. For the 19th consecutive year, the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council is bestowing its annual Openness

There’s good news and bad news in a recent Wisconsin Court of Appeals decision upholding an open records judgment related to the ridiculous and ham-handed investigation into alleged 2020 election fraud headed by former Supreme Court justice Michael Gableman.

Shereen Siewert, publisher of the Wausau Pilot and Review, has been breathing easier these days.

Long, frustrating wait times for responses to Wisconsin Open Records Law requests are not uncommon.

In 2022, the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council created a designated fund to help cover legal costs associated with fighting to pry records into the public domain. Called simply the WFOIC Legal Fund, it has never had more than $4,000 in its coffers. But the council has put what money that is there to good use.

Why is the state’s tradition of open government important? Just ask the citizens of Sauk County, who have been treated as though it isn’t.

Last March, the Wisconsin Examiner asked the Black River Falls Police Department to search for emails regarding the death of a missing Indigenous man.

The bill moved with lightning speed. It was introduced last December, passed the state Senate in January and the Assembly in February, and was signed into law by Gov. Tony Evers in March.

Imagine I sue a school district for refusing to provide copies of records. Do I have to prove I’m entitled to them, or does the district have to prove it can withhold them?

The Wisconsin Supreme Court will soon hear a case involving records related to the voting rights of mentally incompetent people. No matter which side wins, the public has in some ways already lost.