Your Right to Know

The state’s openness laws should not be seen as a burden, but as a way for public officials to build trust with the people they represent, writes Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council president Bill Lueders in the council’s most recent Your Right to Know column.

In the column, which is available for publication by WNA members, Lueders discusses a decision by the DOJ’s Office of Open Government that took far too long to issue.

The COVID-19 pandemic has taught us that many of our jobs can be done digitally and remotely. The same should be true of accessing government records, reporter and radio producer Steven Potter writes.

In the Wisconsin Freedom of Information Council’s most recent “Your Right to Know” column, Potter urges government agencies to serve the public interest by paying attention to the lessons we’ve learned in the past several months.

Wisconsin citizens are getting the can handle the truth, Christa Westerberg writes, and they deserve to know the names of businesses and other establishments with COVID-19 outbreaks.

In a positive step for government transparency, Wisconsinites can now watch the live-streamed workings of government on our phones, tablets and computers.

Political ad defamation suits are difficult to win. But even the filing of a lawsuit, successful or not, can chill political speech.

COVID-19 has forced state and local public bodies to implement new methods and embrace new technologies to hold open meetings.