small world: orwellianism, openess and onliness
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Government Secrecy in the Era of Openness: An ACARM Symposium
Room G22/26, Senate House, University of London
19th June 2015
Small World:Orwellianism, Openess & Onliness
UN Declaration on Human Rights (Art. 19) New Public Management & Sunshine
Legislation - Openess (Good Governance as condition of loans by multilaterals)
Information Age & Onliness (Web 2.0, Social Media and Mobile)
Open Government Partnership
Government Secrecy - Disclosure
Orwellianism/ State Surveillance (E-FOIA , Patriot Act/USA Freedom Act, Prism, TIA)
Privacy (Not the same as ‘Secret’) Disclosure Advocates (Wikileaks, ACLU) Public Interest (Not the same as ‘Personal’
Interest)
Government Secrecy - Privacy
Currently on the law books of over one hundred and three (103) states, this type of legislation operates under the following principles:
• Freedom of information as a legal and enforceable right. • There should be a presumption in favor of disclosure and
Governments should promote a culture of openness. • The right of access to information may be subject to limited
exemptions but these should be narrowly drawn. • Government should maintain and preserve records. • In principle, decisions to refuse access to records and
information should be subject to independent review
Freedom of Information
Of the 20 Caribbean countries, 8 have FOI laws (Belize, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, St. Vincent, Antigua, Cayman Islands, Bermuda, Guyana), 5 have drafted Bills (the Bahamas, Barbados, Grenada, St. Kitts, St. Lucia) and 7 have no laws at all (Montserrat, Dominica, Suriname, Haiti, Turks and Caicos, Anguilla, British Virgin Islands);
Freedom of Information Act (1998) - Belize Freedom of Information Act (1999) - Trinidad & Tobago Access to Information Act (2002) – Jamaica Freedom of Information Act (2003) - St. Vincent & the Grenadines Freedom of Information Act (2004) – Antigua & Barbuda Freedom of Information Act (2007) – Cayman Islands Public Access to Information Act (2010) – Bermuda
FOI in the CARICOM Region
6
COUNTRY
FOI LAW COMPLIANCE& APPEALS
LEGISLATIVE FRAMEWORK
Privacy/Data Protection Act Whistleblower Act
Official Secrets
Act
1. Belize
FOIAct, 1994/2000 Ombudsman _____ ______
2. Trinidad & Tobago FOI 1999Ombudsman
Data Protection Act, 2011_____
3. Jamaica ATI Act, 2002 Appeal Tribunal _____
Protected Disclosure Act, 2010
4. St Vincent FOI Act, 2003 High Court Privacy Act, 2003 _____ 5. Antigua FOI Act, 2004 IC (appt’ed) _____ _____
6. Cayman Islands
FOI Act, 2007 IC (appt’ed) Data Protection Bill Working Group _____
7. Bermuda Public ATI Act, 2010
IC ( to be appt’ed)_____ _____
8. Guyana ATI Act, 2011 IC (appt’ed) _____ _____ 9. Bahamas
FOI Bill, 2012 _____ Data Protection Act, 2007 _____
10. Barbados
FOI Bill, 2008 _____
Data Protection Act, 2005_____
11. Grenada FOI Bill _____ _____ _____ 12. St Kitts FO Bill, 2006
_____Privacy and Personal Data Protection Bill, 2012 _____
13. St Lucia
FOI Bill_____
Privacy and Data Protection Bill, 2007 _____
2/13/2015 Prepared by: Aylair Livingstone
Status of FOIA & Related Laws in the Caribbean
The Records Unit must ensure:
Reliability (i.e. continuous and regular operations);
Integrity (i.e. control measures for monitoring, authentication, authorized destruction and security);
Compliance (i.e. all requirements arising from current business, the environment etc);
Comprehensiveness (i.e. all records resulting from business activities are given complete coverage);
Systematic (i.e. there must be a structured and organic process created, maintained and managed to support the RM programme).
Support for FOIA - Maintaining Total Quality RM
n. 1. The careful editing (of a document), esp. to remove confidential references or offensive material. 2. A revised or edited document. – redact, vb. – redactional, adj.
Black’s Law Dictionary, Seventh Edition (West Group, 1999)
Redaction
There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment... You had to live -- did live, from habit that became instinct -- in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.
-- George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four