Privacy vs. security

Missouri's homeland security adviser [Tim Daniels] is proposing a new exception to the state's open records law that would keep secret any security information provided by private entities to state or local governments.

...What Daniel wants to keep secret are documents detailing the daily and emergency security plans of businesses such as AmerenUE's Callaway Nuclear Plant near Fulton, or any materials describing the security technologies they use.

Daniel labels more than 65 private Missouri properties as "critical assets" that are potential terrorist targets, including the Callaway Nuclear Plant. The state is not currently collecting security information from those private entities, but might need to do so during a terrorist attack or natural disaster, he said.

...Jean Maneke, a Sunshine Law attorney who has reviewed Daniel's proposal, expressed concern about adding another exception to the open records law.

..."The more exceptions there are to the law, the less information there is to the public," said Maneke, whose clients include the Missouri Press Association. "I don't like any more exceptions to the Sunshine Law as a matter of principal."

By closing private security information that is shared with the government, the state could prevent the public from serving as a watchdog or from identifying and solving private security problems, Maneke said.  article

Really, I don't see how a private operation's security information needs to be open information. It's not all that secure if anybody can have access to it. Objecting to exceptions "as a matter of principal" is as stupid as proposing secrecy laws as a matter of principal.

Can't we just try to be reasonable on a case-by-case basis?

Well that was a stupid question, wasn't it?

....hey, do what you want....you will anyway.