A Free Press vs A Working Government September 26, 2001 (Response to the World Trade Center attack)   Letter to the Editor: St Petersburg Times Published Oct 8, 2001 To the Editor: These uncommon times call for extreme patience. I strongly disagree with the Times Editorial "Public Records are public, period". It directly describes the steady decline in the institution of American Journalism since Watergate. A free press ensures an honest government. But that government has a job to do for its citizens. Please get out of the way, especially during extreme circumstances. I shall always remember the press pools sitting on the lawns of the families of the Iranian hostages. I shall remember the camera crews tripping over each other as the Marines came ashore in Somalia. How many cameras have been shoved in the face of people walking to or from court, or of Kenneth Starr or Gary Condit just trying to get to work in the morning? Does the institution of journalism feel no shame for the bizarre spectacles they orchestrate? For heaven's sake, four airplanes had just been hijacked with three crashed into high profile public buildings! Does that not constitute an unusual circumstance? I presume a brief period of informal "martial law" should be considered in effect by our state and local governments. Our own president was reluctant to fly from Sarasota to his White House home. What outlandish action does the Times protest? To quote you: "For a little longer than a day, ...  the department banned access to driving records". So what? Is this Armageddon? Is it the end of democracy? Those buildings were still on fire! Like it or not, an ACTIVE criminal investigation was just starting. The FBI, CIA, Secret Service, and State and Local police were all scrambling trying to piece together leads to capture active criminals possibly ready to commit another act of terror! Where was Walter Cronkite's cool and sad demeanor from November 1963? Instead we had parades of local gumshoes, racing satellite trucks and shoving microphones anywhere they could. Can you not see? Any free terrorists were watching those TV feeds! They were being told where the police net was thrown and how close the police were to their trail. The "public" did not have a "need to know" any of this during the initial hours or days of this crisis. The government should not need to invoke the "public records" statute, but rather "martial law" and "treason". There should have been at least a 24 hour period of patience on the part of your paper. But no, not since Redford and Hoffman, I mean Woodward and Bernstien. Citizen/Patriots, letting police do their work, and reporting the news (instead of making it) are all just nostalgia these days. The government couldn't guarantee our President a safe landing yet you wanted, you demanded, that they provide "business as usual" access to the driver's license database? Wasn't it insulting enough to broadcast live feeds of the coming and going of Air Force One? Was it necessary to have camera crews on the lawns of suspected accomplices, too? Don't even mention if a suspect was wrongly identified. Does anybody remember the poor security guard from the Atlanta Olympics bombing? America looks to journalists to keep the government honest. But if that institution continues to hinder public good and assist public enemies during near-wartime, someday the people's backlash will destroy that very necessary check and balance. When the First Amendment is rescinded, God forbid, it will be because the American people were forced to pick between a free press and a working government. Don't make them choose. We will soon have another post-Watergate opportunity for war-footing journalism. Will reporters be in Kabul like they were in Baghdad? Will they publicize when our enemies disregard the Geneva Convention and use downed airmen or UN volunteers as hostages or human shields? Will they stick cameras in the faces of loved ones when national heroes make the ultimate sacrifice for their country (to ask, "how does it feel")? Will CNN give the enemy live feeds when jets take off for their sorties? Will they repeatedly show the devastation of a bomb hitting an Afghan hospital, and fail to mention exactly why that bomber was in the air in the first place?  What does it mean to be an American when you are a newsman? If you so want to be on the front line of this battle, quit your paper and turn in your camera. Enlist in the armed forces and pick up a rifle or crawl into a cockpit. Otherwise, sit on the sidelines and patiently report the news, in a comprehensive and timely manner. Allow the police and armed forces to do their job, then assess them as their check and balance. Copyright, 2001, Travelin-tigers, all rights reserved © St. Petersburg Times, published September 26, 2001 <Underline for referenced sections> Public records are public, period Do the public officials directing Florida's state agencies think they are free to make up public records law as they go along? Do they think the public's statutory right to public records is subject to their discretion? Apparently, the state Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles does.  For a little longer than a day, in the wake of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11, the department banned access to all state driving records. It then decided that certain records, such as those providing leads in the investigation of the terrorist attack, will be open to the public in an incomplete form, holding back information such as the license-holder's address. Bob Sanchez, a spokesman for the department, said the move was in response to a request by federal law enforcement agencies investigating the attacks and asking that the records of people of certain nationalities not be released. "There was a fear that reporters were getting (to the neighbors and associates of the suspects) before the police," he explained." But there is no authority in law for the department to accede to law enforcement's request. There is a public records exemption for "active criminal intelligence information and active criminal investigation information," and the department is basing its action on that exemption. But attorneys familiar with public records law say that the exemption only applies to records generated by the investigation, not records sought by it. Driving records are quintessentially public because they identify those residents who may legitimately drive and their driving record. Limiting public inspection of those records is the equivalent of limiting access to criminal records. And while current federal law does give individuals the option of keeping private their address, Social Security number and other aspects of their driving record, here the department is acting unilaterally to do so, without the request or permission of the subject. Of course, the reason reporters have been seeking driving records is that many of the suspects in the terrorist hijackings were reportedly licensed Florida drivers. As many as 15 of the 19 people identified as having participated in the hijackings lived in Florida within the last three years, and as many as 13 obtained Florida drivers licenses or state identification cards. Investigators don't want citizens knowing anything more than what law enforcement is willing to disclose, but the public has a right to information about the men who carried out the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history and how they lived among us. The department says it has taken this action in response to a national emergency. But what about the law? It doesn't give the department authority to cherry-pick which public records should be public.   Written: September 2001 First Upload: September 26, 2001 Last Update: September 26, 2001