An important analysis of access to records of private contractors doing business with federal, state, and local public agencies in the wake of the recent US Supreme Court case involving the Argus Leader that expanded barriers to the contractors' "confidential" records.

https://www.facebook.com/419650175248377/posts/488406545039406?sfns=mo

This article from the Columbia Journalism Review focuses on impediments to records of private contractors doing business with federal public agencies, zeroing in on "private entities contracted to handle the nation's youngest immigrants." The author writes:

"The growing role of contractors threatens the public's right to know, as government agencies employing private contractors routinely dodge public-records requests by claiming that contractor-related documents are trade secrets. "It's a fuzzy area of the law," Katie Townsend, legal director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, says of whether contractors are subject to public-records laws. According to Townsend, two factors typically determine what's public: what the relevant law states about what agencies are subject to open-records laws, and who actually holds or controls the records in question. The fact that the work is contracted out doesn't automatically make the records private, Townsend says, but "it can be complicated"—for instance, in cases where the government would have to search the contractors' offices to find the relevant records."

It's been more "complicated" to access private contractor records in Kentucky since 2012 when lawmakers, in their infinite wisdom, redefined the term "public agency" in the open records law to exclude private entities receiving at least 25% or more of their funds from state or local authorities — which are otherwise subject to the law — if those *funds are derived from a state or local authority in compensation for goods or services that are provided by a contract obtained through a public competitive procurement process.*

This dirty little legislative secret is believed to have originated in efforts to shield Utilities Management Group, a private contractor in Pike County doing 100% of its business with local authorities that had come under intense criticism, from the light of public scrutiny. Subsequent legislative efforts to minimize the damage done by the 2012 amendment, led by Representative Chris Harris (D-Forest Hills), have been thwarted by equally nefarious means.

https://cases.justia.com/kentucky/supreme-court/2017-2015-sc-000680-dg…

The *net* result has been lots of big private contractor fish doing the public's business but slipping through the hole left in the open records net.

The 2019 legislative session witnessed additional efforts to shield private entities doing business in or with Kentucky from the light of public scrutiny, all in the name of economic development. These efforts were and are based on the cynical belief that the less the public knows, the better off it will be. The efforts failed in 2019 but are likely to be resurrected in 2020.

https://apps.legislature.ky.gov/record/19rs/hb387.html

Anyone who says it's "none of the public's business" should press pause and think about just how high the stakes may be, in this case the care, safety, and welfare of detained immigrant children.